Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Delays in drug test results affecting cases
BENTONVILLE — A police officer found a full syringe on a man in September 2017, but didn’t arrest him for possession of a controlled substance until June.
A delay in getting test results on drug evidence from the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory is affecting cases across the state as prosecutors and defense attorneys wait months for results, and the accused sometimes must wait in overcrowded jails.
A satellite crime lab office planned for Northwest Arkansas will help, prosecutors and defense attorneys said, but it’s not expected to be in business until spring.
Jay Saxton, Benton County’s chief public defender, has a policy to deal with jailed clients whose cases are awaiting results from the crime laboratory. Inmates sometimes plead guilty before results are back if the deal is a time-served offer.
“We advise them of their rights and discuss whether they want to wait or proceed with the plea,” Saxton said.
He stressed the policy is only for clients who will get out of jail the day they plead instead of waiting for months locked up. His office will wait for results for nonjailed clients.
Police may believe a substance is an illegal drug, but sometimes the tests are a negative, Saxton said.
“It happens few and far between,” he said. “I’ve had it happen three or four times in my career.”
The wait for drug test results increases the jail population and the time some inmates stay in the jail because trials get reset several times, said Maj. Randall Denzer with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. The jail had 718 inmates on Thursday evening and 380 of them were pretrial detainees, although not all of their cases are impacted by delays at the crime lab, he said.
THE BACKLOG
“Right now, there is close to a backlog of between six and nine months for drug analysis,” said Matt Durrett, prosecutor for the 4th Judicial District, which includes Washington and Madison counties.
Cindy Moran, assistant director of the Arkansas crime lab, said the goal is to have results completed within 30 days. There’s a backlog of 11,000 cases with an average nine-month turnaround time.
Moran blamed the delay on increasing case numbers. The lab handles up to 32,000 cases each year, 22,000 of which are drug cases, she said. Northwest Arkansas law enforcement agencies submitted 7,722 drug cases in 2017, according to the lab’s statistics.
It’s not an issue limited to Arkansas. Crime laboratories in Texas, Wisconsin, Maryland, Alabama and other states are dealing with increasing case numbers, according to newspaper reports.
Jean Stover, the executive director of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, said states face a backlog of cases for a variety of reasons. Stover said a lack of staffing or equipment or an increasing number of cases can be causes.
Opioid cases also may be a reason for the increase, and labs are having to take different safety approaches when handling fentanyl because it’s so dangerous. Labs have to have proper ventilation and analysts must wear protective clothing.
Stover said labs are also testing designer drugs such as bath salts and synthetic marijuana that may be more time consuming because more research and work are involved to analyze those substances.
COURTS
“It’s clogging up the system,” said attorney Janette McKinney. “It just delays in disposing of cases.”
McKinney said she has one client charged with drug crimes in separate cases, and she cannot resolve any of them because they’re waiting on results.
Benton County Prosecutor Nathan Smith agrees the delay makes it harder to process and resolve cases.
It also impacts district courts which mainly handles misdemeanor cases.
Jason Kelley, Bella Vista’s city attorney, said he’s seeing longer and longer backlogs.
“If there is an emergency, we can contact the lab and ask for something faster, but on district court misdemeanor cases that is hard to justify,” he said
Kelley said his dealings with the crime lab are invariably related to the testing of “green vegetable material” to verify it’s marijuana.
“It can take months for a result to come back,” he said. “Whenever a crime lab report is pending, it means necessary prosecution evidence is not available. Therefore, cases have to be continued until the reports are completed.”
Kelley said the situation bogs down the entire judicial process because they don’t know when to reset a case.
Cases may be reset multiple times until reports are ready, he said.
“Obviously, misdemeanor marijuana cases are not top priority at the lab, nor should they be, but with this added facility, it will mean we can move more cases more quickly,” Kelley said.
NEW CRIME LABORATORY
The state is opening a crime lab in Lowell next year and those involved with the judicial system hope it will shorten the turnaround for test results.
Moran said they are hiring people to staff the new laboratory, but they also have staff who will transfer to Northwest Arkansas.
The lab is expected to open March 1 next to the new state police troop headquarters being built west of the Interstate 49 intersection with Monroe Avenue. It may be one to two months before testing evidence begins. Moran said they have to move equipment into the lab and, because it’s accredited, they have to make sure they are following proper testing procedures.
The new lab will only handle testing for drugs and toxicology, she said. DNA and fingerprinting evidence will still be handled by the Little Rock lab.
A side benefit will be time saved by police and lab personnel who must travel between Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas.
“Having a crime lab here may speed up getting results, but it will also free up police officers from having to carry evidence to Little Rock,” Smith said.
Durrett agreed. Northwest Arkansas police have to burn manpower hours making trips to the Little Rock lab once every week or two, he said. “That eats up close to an entire day to do that,” he said.
Gene Page, a spokesman for the Bentonville Police Department, agrees it will be a time saver because an officer makes the seven-hour, round trip drive to Little Rock every three or four weeks.
The local laboratory will also be a time saver for analysts with the crime laboratory. Moran said analysts are out of the lab an entire day when they have to testify in Northwest Arkansas. She said it results in less time analyzing cases.
“We’re excited about this opportunity,” she said. “It will allow us to focus on the rest of the cases in the state. It will be a great service not only for Northwest Arkansas, but the entire state.”