State officials address backlogs & understaffing

Crime Lab Struggles to Keep Up

By Gil Brady, 10-03-07

JACKSON, Wyo.— While problems with understaffing, retention and training new scientists have contributed to half-year backlogs at the state crime lab in Cheyenne, the long delays raise the question of whether some habitual offenders are going unpunished.

“You know, the longer a perpetrator is out there, the more opportunity there is for them to commit crimes,” Forrest Bright, Director of Wyoming’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), said when asked recently if repeat offenders were getting away with additional offenses due to his agency’s backlogs and personnel issues.

“Sometimes it’s the investigation,” he added. “Sometimes it takes time before forensics are discovered. That can take months or years.”

Bright said the ability to use federal and state resources, such as DCI’s expanding index of about 12,000 DNA profiles to match results, which can also be run through an FBI database, is speeding up the processing of certain types of forensic clues.

But hair and other trace evidence, like fibers he said, have to have an existing match or a suspect to compare samples.

Objectivity

Though some states and cities employ civilian lab directors, such as San Mateo, Calif., whose handling of evidence was investigated by a grand jury in 2002, or combine civilian and law enforcement oversight, to provide a check and balance on practices and standards, Wyoming’s lab is run by sworn peace officers.

“I don’t think the type of oversight has an impact on integrity,” said Steve Holloway, who runs the crime lab. “I think the people (hired) and the standards they operate under have an impact. We test cases from law enforcement and will do analysis for the public defenders’ office, and for the county prosecutors.”

Holloway said the crime lab was fully accredited, which he added means it’s required to meet “accreditation standards” established by national boards. “They set all standards for how testing is done” and “for technical review of results.”

Although he was not employed by DCI at the time, Holloway fielded questions about a Rock Springs man who died in police custody three and a half years ago.

After fleeing a traffic stop in May 2004, Travis Posselt, a known drug-user and father of two, led a federal agent and local police on a foot chase into a 6th Street alleyway. During their probe into the events surrounding his death, public records show DCI investigators noted blood in the alleyway, black “scuff marks” on a wall and other signs of a struggle, including blood on at least one officer’s clothing.

According to a DCI police report, they also pursued a rumor that Posselt “had been pistol whipped” during the incident.

As state investigators negotiated with bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives officials over custody of an agent’s gun, records show a federal officer, under orders, removed it from a table. The federal officers, in possession of the weapon, then left the Rock Springs Police Department in the early morning hours following Posselt’s death.

Later tests revealed the gun presumed in question free of forensic indicators. And a Colorado pathologist would rule Posselt’s death the result of a drug-induced heart attack.

“Whenever a federal officer is involved in a (critical incident) they may submit (their weapon) to a federal lab,” Holloway said when asked how it was known whether the weapon analyzed was the one in question and had not been tampered with prior to testing.

“DCI’s responsibilities is for investigating (the) officer (in question),” he added, while declining to discuss the lab’s tests on the weapon because he was unfamiliar with the case. “Standards vary considerably around the nation in how this is handled.”

On maintaining objectivity, such as the number one request by police for analysis on narcotics, Holloway said the lab relies on the scientific principal of independent confirmation before returning their results to local agencies.

“When analysts test something – say cocaine – that report does not go back to the originating agency of request until it’s 100 percent certified by a second scientist and a 100 percent technical review. That report isn’t finalized until the second review and independent analysis.”

According to Bright, two recent official annual reports and a 2005 memo to state lawmakers, since 2003 the crime lab received its most recent national accreditation earlier this year. Before leveling off around 2006, DCI said meth investigations comprised over half of its caseload while: “Cocaine and crack cocaine appear to be on the increase in Wyoming.”

Regionalization and Reinvestment

Covering 97, 105 square miles, much of which is desolate and wild, Wyoming ranked 9th in land area among the 50 states and last in population with 515,004 inhabitants. At 23 violent crimes per 10,000 people, serious offenses in the state over the last four years occurred about half as often as the nation at-large.

This small-state-within-a-big-state paradox might help to explain why police have just one central laboratory to handle all their requests for forensic services.

Still, as might be expected from veteran public servants who are the cogs and spokes of the state’s justice system, enthusiasm for more funding and resources to perform their jobs at optimum levels was high.

“Would I like to see us have a world-class crime lab?” one 13-year police officer said. “You bet. But that’s not to say they’re not doing the best they can.”

“How much frigging money does Wyoming have in that rainy day fund, a billion dollars?” Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Lt. Bob Mizel asked more rhetorically. “They could take a fraction of that and, instead of just putting it into roads, put it into people and not even miss it.”

Mizel added that reinvestment should not be limited to just expanding police resources, but could also include more drug-treatment and social services to help prevent crime.

“I look at society like the legs on a stool: You’ve got interdiction, education, treatment,” Mizel explained. “I think peer-counseling works better for addicts, because they’re hearing from someone who’s been in their place. Some cops say: ‘Give us more money to take drugs off the street.’ But you’ve got to look at the big picture too.”

Set every two years by the state Legislature, according to a 2005-06 report, DCI’s current biennium operating budget of $21.2 million was offset by $6 million in federal dollars.

Bright had mixed views on the subject of “regionalization”—or, the creation and location of more than one crime lab to handle the state’s demand for DCI’s current menu of chemical, biological, firearm, tool mark, latent print, questionable documents and trace evidence analysis.

“I can sure see the advantage to that. Except that they’re going to be competing for the same money. It’ll make it difficult if labs are competing.”

But on the other hand, he added, “The more labs you have, if you have 3 or 4 labs, it gives more sources for Wyoming chiefs and sheriffs to go to for timely turn around.”

For now, Bright stressed the importance of good communication and mutual cooperation among local and state authorities to deal with delays and the lab’s prioritization of its caseload.

“You need to convey: ‘It’s a priority to us’,” he said, addressing Wyoming’s law enforcement community. “Otherwise it goes next in line.”

In the short-term, Holloway was confident that turnaround times for tests would lessen, and that offering competitive salaries would put the lab in “a position to attract and retain qualified analysts.” However, in the future he believed the state might consider the benefits of building another crime lab.

“I think it would be a good idea for the future. As the state population grows, there’s going to be more and more demand for lab services,” Holloway said. “Based on population size right now Casper would be a likely spot to place another lab in the future.”

Somehow, despite the holdups and rising demand for its services, DCI reported that its percentage of drug arrests leading to court convictions rose from about 79 percent in 2003 to 90 percent in 2005. Last month, Bright confirmed that the latter figure had so far remained consistent through 2007.

Looking ahead

Many officers and officials said if they could speak to lawmakers directly about how to improve the crime labs’ capabilities and responsiveness, they’d recommend examining questions about budgeting, updating equipment, training and staffing.

“Is it a staffing issue at DCI, or is it they’re overwhelmed with cases in the state?” Teton County Sheriff Bob Zimmer said when asked about the lab this summer. “Is the facility not big enough? Or is it a budgeting thing? In the last 10 years, (has there been) more cases and turnover?”

But perhaps Holloway offered the most specific appraisal of his own situation.

“To deal with the increasing demand for laboratory services, we’re going to need more analysts in the future, so that we can better meet the needs of our customers at the state, local and federal law enforcement level that submit things for analysis,” he said.

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