SBI crime lab changes ready for NC House floor

RALEIGH, NC (AP) — The State Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory would be renamed the North Carolina State Crime Laboratory in legislation in the General Assembly.

The name change is among several items in a bill to be debated Thursday on the House floor and designed to improved the lab’s reputation.

The proposals originate from a group that met for months to discuss how to improve the lab after a blistering report chronicling problems with past work by lab workers.

The bill would create a standing advisory panel to regularly review the lab’s scientific work. It also makes clear someone who willfully withholds lab tests from attorneys in a case should be charged with a crime.

SBI leaders and Attorney General Roy Cooper already have made lab changes.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)