GBI CRIME LAB STILL PLAGUED BY STAFF SHORTAGES, CAUSING CASE BACKLOG

DECATUR -- The Georgia Bureau of Investigation showed off a new $2.4
million, 75,000-square-foot crime lab annex and morgue on Tuesday. But GBI
officials say the lab's work will continue to lag until there are enough
people to fill the space.

State budget cuts have left 40 jobs unfilled, 29 in key areas where
potential evidence in many criminal cases is handled. As a result, there is
a backlog in handling cases that increase by about 500 per month, in a
system of seven laboratories that handles about 10,000 requests monthly,
lab officials say.

''There's no way to catch up until we get more staff,'' said Terry Mills,
director of the GBI laboratory system. There are currently 2,262 cases
pending, mostly in drug identification and toxicology.

That is light compared to 1999, when the lab was overhwelmed with 36,000
cases and prosecutors were forced to drop cases or plea bargain because the
lab couldn't analyze evidence fast enough. 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. Rick Malone,
executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, said
the backlog is ''limiting the ability to prosecute effectively.'' 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. The Decatur lab and its six regional satellites test drugs,
poisons, DNA samples, firearms, blood alcohol and fingerprints. They
conduct autopsies and authenticate 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. At Tuesday's dedication, 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.