Follow-up article on the local sheriff’s department dead-set on opening their own DNA lab, instead of using a private lab until SLED can expand to meet demands. It’s interesting to point out that even after the lab is opened, has been staffed, equipment is delivered, it could still be years before case samples are actually analyzed. By then millions of dollars have been spent, and thousands of cases could have been sent to a private lab to be analyzed. Which plan actually benefits the citizens of Beaufort County?
Pete Marone, director of Virginia’s crime lab and chairman of the Consortium of Forensic Science Organizations, says local law enforcement agencies often don’t realize what it takes to get a lab up and running. Accreditation can take up to two years. And a local lab faces the same kinds of budgetary and staffing issues that a statewide lab does.
Analysts can handle eight to 10 cases a month per person, Marone said. They must review each other’s work, taking time away from testing.
“They are not going to be able to do unlimited testing,” he said. “They’re going to have an immediate backlog. … The headaches are the same whether you have one analyst or 10 analysts.”
Analysts also will be called to testify about their work, taking them away from the lab, he says. A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling established that submitting lab reports into evidence without the opportunity to cross-examine the person who did the testing is unconstitutional.
A lab also must be accredited before samples can be entered into the federal DNA database, a critical law enforcement tool.
Ralph Keaton, executive director of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/ Laboratory Accreditation Board, says the length of time to get accredited depends on how much documentation of lab protocol has been completed. But if the local lab were ready to apply today, it would still take six to seven months before an assessment was completed, assuming all the documentation was in order.
Read the whole story in The Beaufort Gazette.
