Forensics and legal experts say a sweeping crime lab oversight measure passed by Maryland lawmakers after a discredited state police ballistics expert committed suicide takes innovative steps to safeguard the integrity of forensic labs. The General Assembly unanimously passed the bill, which was introduced before the suicide of Joseph Kopera. It directs the state health department to create Maryland's first regulations for licensing state, county and municipal crime labs. The secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene would be able to suspend or revoke licenses. Gov. Martin O'Malley is considering whether to sign the bill, passed in the legislative session that ended last month.

While Texas, Virginia and Minnesota have formed oversight panels in recent years to address crime lab misconduct, critics argue reform efforts have failed to do much, because the boards lack the teeth needed to take action. Supporters of reform say the Maryland bill goes much further.

William C. Thompson, a forensic science expert at the University of California, Irvine, criticized panels that have "largely dedicated themselves to rubber-stamping what the laboratories are currently doing."

Maryland's measure, by contrast, was designed to put the regulating in the hands of a department with experience in scientifically based oversight of medical lab work.

"I think it's the most innovative and promising of the state approaches so far," Thompson said. "It creates a degree of separation between the regulators and the regulatees, which is healthy."

Stephen Saloom, policy director for New York's Innocence Project, said other state panels fail to focus sufficiently on the science involved with crime labs.

"By focusing on the science of forensic evidence, Maryland sets a model for other states to follow," Saloom said.

Crime lab integrity has been under the spotlight in Maryland in recent months. Kopera, a veteran police ballistics expert, committed suicide in March after being confronted by public defenders who discovered he had lied about his academic credentials.

Attorneys for the Maryland public defender's Innocence Project, which works to exonerate the wrongly convicted, are seeking a new trial for former Baltimore police officer James Kulbicki, who was convicted of murder in 1995 and 1993. They say Kulbicki deserves a third trial because Kopera lied on the witness stand at his trial. A Baltimore County judge is considering the case, the first of its kind to be brought in wake of Kopera's death.

Michele Nethercott, who heads Maryland's Innocence Project, contends the legal implications are huge. Kopera testified in hundreds of cases over a long career. So far, Nethercott said 36 inmates have contacted her, hoping to get new trials.

"That's the proverbial tip of the iceberg," Nethercott said. "The numbers, I think, they're going to be fairly staggering when this is all over with."

Kopera joined the state police in 1991 after working for 21 years in the Baltimore Police Department's crime laboratory. He testified in state courts in all 24 Maryland jurisdictions. He also testified in federal courts, as well as the states of Delaware, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Prosecutors have expressed doubt that the ramifications of Kopera's lack of credentials will be wide-ranging. They say his job involved considerable on-the-job training and he didn't need the degrees he claimed to have.

"You don't need any degree to do it," said Frank Kratovil, president of the Maryland State's Attorney's Association.

Although the bill was introduced before Kopera's suicide, Nethercott believes revelations about his dishonesty boosted support for the measure.

The bill directs the health department to create qualifications for personnel who work in the laboratories and establish procedures for verifying educational backgrounds, measures that state Sen. Delores Kelley, a bill sponsor, said were added as an outgrowth of the Kopera case.

Kelley said the 26-page bill was created to prevent future problems as crime labs come under more scrutiny.

"I think we're breaking new ground," said Kelley, D-Baltimore County. "I think it ought to really do a lot of good."

The measure includes whistleblower protections for people in crime labs who report troubling activity. It also would require O'Malley, a Democrat, to create a Forensic Laboratory Advisory Committee to advise the health department secretary.

Nethercott, who helped draft the bill, said it enables regulators to conduct unannounced inspections and take actions to either fix problems or shut down a lab.

"There is no other state in the country right now that has this kind of enforcement mechanism associated with it," she said.

The bill covers crime labs that analyze medical, chemical, toxicological, firearms or other expert examination on physical evidence, including DNA.

Although the bill includes a broad outline of what would be done, details about regulations remain to be ironed out. "Everything is very preliminary," said Anne Hubbard, director of governmental affairs for the health department.

The bill requires the health department to begin working Oct. 1 toward developing the regulations. The department would have to adopt regulations for implementation by Dec. 31, 2010.