Compiled from news releases
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced that it is evaluating its protocols after it became known that a vendor had provided the department with faulty DNA testing kits that were used in an eight-month span ending in February.
“On Monday, March 24, 2025, a supervisor over the Scientific Services Bureau became aware of a notice from a DNA testing kit manufacturer indicating that a specific lot of kits were prone to intermittently poor performance with potential to cause incomplete results or profiles,” the LASD announced in a news release. “The manufacturer recommended that the department discontinue the use of those affected kits, offering free replacements for new ones. This letter, dated Aug. 28, 2024, was forwarded to an individual in the Sheriff’s Department Scientific Services Bureau, who is no longer employed by the department.”
The release said it was recently discovered that the affected kits remained in use for approximately eight months, from July 2024 through February 2025.
“In response, the department has launched an internal administrative investigation into this matter,” the release said. “There are established policies, procedures, and quality assurance safeguards in place to ensure reliability and consistency of scientific results. The department will re-examine existing protocols, identify potential gaps, and implement corrective measures to prevent this from occurring again.”
The Scientific Services Bureau is assessing how many cases may have been impacted and to what degree, the release said, adding that the issue affects not only the Sheriff’s Department but also other law enforcement agencies and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
After the assessment has been completed the Scientific Services Bureau will notify all the affected agencies, the release said.
Based on the information provided by the DNA testing kit manufacturer, the use of the affected kits may have led to incomplete or suboptimal results but is not likely to have falsely identified any individual, the release said, adding that, to address the potential impact, the Sheriff’s Scientific Services Bureau will retest approximately 4,000 samples. In some cases, certain samples may not be able to be retested due to their limited sample size.
“We take the integrity of our criminal investigations and the reliability of our forensic testing very seriously,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert G. Luna said in the release. “We are committed to thoroughly addressing this important issue, ensuring transparency, and taking immediate corrective action to protect the accuracy of ongoing and future cases. The Sheriff’s Department is working diligently to assess the impact and to prevent such situations from occurring again.”
The LASD release included a prepared statement from District Attorney Nathan Hochman said, who said his office is collaborating with the LASD.
“The District Attorney’s Office has immediately started working with the Sheriff’s Department to assess the scope of the situation in order to ensure that those involved in criminal justice process — defendants, defense counsel, victims, prosecutors, law enforcement, the courts and the public — are kept abreast of developments and in a position to make informed decisions on any actions that may need to take place,” Hochman’s statement said. “We will follow the facts in whichever direction they take us on any individual case and make decisions that are in full accordance with the law on how to remedy any particular situation that requires such remediation. Ensuring the integrity of the criminal justice process to build and maintain trust in its outcomes is paramount as we go forward.”
L.A. County Public Defender Ricardo D. García issued a separate statement contending that the faulty DNA kits cast doubt over the entire criminal justice system.
“The Sheriff’s Department’s use of faulty DNA testing kits for several months impacts the integrity of the entire prosecution of a criminal case. This is a problem that has a far-reaching impact on countless pending and adjudicated cases. This kind of negligence is a violation of due process and further erodes trust in the entire criminal legal system,” Garcia’s statement said.
Garcia added: “It is another stark reminder of why the death penalty can never be justified. If we cannot trust the criminal legal system to handle DNA evidence properly, we certainly cannot trust life or death decisions that come from it. Faulty DNA kits have long fueled wrongful convictions, and when the punishment is death, those mistakes can never be undone.”
