BUDGET CUTS LEAVE CRIME LAB IN A LURCH

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab has more space and about $2.4
million in new equipment as of Tuesday, but not enough of what it needs
most: staff.

State budget cuts have left 40 jobs unfilled, 29 in key areas of the lab
where potential evidence in many criminal cases is handled.

The vacancies are creating a backlog in analyzing crime data that grows by
about 500 requests per month, in a system of seven laboratories that
handles about 10,000 requests monthly, lab officials say. It also is
forcing prosecutors to alter how they handle some cases.

"There's no way to catch up until we get more staff," said Terry Mills,
director of the GBI laboratory system, which on Tuesday showed off a new
75,000-square-foot crime lab annex and morgue in Decatur.

The backlog --- currently 2,262 cases mostly in drug identification and
toxicology --- has not approached the crisis stage of 1999, when the lab
was slammed with 36,000 cases and prosecutors were forced to drop cases or
plea bargain because the lab couldn't analyze evidence in time for trial.

But prosecutors are seeing the backlog mount and are getting uneasy. This
year, 73 percent of the analyses were completed within 30 days, down from
90 percent last year. Any case over 30 days is considered part of the backlog.

Danny Porter, Gwinnett County district attorney, said he's seeing three-to
six-month delays in getting drug test results. And in cases involving DNA
evidence, he is forced to make difficult choices.

"If there's 20 pieces of evidence, the lab says they'll look at only two.
They dictate how investigations are conducted, and that's bad for criminal
justice," Porter said. "You also have people not being charged with every
offense they commit because [the lab is] not analyzing every drug."

Mills said the cases that aren't completed in 30 days usually are completed
by 90 days.

He said his lab "routinely" analyzes more than one drug in each case, but
will test only "a couple" of DNA samples that give the most information.
Additional testing usually doesn't add information to the case, he said.

Among the duties of the Decatur lab and its six regional satellites:
testing drugs, poisons, DNA samples, firearms, blood alcohol and
fingerprints; autopsies; and authenticating documents and photographs.

Acting GBI Director Vernon Keenan said the lab jobs had to remain vacant so
the GBI could meet Gov. Roy Barnes' order to cut state agency budgets by 3
percent.

Rick Malone, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of
Georgia, said the backlog is "limiting the ability to prosecute effectively."

At Tuesday's dedication of the building, Barnes said he would look at
shifting funds to the lab from other areas in the GBI's $64 million budget.

To solve the 1999 backlog, Barnes allocated $25 million for 85 GBI lab
staffers and equipment. But 40 of the 85 new hires have left, leaving the
lab system with 222 staff members, about half at headquarters.

Mills said he recently was authorized to fill eight medical examiner slots
and three scientist slots from among the 40 vacant positions.

Robbie Friedmann, a Georgia State criminal justice professor who led a
commission that looked at the backlog, said there is "serious danger that
if the problem is not addressed we'll have the crisis mode we had before."

"The state addressed the crisis four years ago. However, things don't
remain static," he said. "You can have new buildings from here to New York
and it won't help. You can have equipment and space but if you don't have
the people the problem won't be addressed."