HALF MEASURES

THE ISSUE State officials find $1.2 million to help struggling Department
of Forensic Sciences.

WE SUGGEST Efforts to collect delinquent court fines, fees that help fund
forensic services should be increased.

September 3, 2002

The cost of justice keeps going up, just like everything else these days.

Law enforcement agencies, the courts, the prisons - all agencies with a
role in seeing that justice is served in Alabama feel the strain.

The state's Department of Forensic Sciences, for example, burdened by an
ever-growing backlog of cases, has nearly gone under during the past year
because of a critical money shortage.

The work the department does is, as Attorney General Bill Pryor noted,
"critical to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system."

And yet, Pryor added, the agency's funding this year was less than what it
received in 1995.

That would help explain, then, the straits in which the forensic sciences
department finds itself as fiscal 2002 limps to a close.

There's a bit of good news for the agency, however.

State officials rummaged around and managed to "find" $1.2 million to help
bail out forensic sciences.

Gov. Don Siegelman said his office found the money, mostly through the
Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs.

The bad news is that that sum, though helpful, is a million bucks short of
what is needed.

Department officials have projected a $2.2 million budget shortfall for the
new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

The "found" state money should help stop or delay some of the spending cuts
the department planned, the governor said.

That is, indeed, good news, because the agency that processes evidence from
crime scenes for Alabama's law enforcement agencies already has an enormous
backlog: some 1,800 cases that involve DNA testing and a whopping 10,000
cases in drug chemistry.

Indeed, interim director Taylor Noggle says the department has backlogs in
all of its disciplines: pathology, toxicology, trace evidence, handwriting
and documents, drug chemistry, firearms and tool marks and forensic biology.

The importance of the work done by forensic labs has mushroomed in recent
years, mostly because of increased interest in DNA sample comparisons. That
increase has only added to the misery for Alabama's forensic sciences
staff. District attorneys across the state say it sometimes takes as long
as two years to get DNA evidence processed.

This situation is fast becoming intolerable. The state should not allow it
to continue.

Siegelman mentioned one of the possible solutions when he said he hopes
this funding crisis would spur judges and prosecutors to continue efforts
to collect delinquent court fines, fees and restitution. A large proportion
of funding for the Department of Forensic Sciences comes from those
collections.

We hope that the crisis also spurs Alabama lawmakers to action, since about
half of the department's funding is allocated by the Legislature. Federal
money that once shored up the department's budget has all but dried up.

The money the governor's office came up with is appreciated, but half
measures and Band-Aid fixes are not the cure for what ails this
agency. It's time for the state to accept its responsibility and properly
fund forensic services.