Recently, the Rhode Island Supreme Court threw out wiretap evidence gathered in a bribery case against former Lincoln Town Administrator Jonathan Oster. It was not because the recorded coversations were of no pertinence to the case. It was because Atty. Gen. Patrick Lynch’s office proved stunningly incompetent in handling them.

The evidence was supposed to be stored in a sealed box and put in a bank vault or safe-deposit box. Instead, the box was shoved under the desk of a paralegal in the attorney general’s office. And when the tapes were presented to the Supreme Court in 2003, the seal on the box had been broken and the state could not explain how or when it happened.

As Justice Maureen McKenna-Goldberg noted, the state’s “laxity and negligence” in failing “to appropriately store and protect the integrity of this evidence is shocking.”

Evidence needs to be handled with care. That is especially true in cases involving political corruption, where there could be strong pressures on elected officials to misuse evidence.

The attorney general owes it to Rhode Island citizens to make sure this mishap is never repeated. The proper handling of evidence is vitally important in preserving the rule of law.