PROSECUTORS SEEKING SOLUTIONS TO STATE POLICE CRIME LAB PROBLEMS

CHARLESTON (AP) - Backlogged cases and administrative errors have
prompted prosecutors to create a special panel to help reform the
long-troubled State Police crime lab.

While the lab's current problems have not yet resulted in any specific
delays of trial, or the release of any inmates, the head of the lab
acknowledges the situation "is affecting our criminal justice system."

The situation apparently allowed one murder suspect to remain free an
extra year. Another man pleaded guilty to a rape charge because test
results that could have exonerated him were never sent to prosecutors
and defense lawyers.

Putnam County Prosecutor Mark Sorsaia, who heads the committee from
the Prosecuting Attorneys Institute, said they have pinpointed ways to
make the lab more efficient, including being more selective about what
evidence is tested.

The state also needs to spend money on better equipment, more staff
and higher salaries, Sorsaia said. On average, lab employees make
about $25,000 a year.

"Quite frankly, it's not the lab employees' fault," Sorsaia said.
"They're doing the best they can with what they've got."

State Police Capt. Ted Smith estimates his lab has about 300
backlogged cases. The backlog exists in two sections: biochemistry,
which tests blood and other body fluids, including DNA, and drug testing.

"But relative to other police lab backlogs, officers in other states
would scoff," Smith said. "'You have 300 cases backlogged? We've got
3,000!' That's what I hear."

The delay in processing DNA tests is a national problem that has
attracted U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's attention. In March,
he asked Congress for $1 billion over five years to catch up.

The National Institute of Justice estimates the backlog nationwide at
350,000 DNA samples in rape and homicide cases alone.

"DNA evidence can breathe new life into long-dormant investigations,"
Ashcroft said.

The 1999 beating death of 92-year-old Mabel Hetzer of Huntington was
such a case.

Huntington police had relegated the investigation to its "cold case"
file after their initial review and lab results failed to provide any
leads.

"We knew this was a solvable case; we just had to find the right
evidence," said police Lt. M.J. Coffey.

Coffey asked the State Police lab to re-examine the evidence from the
scene. During the second analysis, technicians discovered hairs and
fluids, not found previously, that were not consistent with Hetzer's
blood type. The new information gave Coffey the grounds he needed to
demand blood and hair samples from Jeffrey Lee Findley, who lived next
door to Hetzer at the time of her death but had since moved to Wisconsin.

In March 2002, Coffey and another officer went to Wisconsin where
Findley was living, with a warrant, and obtained the samples and
turned them over to State Police.

DNA tests that should have taken the lab about two weeks to process
stretched into a year. On March 14, a day after Huntington Police
received the results, Findley, 33, was arrested in Wisconsin and
charged with Hetzer's murder.

"Unfortunately, it's not like this is 'C.S.I.: Miami' where they do
the tests between commercials," Coffey said.

In a Harrison County case, the speed of the DNA testing wasn't the
issue, but an administrative lapse on returning the results to
prosecutors was.

Joseph Buffy said the timely release of DNA results in his case might
have stopped him from entering into a plea bargain with Harrison
County prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to the rape of an
83-year-old Clarksburg woman in exchange for the dismissal of other
charges.

In his appeal, the 19-year-old claims the State Police lab violated
its policy of sending test results to the investigating agency as soon
as they became available.

"In fact, the report never left the lab," said Terri Tichenor, a
Fairmont lawyer appointed to handle Buffy's appeal.

Problems in the State Police lab have occurred under several
administrations. West Virginia also isn't the only state with
problems. Investigations into crime lab irregularities have occurred
in Texas, Montana, Arizona and Oklahoma.

West Virginia's most notorious lab case involved former serology
director Fred Zain, whose work was discredited by the state Supreme
Court in 1993. Zain also spent time working at a crime lab in Texas.

Six men - five in West Virginia and one in Texas - were freed from
prison in the 1990s after reviews contradicted Zain's work in their
cases. The two states paid at least $7.3 million to settle the
resulting lawsuits.

Zain died of colon cancer in December 2002, while he was awaiting
retrial in West Virginia on charges of defrauding the state. An
earlier trial ended in a hung jury.

Even after the Zain experience, West Virginia's lab continued to have
problems.

In January 2001, Todd Owen McDaniel, a civilian lab worker, pleaded
guilty to a federal mail fraud charge stemming from a 1998 incident in
which he lied about having performed tests on drug evidence.

After the McDaniel case came to light, the federal government took
over the crime lab for a time.

Then in February 2002, State Police announced another problem with the
drug section and said everyone working in that department would be
replaced.

"We just started over," Smith said.

In that instance, State Police told prosecutors that an independent
lab would retest any evidence that went through the drug section
between April 1, 2001, and July 3, 2001.

Evidence was retested only at the request of a prosecutor, according
to Smith. Some of those cases are still pending.

"My best guess is that when the dust settles, it will be fewer than
100 cases that had to be re-examined," Smith said.

Despite the repeated allegations, West Virginia's forensics lab is one
of the few state facilities that is certified by the American Society
of Crime Laboratory Directors, Smith said.

"For all the negative things being said about our crime lab, being
ASCLAD accredited is something to be proud of," said Bill Charnock,
director of the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Institute.

The current backlog was caused, in part, by the new demand for DNA
analysis in old cases, Smith said.

"In some areas we are behind and it is affecting the criminal justice
system," he said. "Added resources and manpower would go a long way
toward meeting the needs of the investigators."

According to the Journal of Forensic Scientists, a government-run
crime lab needs a staff equal to one forensic scientist for every
30,000 population. West Virginia's population is 1.8 million.

"That means that, theoretically, we should have 60 forensic scientists
to function the way we would want. We only have maybe 35," Smith said.

At present, the drug lab has three staffers with experience, and they
are in the process of training three others, Smith said.

Because of the lab's recurring problems, the quality of justice is
being harmed in West Virginia, said George Castelle, who heads the
public defender office in Kanawha County.

"If a person is in jail awaiting trial, and the results are
incriminating, a year's delay doesn't matter that much because the
person would end up serving time anyway.

"But if the results prove innocence, that person can never get that
year back. It's lost to him forever."