EDITORIAL: Justice denied

Should the legal system elevate expedience above justice? It does so virtually every day in Clark County, a disturbing investigative account published in Sunday’s Review-Journal concludes.

As a result, scores — if not hundreds — of innocent people may be behind bars, railroaded into guilty pleas for drug crimes they didn’t commit by a system seemingly indifferent to their plight. The stain permeates the entire criminal justice network, including police, crime lab techs, prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges.

The report — a joint effort between the Review-Journal and ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit news organization — found that Metro officers routinely employ cheap chemical field tests to identify illegal drugs even though police and prosecutors have long known that such tests are often unreliable. A positive result is then used to pressure a suspect into an admission of guilt.

Incredibly, Metro officials say they have never established an error rate for the tests because the department “destroys samples after the pleas are entered and does not track how many of the field test results are re-checked,” the report discovered. Some data show up to 10 percent of the tests could yield deficient outcomes.

In other words, officers use a dubious test as the basis for an arrest and prosecutors then dangle those results in front of desperate — and often poor — suspects without ever having confirmed the original findings. Public defenders juggling dozens of clients seek a quick plea agreement and the accused is told that if he insists on a trial he risks a much longer sentence. A judge then signs off on the deal.

Even the manufacturer of the tests, the Safariland Group, acknowledges the problem, saying in a statement that the kits are “specifically not intended to be used as a factor in the decision to prosecute or convict a suspect.” But in Clark County, they are — and sometimes they’re the only factor.

Forensic scientists understand the potential for error, yet the process persists. A 2014 report by Stephanie Larkin of the Las Vegas crime lab noted that “false positive results have been discovered due to subjectivity” in interpretation.

The current situation calls for immediate reform.

Metro must transition to a more dependable means of identifying illegal substances in the field. In the interim, it should also cease destroying the test kit samples prosecutors use to coerce pleas.

Meanwhile, public defenders and defense attorneys must more aggressively insist on additional analysis before accepting deals for clients held solely on the basis of these field tests. That this didn’t happen long ago is a blight on the local defense bar. In addition, judges would be wise to more closely scrutinize plea bargains hinging on such tests.

Yes, the vast majority of those who serve time for drug offenses in Clark County are indeed guilty. But to downplay errors on the premise that additional safeguards might complicate things for police and prosecutors not only ignores the very principles that underpin the constitutional protections afforded the accused, it also further undermines confidence in an already besieged justice system.

All those involved have a moral and ethical obligation to fix this — now.