PR. GEORGE'S UPHELD ON DRUG LAB FIRING

U.S. Judge Dismisses Chemist's Suit

A federal judge has ruled that the Prince George's County Police Department
was justified in firing a drug lab chemist, because she wrongfully caused
prosecutors to drop a felony drug charge and then lied to police and
prosecutors about the case.

In a 16-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. dismissed
the lawsuit in which former chemist Kellie Lynn Campbell alleged that she
was fired for speaking out about laboratory irregularities and unreliable
test results.

The decision, handed down May 31, came four months after a federal jury
sitting in Greenbelt deadlocked on the merits of the case and Williams
declared a mistrial.

Despite the dismissal of Campbell's suit, the county public defender,
Joseph M. Niland, said yesterday that he believes improprieties persist at
the drug lab. Niland said his office will continue to press for information
about the lab's workings and the validity of its results.

"I am obviously disappointed at the judge's decision," Campbell, 30, said
in a written response to a reporter's questions. "Simply put, I was fired
for being a whistleblower and am strongly considering an appeal."

Campbell stated that since her allegations were made public, county
prosecutors have agreed to plea bargains with no jail time in scores of
drug cases.

Niland also commented on the effect of Campbell's allegations. "I don't
think it's coincidental that all these favorable [plea bargains] have
occurred while all this controversy was underway," he said. "I think the
attack on the drug lab was justified. I think the [judicial] decisions that
have been made to keep this information away from us were wrong."

Associate County Attorney Rhonda L. Weaver, who helped defend the county
and the police against the lawsuit, said: "We think it was the right
decision. Basically, we did not believe [Campbell] had any claim."

Campbell filed her lawsuit in 1999, the same year she was fired. Campbell,
who is black and has a liver disease, alleged in the suit that she was
fired for reporting wrongdoing and that she was being discriminated against
because of her race and physical condition.

Through the latter part of 1999, Campbell's allegations roiled the county's
criminal justice system. The public defender's office filed motions seeking
detailed information about the drug lab, its equipment, its tests results
and its chemists in dozens of drug cases.

Almost all of the motions were denied. But when one Circuit Court judge
ordered prosecutors to turn over to the public defender detailed
information about the workings of the police drug lab, the state's
attorney's office dropped a felony charge of possession with intent to
distribute against a Capitol Heights man rather than turn over the information.

Niland said that his office plans to file an appeal with the Maryland Court
of Special Appeals within two months on behalf of a client whose request
for detailed information from the drug lab was rejected by a Circuit Court
judge. The appeal will be filed after the man is sentenced for his drug
conviction, Niland said.

The chain of events that led to Campbell's lawsuit began Nov. 4, 1998, in
Prince George's Circuit Court. Campbell, who was scheduled to testify as a
prosecution witness in a drug case, told an assistant state's attorney that
she could not vouch for the reliability of the lab test results, even
though she had signed a certificate saying the substance in question was
cocaine, according to court papers.

In his opinion, Williams recounted trial testimony in the lawsuit from
three assistant state's attorneys who said Campbell told them that the lab
director, John Porter, had ordered her to sign the certificate while
knowing that the test results did not clearly show the substance was cocaine.

But Campbell told Lt. Arthur Collins, a police internal affairs
investigator, that she did not testify in the drug case because prosecutors
dropped the case, according to the judge's opinion. Campbell told Collins
that she never said Porter had made her sign the drug lab certifications,
Williams wrote.

Collins determined that Campbell had lied to him and to the state's
attorney's office, and he recommended that she be fired. In the spring of
1999, Police Chief John S. Farrell fired Campbell.