Colorado lawmakers hope a scandal like the one that rocked the Colorado Bureau of Investigation last year — when officials discovered a DNA scientist had been manipulating testing for years — doesn’t happen again.
But if it does, they want to force the agency — and all crime laboratories in Colorado — to be more transparent about the wrongdoing, with proactive, prompt notifications to prosecutors, defendants and victims about the potential errors.
Four bipartisan Colorado lawmakers on Wednesday proposed the reforms in direct response to the CBI’s DNA scandal, and in response to the way the agency has handled the fallout since Yvonne “Missy” Woods’ misconduct was discovered in late 2023, bill sponsors said during a news conference Thursday.
“We believe in a transparent democracy,” said Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican and bill sponsor.
Authorities discovered that Woods mishandled DNA testing in just over 1,000 criminal cases during her nearly 30-year tenure at the CBI. Subsequent investigation showed the agency failed to stop her misconduct for years, even though several of her colleagues raised repeated ethical concerns about her work.
Woods was charged with 102 felonies in January; the criminal case is ongoing. She resigned from the CBI in lieu of termination in 2023, and the agency spent all of 2024 sorting through her flawed work. The scandal has shaken Colorado’s justice system and has already cost millions of dollars to address, with courts bracing for claims of wrongful conviction.
Defense attorneys, advocates and lawmakers have criticized the CBI’s handling of the scandal as obtuse and secretive.
“The Missy Woods lab scandal is a very clear example of intentional misconduct that highlights the need for transparency and accountability,” said Rep. Yara Zokaie, a Fort Collins Democrat and another bill sponsor. It is also sponsored by Republican Sen. Lisa Frizell, of Castle Rock, and Democratic Sen. Mike Weissman, of Aurora.
A spokeswoman for the CBI, Susan Medina, declined to comment on the particulars of the bill. But she said in a statement that the agency is “committed to accountability and transparency.”
The bill, HB25-175, would require employees in crime laboratories to report misconduct up their internal chain of command within 14 days of learning about it, and require lab supervisors to investigate those allegations of wrongdoing. The lab’s leadership would be required to alert affected district attorneys about the internal investigation within 91 days, and district attorneys would be required to alert defendants and victims within another 91 days.
The bill sponsors hope that disseminating information about the allegations of wrongdoing promptly and widely will allow for more outside scrutiny even as internal investigations are ongoing, Zokaie said.
The bill would also create a specific process for people whose cases are impacted by such misconduct to seek post-conviction relief in the courts, a process that is currently very difficult for defendants, and for those defendants to connect with attorneys.
The bill leaves the internal investigation of alleged misconduct in the crime laboratory’s hands — but lawmakers hope requiring employees to report misconduct under the law will bolster whistleblowers and encourage agencies to take allegations of misconduct seriously.
“It is also my sincere hope that it does not need to be used again, and having these protections in place will deter bad actors,” Zokaie said.
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