This case is a prime reason why I oppose the death penalty. Not in theory, but because I don’t trust the government with the power of life and death.
A former state forensic scientist on Tuesday was sentenced to 10 years in state prison after altering more than 1,000 samples in labs that prosecutors say could have disproportionately affected sexual assault victims over many years.
In this particular case, she made the DNA appear to not match, resulting in people who were guilty being able to walk free, but that isn’t going to be the case with every nutball in government service with the power to alter test results. For example:
- The FBI Lab underwent massive restructuring in the late 1990s following a whistleblower report by Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, who exposed flawed scientific testimonies and contamination within the lab.
- In 2004, former FBI biologist Jacqueline M. Blake pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor charge for providing false statements in her laboratory reports.
- A massive 2015 joint review by the FBI and the Innocence Project revealed an even deeper systemic issue: for over two decades before 2000, microscopic hair comparison examiners from the FBI gave flawed, scientifically invalid testimony in over 95% of the trials reviewed, contributing to numerous wrongful convictions across the United States.
It’s a certainty that at least some people have been sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. If we execute even one innocent person, we are all collectively murderers. I just cannot support that.
7 Comments
Vlad the non-Impaler · September 12, 2026 at 5:29 am
“Jacqueline M. Blake pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor charge for providing false statements in her laboratory reports.”
A freaking misdemeanor??
She falsified federal documents!
I guess since Wray was in charge, it’s all good and forgotten. 🙄🙄
I feel the same way about the death penalty in this country. Too many times *actual* evidence has resulted in freedom for the accused…at least they were still alive to be released.
Steady Steve · September 12, 2026 at 9:23 am
In this case and all cases of government employees tampering with any evidence, I fully support the death penalty. Carried out within 90 days, public execution.
Tom235 · September 12, 2026 at 7:14 am
I find myself generally against the death penalty for just the reasons you suggest – but some cases – her name unspoken as an example – leave no doubt as to the crime or perpetrator. I favor the death penalty for that piece of work.
Rob · September 12, 2026 at 7:33 am
I agree wholeheartedly. We know this government lies. Prosecutors are mostly concerned with their conviction rates. It costs significantly more to put someone to death (appeals processes) than it does to incarcerate someone for life. Media manipulation sways public opinion regularly. As seen recently, we can no longer trust jurors to apply the law without bias.
Anonymous · September 12, 2026 at 7:41 am
you are, unfortunately, absolutely correct
Steve · September 12, 2026 at 9:24 am
It’s not so much I don’t trust the state with the power, but rather that I don’t trust the state’s investigators with that power. When the FBI Crime Lab thing went down, the only way I could trust the FBI ever again, in anything, was if there were agents and lab workers swinging from gallows in front of the buildings in which they worked, as reminders to the rest that this organization takes seriously matters of justice. Since that was not done, the FBI has no credibility. In anything. The only thing I’m reasonably sure of is whatever FBI says is not the truth.
‘Course, by now with all the thumbs on the scales of justices that judges[sic] have been doing, and none of them doing the air jig in front of the courthouses, I don’t trust their judicial apparatus, either.
Monopolies are a terrible thing, and why there was no defined court in the Constitution other than the Supreme Court. They expected Congress to have to rip the thing out by the roots from time to time as corruption set in.
Divemedic · September 12, 2026 at 10:12 am
The mistake was in trusting Congress to not be corrupt.
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