(San Francisco DA) Harris turns drug-lab scandal over to state

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Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(04-23) 14:59 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The state attorney general's office will handle any prosecutions arising from San Francisco's drug lab "fiasco," District Attorney Kamala Harris said Friday as she called for testing of seized narcotics to be taken out of police hands.

"The crime lab needs to be fixed once and for all," Harris said at her first news conference about the lab since its drug-skimming scandal became public March 9, prompting police to close the lab and prosecutors to drop 550 narcotics cases.

Deborah Madden, 60, a drug-analysis technician who left the lab in December, has admitted to consuming trace amounts of cocaine from her workplace, police said. An investigation by her supervisor concluded that cocaine was missing from several evidence samples that Madden handled.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/23/BACR1D3QG5.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea