The loss of a new fee for service crime lab run by Sam Houston State in Montgromery County will put more pressure on the Department of Public Safety crime labs ad possibly add to their already too-long wait times.
Reported the Conroe Courier:
The loss of the Sam Houston State
University Regional Crime Lab, which opened in November 2010 in The
Woodlands, will mean significant delays for results in testing evidence
such as blood-alcohol and toxicology tests, said Assistant District
Attorney Warren Diepraam, chief of the Vehicular Crimes Division for the
Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.
The crime lab will lose its current home in September
because the landlord has found another tenant, said Dr. Vincent Webb,
dean of the College of Criminal Justice at SHSU in Huntsville and
director of the university’s Criminal Justice Center. ...
With the loss of the SHSU crime lab – which serves
more than 70 agencies – Montgomery County now will have to send tests to
a Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Crime Lab in Austin, which
serves many more clients, Diepraam said.“With the Regional Crime Lab, we got results in a
week or two,” he said. “Unfortunately, the DPS lab has a backlog of
cases. For drug toxicology tests, it could take six to nine months to
get results. That’s a concern to the district attorney that we’ll have
people staying in jail while we’re waiting on results.”
From November 2010 to October 2011, the Regional
Crime Lab ran 1,034 drug toxicology tests, with 900 of those from
Montgomery County, Diepraam previously said. During that same time
period, the lab analyzed 4,335 controlled substance evidence items, with
86 percent of them coming from Montgomery County, according to a
casework overview by the lab.
Conversely, the Fort Worth PD crime lab hopes to expand capacity in its lab for DNA work,
reported the Star-Telegram, after shutting down a decade ago "amid backlogs and
accusations of shoddy work and contamination."
The lab's two forensic
scientists will begin working cases Monday, crime lab Director Tom
Stimpson said Thursday. With the training of three other scientists at
least six months away, Stimpson said, he hopes that the Police
Department can stop outsourcing most DNA testing within a year.
"The
benefit to the department for us really is going to be the turnaround
time and the selection of what we can test," Stimpson said. "Now we're
in full control of our evidence. We can test what we want and when we
want it."
And the savings, he said, will be significant.
Grants
cover some testing by the University of North Texas, but the Police
Department must pay roughly $250,000 a year to Orchid Cellmark, a
Dallas-based company, for other analyses, he said.
Putting a rush
on a DNA order costs even more. "With Orchid, because they're a
business, we were paying them a premium of about $500 a sample over and
above what the regular cost was to have something done within a week or
15 days," Stimpson said.
An in-house DNA unit will also save money
for the entire Police Department, because a faster turnaround can mean
quicker arrests, he said.
Since Fort Worth was contracting with a private provider for DNA services, their new lab won't take any pressure off DPS' caseload, at least directly, but it will add to the state's overall lab capacity once it opens.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/07/05/4081673/fort-worth-polices-crime-lab-preparing.html#storylink=cpy
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5 comments:
Does anyone happen to know if the blood work from Williamson Cnty. Jail goes to the Dpt.of Public Safety in Austin to be tested?
"For drug toxicology tests, it could take six to nine months to get results. That’s a concern to the district attorney that we’ll have people staying in jail while we’re waiting on results."
Really. What's the DA's concern? Is it the wait for results? Is it his concern for due process or doing what's right? Is it his concern for the tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars to keep people locked up while you knotheads wait for results?
What another falsehood from television? On CSI and other such shows they have DNA and all forms of test results back within hours of evidence collection. Another reality show goes bust.
""The benefit to the department for us really is going to be the turnaround time and the selection of what we can test," Stimpson said. "Now we're in full control of our evidence. We can test what we want and when we want it.""
And possibly control the results of the tests.
Guaranteed, any lab doing forensic testing for any DA's office or police department, can make the results show whatever they desire! Its all about convictions & the almighty dollar. The labs are making hand over fist, while the police & prosecutors are getting kick backs for convictions.
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