New crime lab hasn't impacted backlog

MADISON, Wis. - State forensic scientists in Madison have sparkling new digs, but they haven't dented the backlog of cases waiting for DNA testing - at least not statistically.

The state gutted the old crime lab in Madison and reopened it in May 2004 with $12 million in renovations. Marie Varriale, the lab's forensics supervisor, hailed the new facility at the time, saying it would help DNA analysts complete their work faster.

But the number of cases with evidence waiting for DNA testing at the lab grew from 319 at the end of 2004 to 588 at the end of 2005.

Department of Justice spokesman Mike Bauer said the new lab has made a difference, but prosecutors and police are sending more and more evidence in for testing.

The new 45,000-square foot lab, which includes toxicology and ballistics areas as well as DNA, replaces a 20,000-square-foot facility housed in a building built in 1959. The old lab was divided between two floors, with work room scattered around the building. Analysts were forced to walk the halls with evidence, risking contamination, Bauer said.

The new lab features temperature-controlled work rooms off the main DNA lab and cubicles for analysts.

The larger setting has allowed the lab to accommodate two new DNA analysts who were hired earlier this year, bringing the total number of analysts to 12, lab forensics supervisor Marie Varriale. The lab also allows more instruments, so no analyst has to wait for a machine, she said.

"People are able to work much more comfortably," Varriale said.

But evidence keeps piling up. The lab got 839 cases with evidence samples for DNA testing in 2005, finishing work on 570, according to Justice Department data. It got 834 in 2004, wrapping up 429. In 2003 the lab received 677 cases, finishing 528.

Bauer blamed the lab's diminished productivity in 2004 on the move into the new facility, noting the lab finished work on 7 percent more cases in 2005 than in 2003.

"The bottom line is that the new facilities has helped the backlog," Bauer said.

Varriale stressed analysts aren't in the lab constantly. They work day shifts and often travel to crime scenes and training sessions. Despite what people see on television, DNA tests on a single piece of evidence still can take days, she added.

"We have constraints and we cannot work beyond those constraints," lab director Jerome Guerts said. "You work something that is almost a miraculous thing."