ADD FORENSICS TO LIST OF UNDERFUNDED AGENCIES

The discovery last week of another $1.2 million for the Alabama Department
of Forensic Science will help the agency maintain the services it provides
law enforcement agencies, but the agency director says it won't resolve
funding problems.

Forensic Sciences faced a $2.2 million budget shortfall prior to Gov. Don
Siegelman's announcement of the added funds last week. But interim director
Taylor Noggle says the department will proceed with most of its planned
budget cuts, which is probably a wise plan.

Forensic evidence is playing an ever-increasing role in criminal
investigations, and the law enforcement agencies in this state depend on
analysis of evidence, and often help in the collection of it, to determine
what happened at crime scenes, where trace evidence came from and to
identify or to eliminate suspects in cases. Much of the analysis is highly
technical, requiring special equipment and special training to keep up - in
terms of equipment and training - with the advances in this science.

It is going to continue to cost a lot of money to keep the state labs and
personnel up-to-date and to enable them to keep up with the cases coming in
from all over the state. Even with the additional money, Noggle says, the
department doesn't plan to reinstate transportation of bodies, one of the
few duties that does not require scientific training and could be
contracted to non-experts.

That means when a murder occurs, or any death that requires autopsy, the
state lab won't be able to send someone to pick up the body and return it
to a funeral home. The cost for that is likely to fall on the families - an
added burden at an already difficult time.

But the department should give priority to responding to crime scenes and
methamphetamine labs, because they have training and expertise to use there
that will enhance criminal investigations and safely deal with the
dangerous chemicals used in making meth. Cutting those services - as the
department must consider for financial reasons - will hurt the pursuit of
justice. And that will hurt crime victims and their families who must wait
longer for lab results often needed for prosecution, suspects who have to
wait longer for a trial, sometimes in jail, and innocent people who may be
considered suspects until analysis of evidence can prove otherwise.
Delaying the answers they provide costs, monetarily and emotionally.

Failing to equip and train the department to provide the most accurate
answers possible could compromise the criminal justice system. The
Department of Forensic Science does work that must be done and done well,
whether it is examining evidence from a Crenshaw County site where six
people were gunned down, or trying to determine whether bones found near
Reece City are those of a man missing since 1989.

Scientists in the department help law enforcement to solve mysteries. The
funding they have to do so should not be a mystery. The state has to
recognize the need to fund forensic science adequately, because it cannot
afford to have the department falter in doing its duty with efficiency and
with the best available technology.