The director of D.C.’s forensics lab, Dr. Jenifer Smith, has resigned amid mounting pressure from local officials for leadership changes within the city’s Department of Forensic Sciences.

Deputy Director for Public Safety and Justice Chris Geldart wrote in a statement that the city had accepted Smith’s resignation Wednesday. Her last day will be May 26. She began leading the lab in 2015.

“We thank Dr. Smith for her service and appreciate the job she has done in progressing the agency during her tenure,” wrote Geldart in an emailed statement to DCist. “We remain firmly committed to the priorities of an independent lab; the timely collection, evaluation, and processing of criminal evidence; and high-quality public health analysis.”

Smith’s departure comes shortly after Attorney General Karl Racine asked D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to take “immediate action” to change leadership at the lab, which lost its accreditation in April for deliberately concealing information and mishandling evidence. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen echoed Racine’s demands for change, and D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has said he’s lost confidence in the forensic lab. 

The ANSI National Accreditation Board suspended the lab’s accreditation in April over mishandled ballistics evidence and attempts to conceal those errors. Racine, whose office relies on the lab to conduct investigations, revealed additional concerns in his letter to Bowser this week, writing that DFS recently began looking into additional errors by a fingerprint analyst and 10 members of the Crime Scene Sciences Division. According to Racine, DFS disclosed that at least 20 of the analyst’s 147 cases dating back to 2019 are being reviewed.

“Dr. Smith’s departure from DFS is an important first step in addressing the substantial issues that led to the decision of the local and federal prosecutors to cease using the lab and its accreditation being stripped,” Racine wrote in an emailed statement on Wednesday night. “We look forward to working with the mayor, law enforcement partners, and defense counsel to rehabilitate DFS.”

Smith did not appear at a D.C. Council hearing on the lab’s problems last month, but Geldart appeared in her place. He noted that there were some leadership issues at the lab but deferred to the Office of the Inspector General — which is currently conducting an ongoing criminal investigation into the lab — for any further leadership assessment.

The $210 million crime lab, which opened in 2012, intended to reduce the city’s dependence on federal law enforcement resources. It’s charged with providing forensic analyses to the Metropolitan Police Department, the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and other city agencies. It has come under investigation in the past; in 2015, the ANSI National Accreditation Board ordered the lab to suspend all DNA analysis after concluding that the lab’s procedures were “insufficient and inadequate.”

Geldart did not provide plans for a replacement, and it’s unclear what’s ahead for DFS. The legislation that created the lab requires it to be accredited, and the the city has appealed the accreditation board’s suspension. In the meantime, criminal evidence is being processed by private labs, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

This post has been updated with comment from Attorney General Karl Racine on Smith’s resignation.