The House has approved a package of operational and oversight changes for the embattled State Bureau of Investigation crime laboratory. The House voted 118-0 Tuesday in favor of the proposal created following negative publicity for the SBI lab and an outside report that raised questions about work by the lab. The bill now goes to the Senate. The measure would create a standing advisory panel of scientists to regularly review lab procedures and would change the lab’s formal name and purpose to make clear it doesn’t work solely for the prosecution. Anyone who willfully withholds any lab tests from attorneys in a case also would be guilty of obstruction of justice.(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 2/15/11).
