Lab delays hinder crime-solving
Arrests often wait for months in Monterey County
By JULIA REYNOLDS
Monterey Herald
November 5, 2006
Crimes in Monterey County are going unsolved and prosecutions delayed as piles of unprocessed evidence grow higher in the county's primary crime lab, law enforcement officials say.
In some cases, The Herald has found, more than a year passed before fingerprints were processed, leaving detectives frustrated and criminals walking free.
"The delay in processing evidence is a year and a half," Undersheriff Nancy Cuffney said.
"There have been delays," said Seaside police Capt. Steve Cercone, who sends fingerprints to the lab. "But we do understand that staffing shortages are the reason for it."
The lab is so badly understaffed -- down from five employees to two -- that arrests have had to wait as crimes go unsolved for more than a year.
In one example, a fingerprint was lifted in an April 2005 larceny case, but the print was not processed until June 2006. In the interim, investigators say, the same man had moved on from nonviolent fraud to carjacking.
"It does affect public safety," said Cmdr. Malcolm Gray, head of investigations at the Monterey County Sheriff's Office. "If we can't get evidence to help ID suspects, to tie suspects to cases, people are out on the street longer than they should be."
Detectives around the county complain that backlogs in the forensic services crime lab mean arrests aren't being made when they should.
Law enforcement personnel described cases such as a 12-month delay in running fingerprints for an attempted murder case.
The Herald asked the Sheriff's Office whether specific cases have been affected by the delays. After initial assurances of cooperation, sheriff's officials, including Sheriff Mike Kanalakis, opted not to provide case details or allow interviews with lab staff.
Staffing levels|
Hidden in a small, crowded room in the sheriff building's basement
on Natividad Road, the lab is mostly invisible to the general public.
Several desks take up space but sit empty.
Staffing levels at the lab have fallen from five full-time staff members to two in little more than a year. One position was eliminated, and two vacancies have remained unfilled.
But the work done in that small room is critical to the county's criminal justice system.
The lab processes serious crime evidence from across the county for the Sheriff's Office, and handles the latent fingerprint work for Seaside, Pacific Grove, Monterey and Marina police departments. The city of Salinas has its own forensic evidence department.
Latent print work is a skilled specialty. Unlike the inked prints taken at the Department of Motor Vehicles, latent fingerprints can usually be seen only after certain chemicals are applied. As such, they are fragile things.
A latent print examiner must not only be an expert at processing, preserving and identifying prints, but be skilled at presenting "expert witness" testimony in court.
On top of that, for an identification to be considered valid, a print must be verified by more than one examiner.
With only two full-time print examiners on staff, that often means long hours for lab supervisor Victor Lurz and evidence technician Georgine Scott, both of whom are on call 24 hours a day, according to police agencies that work with the lab.
Officials warn that public safety has been compromised by the backlogs, and not only because arrests have been delayed.
Gray said prosecutors are reluctant to file charges if the forensic evidence isn't ready.
"Even the cases that we file (with the District Attorney) -- if we can't get the evidence fast enough, they kick the cases back to us," Gray said.
"This happens all the time," said Chief Assistant District Attorney Terry Spitz. "When we get into the more serious felonies, we're going to be sending back memos -- 'Please run that out to the lab.'"
Assistant District Attorney Berkley Brannon said he wasn't aware of any complaints from prosecutors about the delays, but said his office often waits to file charges when forensic evidence is lacking.
Spitz said that in misdemeanor cases, a suspect might even be released, at least until the evidence comes in.
"If he's not a danger to the public, we'll say 'Let him go,'" Spitz said.
The delays mean that lesser crimes tend to fall off the radar, which can frustrate detectives.
"We have to set our threshold higher," Gray said. "It slows the whole process down. Our guys are screaming for evidence results, but we have other priorities," he said.
Detectives end up not even trying to take some cases to court, he said.
"We can't work all the cases."
Monterey police Lt. Leslie Sonné said the delays have had an effect on her department.
"It impacts every level of the investigation," Sonné said. "If a print is matched to someone, it would be nice to go after someone before they commit another crime. There's nothing we can do about it but hope they can generate some staff."
