COPS, DA SEEK SOLUTION TO DRUG EVIDENCE PROBLEM

Drafting Plan So Chemists Can Testify

The San Francisco Police Department says it will probably be six months
before a permanent solution is found to the crime lab problem that has
prompted judges to dismiss at least 25 felony drug cases since December.

The Police Department and the district attorney's office are scrambling to
come up with a plan that would allow prosecutors to continue to introduce
drug test results in preliminary hearings without having a chemist testify.

"What we're trying to do is come up with a procedure that will satisfy all
of the courts," said Jim Norris, director of the police crime lab. "We're
trying to do a variety of things."

The cases, which involve alleged street-corner sales of cocaine and heroin,
have been dismissed by four Superior Court judges, apparently unhappy
because crime lab chemists haven't been available to testify during
preliminary hearings in the cases or be interviewed face-to-face by the
arresting officers who would later testify. The problem was brought on by
the Dec. 6 move of the police crime lab from the Hall of Justice - where
the courts are located - to a new, larger building in the old Hunters Point
Naval Yard 5 miles away, making it more difficult for chemists to be on hand.

Defense attorney challenges have forced the Police Department to post a
crime lab chemist at the Hall of Justice to help cops before their court
appearances. The San Francisco public defender's office

said Tuesday it would continue to make those challenges.

"My job is not to make this easy for the cops," said Public Defender Jeff
Brown. "My job description is to make these people do what they are
supposed to do. . . . We have been burned too many times."

But Norris said he and prosecutors were working on both temporary fixes and
a long-term solution that he hoped would pass muster with the local judges
who oversee preliminary hearings.

Next week, police will probably test a video conferencing system that would
allow an officer at the Hall of Justice to review lab evidence with a
chemist at the new crime lab, he said. If the judges approve that method,
the department will most likely spend up to $50,000 to install a video
conferencing system.

"But there's no point in buying the system if the judges don't like it,"
Norris said.

Ever since the passage of Proposition 115 in 1990, neither police chemists
nor criminalists have to testify in a preliminary hearing to verify that
their tests show that a suspected narcotic is indeed just that. But not all
courts agree on how to present that expert evidence.

In San Francisco, police officers have usually interviewed the chemists at
the Hall of Justice and reviewed the drug evidence together, and then
carried the evidence into court to recount the conversation from the
witness stand.

But the crime lab's move makes

that no longer convenient, police said. Judges, prosecutors and defense
lawyers can no longer quickly summon a chemist from the crime lab to
explain drug analysis findings in court if necessary.

Brown said his hard line toward drug test evidence stemmed from a series of
problems at the crime lab several years ago involving a veteran chemist who
was caught falsifying evidence.

"We used to stipulate to the chemists' reports, and then we found out they
were lying," Brown said.