MA state police crime lab facing backlogs on cases.

Two years ago, the State Police Crime Lab came under scrutiny after a state-ordered investigation revealed that more than 16,000 DNA samples, some dating back to the 1980s, were stacked in cold storage and had not been analyzed. That backlog, characterized by the state to be of “crisis proportions,’’ led to the firing or resignation of three lab employees, including the administrator and director.

In a shift, the lab, located in Maynard, no longer is focused on reducing that backlog to zero, officials said.

Since 2007, only 500 samples have been tested from the 16,000. Those samples - many of them connected to homicides and other deaths, sexual assaults, and property crimes - were tested only because district attorneys requested that they be analyzed. If no requests are made, the samples remain in cold storage.

If the statute of limitations is encroaching on a case, the lab will unilaterally analyze certain samples, said John Grossman, the Department of Public Safety’s undersecretary of forensic science and technology.


link:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/27/demand_for_dna_testing_outstrips_crime_lab_capacity/