The city of Monterey, she said, is the lab's biggest customer.
Outside of police circles, the problem hasn't gotten much attention, in part because authorities have been reluctant to talk about it.
It took a few years to get this bad.
Forensic services everywhere have diminished during the past five to 10 years, said Pacific Grove police Lt. Tom Uretsky.
"It's a slow creep, not an acute problem," he said. "You gradually stop doing the things you used to do."
Officers say crime victims today expect evidence to be processed faster than ever, thanks to programs such as "CSI," where the latest high-tech equipment abounds and budget cuts seem nonexistent.
"Forensics are huge in law enforcement these days," Sonné said. "Unfortunately because of TV shows, the public expects results in an hour."
Spitz agreed that people don't realize that fingerprint experts cost money.
"They don't talk about that on CSI," he said.
The high cost of living in Monterey County and pay rates for the lab's skilled positions don't help.
Though the county's fingerprint experts aren't the worst paid in the nation or California, their salaries are far from the highest.
"It's what the county is willing to cough up," said Gray. "We cannot get people to come here to work."
In the current job posting for a latent fingerprint/crime scene examiner, Monterey County offers from $51,732 to $70,644 annually.
For a similar position, Santa Clara County offers from $62,531.04 to $75,653.76 annually. San Mateo County pays up to $75,300.
A few states, with lower costs of living than California, offer even more. Police in Las Vegas will pay up to $79,306 for a latent fingerprint examiner, while in August, the state of Colorado offered up to $89,568.
Private industry pays the most, with some companies offering upward of six figures.
Shortages in police agencies|
Some local police agencies have been too busy coping with staff shortages
to raise their voices about the county's vacancies.
Monterey, for instance, is down by 13 officers, Sonné said.
Pacific Grove is also suffering an officer shortage.
"We're not submitting enough fingerprints to say 'Gee, hurry up.'" Uretsky said. "We'll soon be four officers down... Our priority is to keep staffing levels where they are."
When serious crimes such as murder or attempted murder take place in Pacific Grove, Uretsky said his department calls in the state's Department of Justice.
"We call the Sheriff's Office to photograph the scene but the DOJ to process the crime scene," he said. "They lift the prints, drive them to Sacramento and immediately run them. That's what they do for a living."
But that solution, he said, only works with the most serious crimes.
"At the DOJ, if it's not a homicide, they'll get to it when they get to it," Uretsky said. "They're also very short-handed."
It took two years, he said, for the state to return a DNA "hit" on a Pacific Grove rape and assault case.
Other agencies, such as Seaside, are trying to improve their ability to pick up some of Monterey County's case load. Capt. Steve Cercone said his department recently hired a police services assistant who will be qualified in six months to a year to process evidence.
"It will take some of the workload off the Sheriff's Office," he said. "We can only do so much."
The sheriff's forensic lab does all it can, Cercone said, to accommodate Seaside's most urgent requests.
Uretsky's admiration for the lab's remaining staff members borders on reverence.
"I've got nothing but praise for those two," he said.
Sonné said the lab's workers are often roused on days off to process crime scenes.
Gray described a recent Saturday when every Sheriff's Office detective was dispatched to the scene of a stabbing murder in Castroville. Staff shortages meant that detectives and lab staff could work on nothing else.
"With that evidence, everything else gets dropped," Gray said. "You have physical evidence that has to be processed. You can't just leave it."
For many crimes, the county will likely struggle with evidence backlogs for the foreseeable future, as the downsized lab tackles a case load handled by five people only a few years ago.
"We'll sure keep our fingers crossed for the county crime lab," Sonné said. "They
sure can use some relief."
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Fingerprint lab backlogs In a study prepared for the U.S. Department
of Justice, analysts called the 166-day average backlog found in 12
of the nation's largest fingerprint labs "astounding." In
contrast, Monterey County's estimated backlog is more than three times
that figure. 5.5 months Average backlog in 12 large crime labs, 2004
18 months 2006 estimated backlog in Monterey County crime lab Sources:
Estimate from Monterey County Sheriff's Office, October 2006 180-Day
Study Report, International Association for Identification, May 2004