O.C. Sheriff's Department Crime Lab Receives International Stamp of Approval

The Orange County Sheriff's Department Crime Lab is the first full-service state or local lab in California to receive international accreditation. KPCC's Susan Valot says the lab officially got that recognition today.

Susan Valot: A couple dozen lab workers filled a conference room in the Brad Gates Forensics Building in Santa Ana. The American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board handed Sheriff Sandra Hutchens a certificate showing the lab's new international accreditation.

Frank Dolejsi: So Sheriff, congratulations.
Sheriff Sandra Hutchens: Thank you, thank you so much.

Valot: Frank Dolejsi is the chair of the accreditation board.

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Dolejsi: For the everyday person in the street, this is a way to give them confidence that their laboratory in this county is doing quality work that they can depend on.

Valot: Lab Director Dean Gialamas says it took a couple of years to reach the standards of international accreditation. He says they had to make some changes.

Dean Gialamas: Not so much change science or practices, but we had to change a lot about the managerial operations, particularly with documents and document control. Every document has to be uniquely identified and tracked within this division. And if you think about tracking all of the documents that you use on a day-to-day basis, you realize instantly what a daunting task that is. And so to put a system like that in place, it took some work.

Valot: Sheriff Sandra Hutchens says it's not like "C.S.I" on TV, where they neatly solve a crime in a single, hour-long episode. But she says the work's similar... and important.

Hutchens: They analyze all types – firearms, DNA, blood, you name it – all kinds of, any physical evidence at a scene, they're able to analyze here. And again, that's crucial to any case. That it's collected, that it's analyzed properly, and that we meet the standards.

Valot: Those standards are what helps cases hold up in court by making the evidence harder to shoot down on technicalities. And it's a standard the whole county will see – police agencies from all over Orange County rely on the sheriff's department crime lab to process and analyze their evidence.