DRUG LAB BACKLOGS HANDCUFF CASES

Increased Seizures Overwhelm System

It took the combined might of the Lawrence Police, the State Police, the
Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, and the Essex County Sheriff's
Department to get suspected heroin traffickers Luis Cotto of Lowell and
Carlos Vargas of Lawrence off the street, but just one tardy drug analysis
report to put them back out.

Understaffed and overwhelmed by a flood of designer-drug seizures, the two
state laboratories that analyze seized drugs for local police have seen
their backlog of unprocessed samples quadruple over the last six months,
leading to suspected drug dealers being released on bail and charges being
dropped in some cases.

Arrested on Aug. 31 by a multi-agency drug and gang task force with 675
bags of white powder, Cotto and Vargas, both 27, were ordered held on
$25,000 cash bail by a Lawrence District Court judge.

''This was a signficant amount of drugs,'' Lawrence police Captain Michael
Molchan said. ''These guys were not street dealers.''

Essex County prosecutors appeared in court five times over the next four
months to report that a probable cause hearing could not go forward because
police were still waiting for the seized substances to be analyzed by the
state drug laboratory in Jamaica Plain.

The lab report finally arrived last week, confirming that the bags seized
from Cotto and Vargas did indeed contain heroin. But it came too late; the
frustrated judge had already reduced their bail to $10,000, which the two
quickly posted.

Prosecutors say the case is an example of the problems created by a
fast-growing backlog at the two laboratories that analyze most of the
illegal drugs seized in the state.

The delay in drug analysis is resulting in cases being dismissed, said
Essex District Attorney Kevin Burke.

All drugs seized in criminal cases must be tested to make sure that
defendants are being prosecuted for selling heroin, cocaine or ecstasy, not
talcum powder or baby laxative.

Officials at the state Drug Analysis Laboratories in Jamaica Plain and
Amherst admit that, beginning last summer, the number of drug samples began
exceeding the number its staff and equipment could process.

In November, for instance, the lab received 3,372 samples from local police
departments for analysis but only managed to analyze 2,647, falling 725
samples behind in that month alone.

In one year, officials said, the backlog has grown from about 1,500 samples
and a two-week delay, to 6,200 samples and a 71-day average delay.

More than two-thirds of the samples analyzed in December had been sitting
around for more than 50 days, according to a report sent to state judges
last month.

Last month showed some improvement, but only because there was a signficant
decrease in the number of samples submitted for testing. If those levels
return to what they were in the second half of 2000, the backlog could
start growing even worse, said Ralph Timperi, director of the State
Laboratory Institute.

''Our staffing is obviously not ideal,'' Timperi said. ''There is no margin
for error at this point.''

The two Department of Public Health laboratories analyze drugs mostly
seized by local police officers for cases. Both the State Police and Boston
police have their own laboratories, which handle seizures from large drug
conspiracy cases.

After years of problems caused by antiquated equipment and understaffing,
Timperi said, the labs received a much-needed influx of new funding for
personnel and $1 million in state-of-the-art drug analysis equipment in the
mid-1990s. Until recently, they had almost always lived up to an agreement
that DPH officials worked out with the state judiciary - that the labs
would have an average backlog of no more than 1,500 samples and an average
processing time of two weeks.

But there has been an increase in both drug use and drug arrests in
Massachusetts, according to law enforcement officials, driven by new
designer drugs such as ecstasy.

At maximum output, the lab can handle about 2,900 samples a month. It
received more than 3,200 a month last year, Timperi said. Temporary staff
problems and the need to develop tests for ecstasy and gamma
hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, known as the date-rape drug, put the lab even
further behind, he said.

DPH officials have asked the Legislature to fund two more positions at the
lab next year to help deal with the backlog, Timperi said.

So far, according to state court spokesman Joan Kenney, the state's judges
don't view the growing backlog as a ''big problem.'' But that view is not
shared by many prosecutors and defense lawyers.

''It is particularly frustrating when you know you have the goods, and you
know you are going to get a positive drug certification back from the lab,
and you sit there and watch the case erode like sand under your feet,''
said veteran Norfolk Assistant District Attorney Gerald Fitzgerald. ''It
lets the defense lawyers chip away at the bail or the turn up the pressure
for a better deal.''

But Boston defense lawyer Charles Rankin said that, for defendants whose
bail requests are denied, delays mean they are kept in jail unfairly.
Negative drug tests are rare, he acknowledged, but they do happen.

''It's inexcusable,'' Rankin said. ''The state knows how many cases they
are going to have in a given year, so if they don't have the personnel to
handle the work, there's no excuse.''

Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley agrees that the state labs need
more funding to do their job properly.

''I don't think the courts want people to get a free ride because the
Commonwealth won't spare the resources,'' she said. ''But they have to be
fair to the defendants as well as the public. The public wants quick action
and they want their streets safe. But that comes with a price tag.''