Trust crucial at all levels of government

A state crime lab analyst isn’t a flashy job. At least not in the real world — they’re certainly flashy on television.

The state of Alaska, according to its website, employs more than 30 such people. It seems like it’s not an easy job to get. Looking through their resumes today we found they all seemed to have quite a bit of higher education in their background. Each resume seemed to contain long lists of classes taken and certifications achieved.

We’ve met a few of these people, heard them testify in court, and can honestly say the job seems to attract fairly normal people you’d find just about anywhere. And while, day-to-day, the job probably is more frequently exciting than your average white-collar position it’s still a basically a regular job.

Except that it’s kind of not average in one very important way: we hold these people to very high standards, or at least we should.

Last year we saw an example of why.

We were disheartened in March to report on the case of Stephen Palmer, who was accused of stealing drugs from the crime lab.

The lab, it seems, keeps a certain amount of nearly pure drugs on hand to use for reference when testing drugs seized in criminal cases.

Palmer has since pled guilty and admitted to stealing these drugs for his personal use. He replaced the drugs he stole with other similarly looking substances. Essentially, the pure drugs were made less pure, which you can imagine might be problematic in the scientific work of a crime lab.

The story was all the more troubling after learning about the family drama surrounding it, about Palmer’s son telling police about his father’s admission he was addicted to drugs, and about Palmer’s wife’s call to 911 that cracked the case.

Palmer’s life may seem like just another example of a normal, middle class family torn apart by addiction.

But it isn’t. Palmer’s actions had wider consequences. In announcing that charges were filed, state attorneys were quick to note that they had no reason to believe Palmer’s actions had damaged any criminal prosecutions. Of course, defense attorneys were just as quick to claim the opposite.

Thankfully, it appears the actual damage to the legal system Palmer caused was minimal. The state has told media outlets that attorney inquiries about how Palmer’s actions could affect their cases stopped months ago. But it’s easy to see how it could have been different, how one addict in a position of trust could have thrown the legal system into disarray.

Palmer now faces a potential 21 years in prison. We grieve for his family who also will pay in countless ways for the consequences of his actions. Whether you work in the public or private sector all of us trade on the value of our good names. In the moment, we all lose our center and choose poorly.

A few times a year we get calls from folks asking if we can keep their name out of the Police Beat. Our answer is always, ‘we print them all. Even our own staff.’

That’s a good reminder, don’t do anything you would be ashamed for your friends and family to read about in the newspaper.