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Virginia Crime Lab May Get Boost

Posted on: Wednesday, 15 December 2004, 18:00 CST

Dec. 15--RICHMOND, Va. -- Twenty new scientists would be hired for the state's beleaguered forensic lab under a budget proposal announced Tuesday by Gov. Mark R. Warner.

The $2.6 million plan also would help to expand the regional crime lab in Norfolk.

Warner made his proposal as state lawmakers are preparing to consider other changes that would provide even more money -- along with more scrutiny -- of Virginia's crime lab, which has been criticized for mishandling evidence in a high-profile murder case.

Members of the Virginia State Crime Commission will hear a recommendation today to establish an advisory board of scientists that would review testing procedures and establish an audit process to be used when errors occur.

If that measure is approved by the legislature, national forensics leaders say Virginia would become only the second state crime lab in the country, along with New York's, to have a scientific review panel.

The Virginia Division of Forensic Science was the first state crime lab to provide DNA testing in 1989 and is considered a national leader in the field. This year, however, scientists in other states raised questions about the Virginia lab's handling of evidence in the case of former death row inmate Earl Washington Jr.

DNA tests by the lab helped to exonerate Washington in the 1982 murder of a Culpeper woman. However, scientists hired this year by Washington's attorneys to review the evidence said the lab erred when it concluded that DNA on the victim's body did not belong to convicted rapist Kenneth Tinsley. The murder remains unsolved.

The lab's director, Paul Ferrara, has disputed those criticisms. An independent audit of the case ordered by Warner is expected to be completed early next year.

The crime commission report released this week does not address those accusations, but it does conclude that the lab is struggling to handle an escalating workload.

The agency's budget has been cut by 6 percent, to 23.6 million, since 2001. The report says the lab has been unable to add scientists and has lost staffers to better-paying public and private labs. Employees have been required to work overtime because of backlogs that have slowed criminal court cases.

Warner's budget would provide:

--$1.2 million to expand the regional lab in Norfolk, which is housed in the Norfolk Public Health Building on Southampton Avenue. Lab officials say additional space is available at that location. If the expansion is approved, they said they could hire as many as six new scientists for firearms and DNA analysis. The Norfolk lab now employs 38 staffers.

--$1.1 million to hire 17 new scientists at the agency's four labs, including the one in Norfolk. The agency now employs 244, including 157 forensic scientists.

--$246,500 plus $130,000 in start-up costs to begin a mitochondrial DNA testing program and hire an additional three scientists to operate the equipment. Mitochondrial tests are more sensitive than conventional DNA technology and can identify DNA in hair strands and skeletal remains.

The crime commission report also includes the mitochondrial tests and the Norfolk lab expansion. It recommends a more generous funding: $2.1 million to add 31 forensic scientists; $3.1 million for 26.3 percent salary increases for all staffers; and $3.5 million to purchase land and begin planning for a new regional lab in Northern Virginia.

The commission report calls for spending an estimated $33.7 million in 2007 for the new lab in Northern Virginia.

Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, vice chairman of the crime commission, also plans to sponsor legislation that would make the state lab an independent agency with oversight by a panel of scientists as well as a board of law enforcement officials.

Stolle defended Ferrara's leadership at the lab, but he said more scrutiny is needed as the agency grows and employs new testing technologies.

"If there's a concern about doing things right, then adding resources to a problematic process doesn't fully address the concern," Stolle said.

Critics of the Virginia lab said scientific review is crucial to the overhaul efforts. The agency's policy board currently includes police chiefs, sheriffs and a prosecutor, but no DNA experts.

Peter Neufeld, an attorney for Earl Washington, said the scientific panel being proposed in Virginia has less authority than its counterpart in New York, but he praised the crime commission recommendations as a good faith effort at reform.

"It's an excellent first step toward creating meaningful scientific review of the crime lab operations," said Neufeld, a non-scientist member of New York's crime lab board. "To have the government establish a procedure to audit and investigate errors in the crime lab is a very important act."

The General Assembly will consider the lab budget requests and restructuring plan when it convenes at the Capitol next month. Stolle said he does not believe the measures will be controversial, but he said securing new dollars is "always difficult."

Ferrara said he supports the recommendations by the governor and the crime commission. He said he hopes the scientific and policy oversight boards also will be advocates for the lab's financial needs.

"I like the idea of being able to call upon scientists outside the lab to vet ideas and get input," he added.

Neufeld said forensics agencies must be open to outside experts if they want to regain credibility.

"The vast majority have no oversight, and with no oversight you don't appreciate the extent of the problem," he said. "They haven't been thinking of themselves as a scientific lab. Rather, they have been thinking of themselves as an arm of law enforcement."

Earl Wells, president-elect of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors and the director of forensics in South Carolina, said problems at Virginia's lab are common across the country.

"Ninety-nine percent of the labs are under-funded, understaffed and they don't have the resources the job requires," he said.

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(c) 2004, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Virginian-Pilot

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