<p>A backlog at Georgia's crime labs that's slowed the pace of some murder and rape investigations will be nearly eliminated by this summer as the lab has hired new scientists and technicians, some drawn to the field by the hit television show, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."</p><p>However, the state also has eased the backlog by outsourcing thousands of rape and toxicology cases to out-of-state labs for testing, a move prosecutors and defense lawyers question.</p><p>"It's very important for a defense attorney to sit down with a lab technician and talk with them and go over the results," said Michael Mears, director the Georgia Public Defenders Standards Council. "We have concerns that some of these labs are so far away that it will make it impractical."</p><p>The state's decision to outsource crime lab work could end up being costly if experts from faraway labs have to be flown in for testimony or depositions, Mears said.</p><p>Pete Skandalakis, district attorney in the Coweta Judicial Circuit, agreed that the outsourcing could create what he called "witness problems."</p><p>"It concerns me that we have to farm out our cases," Skandalakis said.</p><p>State lab officials said they have been working to ease those worries by avoiding outsourcing any tests in those cases that are most likely to go to trial.</p><p>The state has spent about $1.5 million to send out some 7,000 cases to Louisiana, Virginia and elsewhere for crime lab work. That price tag is expected to grow as the state absorbs the cost of flying in witnesses from for trials.</p><p>But Dan Kirk, who runs the forensic sciences division of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said a shortage of lab staff combined with new laws boosting the caseload made outsourcing necessary if the lab was ever going to catch up.</p><p>Four months ago, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's eight crime labs _ which handle the bulk of the state's forensic analysis _ were buried under 7,309 cases. The labs had been understaffed as the GBI, along with other state agencies, coped with budget cuts.</p><p>"It got pretty bad," said Stephen Kelly, district attorney for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit and president of the Georgia District Attorneys Association.</p><p>Kelly said in his five-county district in southeast Georgia the prosecution of two child killings were delayed _ one for up to a year _ because of tardy autopsy reports from the overburdened crime lab.</p><p>Skanadlakis said in his jurisdiction, southwest of Atlanta, the impact has been the greatest in rape and child molestation cases, creating delays in arresting suspects and presenting evidence to a grand jury.</p><p>"It's very hard for these victims," he said.</p><p>Over the past two years, the state's crimes labs has been able to fill 265 of its 280 positions, Kirk said. But while the lab is almost fully staffed again, it continues to deal with a growing caseload, spurred in large part by new laws requiring DNA testing for thousands of felons in Georgia jails. That testing cross-checks the DNA of convicted felons against DNA samples from open cases, many semen or other physical evidence from rapes.</p><p>So far, lab officials have made 449 matches in Georgia and another 112 out of state. It is unknown how many of those matches have led to prosecutions.</p><p>Kirk said the program has been successful, but the additional workload and retaining lab workers has been a challenge.</p><p>In recent weeks, he lost three senior members of his forensic biology team to the U.S. Army's crime lab at Fort Gillem, where the salaries are more generous. The brain drain _ a persistent problem for the state labs because of comparatively low salaries _ could slow the pace of the lab's recovery, Kirk said.</p><p>Kirk said that the popularity of television shows like CSI and its spinoffs has helped as more people are entering careers in forensic science.</p><p>But he said there is a downside as well.</p><p>Jurors accustomed to seeing cases solved between commercial breaks on television sometimes have unrealistic expectations about what forensic science is really capable of doing, Kirk said.</p><p>______</p><p>On The Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1ce078c)</p>
