DEL.ICIO.USLogjam at lab slows solutions to deaths
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, February 15, 2009
It was early January when the bodies of two 28-year-old men were found in the backyard of a house in Smyrna.
Police called it “suspicious,” though they didn’t think anything criminal happened. A drug overdose is suspected.
Phil Skinner/pskinner@ajc.com
Kaajal Patel works in the DNA extraction lab at the Georgia Crime Lab. The lab, located in Decatur, currently has a backlog of just over 11,500 tests, up from 8,420 just six weeks ago.
But to be sure, the Cobb County Medical Examiner’s Office sent blood samples to the state Crime Lab for an analysis. Once they get the results needed for a death certificate, Cobb police can close the case and the families can finish closing out the lives of their loved ones.
More than a month later, the police and the families of Michael Mead and Brad Mosteller are still waiting. And they could be waiting much longer as the state’s only facility for analyzing evidence becomes more backed up.
“I don’t know what drugs are in these individuals, if any,” Mike Cosper, operations manager at the Cobb County Medical Examiner’s Office, said of the Mead and Mosteller deaths. “The families are in limbo. A death certificate can’t be produced. Closure can’t come to the families. The police can’t make an informed diagnosis of manner of death.”
A shortage of money is once again slowing — and in some cases hamstringing — the process of justice and the resolution of deaths that are so far unexplained to the families left behind.
Since July 1, the beginning of the state’s budget year, the backlog in various areas has increased with every passing month. And Vernon Keenan — director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which includes the Crime Lab — told legislators recently that he did not expect the situation to improve, especially in light of the governmentwide budget cuts.
After several years of building the lab, the GBI, like all state agencies, may have its $76.3 million budget cut by as much as 10 percent; $23.5 million of that budget is devoted to the lab, which also could lose 10 percent.
With 40 vacancies already, that number most likely will grow because only critical positions — medical examiners — will be filled. There are 240 people on the lab’s payroll, including 16 new hires still training. This is far below the 350 people a commission said in 1999 should be on staff at the Crime Lab by now.
And once the GBI closes its labs in Moultrie, Columbus and Summerville, scientists and technicians will have to travel farther to testify in court, which means even more time away from their cases.
The total backlog for all tests — toxicology, DNA, blood-alcohol and others — is just over 11,500; it was 8,420 less than six weeks ago.
“I anticipate we will have a backlog that will grow,” Keenan said in a recent legislative committee meeting. “The backlogs are going to be there. I can’t squeeze any more out of the lab.”
As of Wednesday, 859 toxicology analyses had been pending more than a month.
The lab now gets about 350 new toxicology cases a month. But that number will increase by 100 to 125 cases a month when postmortem toxicology analyses for Fulton County, Georgia’s biggest jurisdiction, are handled by the state instead of private labs.
The justice system could be slowed.
“I know it has caused us some delays in some cases,” said Pat Head, the district attorney for the Cobb Judicial Circuit. “If we have a case that I think we need to be moving, we will call them and they’ll move it.”
But at the same time, death cases are a priority “because of the impact on the families,” said George Herrin, the GBI’s deputy director over the lab.
If too much time passes, insurance claims are jeopardized or delayed and funeral costs cannot be paid.
“Right now, people have to wait too long to get a death certificate or get the report for the death certificate when a loved one dies,” Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said. “I think with the closing of these crime labs it’s going to take even longer. … An insurance company doesn’t want to pay until they know how the person died. … Everything from paying mortgages to paying burial costs [is affected]. If the [insurance] money is tied up, that can be a huge financial burden on the family.”
Paul Kelhofer, deputy director of the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office, said most families understand it will take “few weeks” to receive a death certificate, but if it takes “six to eight months or more, there are ramifications with insurance. There’s a lot they can’t do until they get the death certificate.”
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