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New DNA lab could speed crime solving

Pinellas’ medical examiner has asked the County Commission for nearly $1-million to get a local DNA lab running.

By WILL VAN SANT
Published May 27, 2006

Pinellas County’s chief medical sleuth wants to establish a publicly funded DNA laboratory at his Largo headquarters.

Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin believes a local lab could process DNA evidence faster than the swamped Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab in Tampa, which has a turnaround time of 169 days.

The swifter lab would put the most powerful advance in forensic crime fighting since police started taking fingerprints a century ago within closer reach of local law enforcement.

“DNA is a better way of searching for the truth than any tool we have right now,” Thogmartin said. “All you got to do is sneeze at a crime scene, leave a drop of blood, use the restroom, get all sweaty. It’s powerful stuff.”

Thogmartin has asked the County Commission to give him nearly $1-million in next year’s budget to get the DNA lab running.

Just over $500,000 of that would pay for the thermal cyclers, centrifuges, genetic analyzers and other specialized equipment used in DNA crime labs.

The rest would cover building modifications and the hiring of a lab technical leader, a DNA analyst and a clerical assistant.

A second round of funding would be needed in 2008, Thogmartin said. Between $700,000 and $800,000 would be needed to purchase lab supplies — swabs, pipettes, ampules — and to hire another DNA analyst.

During the two-year startup phase, the lab would need to gain accreditation from the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors.

Once operational, annual costs would depend on the lab’s ambitions. Thogmartin said a yearly budget of around $1-million would cover high-priority cases. The figure could be as much as $10-million if lab services became a linchpin of more routine casework.

“It will eat every dollar that you throw at it,” Thogmartin said.

The County Commission makes its final budget decisions in September. For now, the lab proposal enjoys support.
“I think it’s going to make for better law enforcement,” commission chairman Ken Welch said. “DNA certainly increases the certainty that you are putting the right people in jail.”

Most law enforcement agencies in the state get their DNA work done at one of five FDLE-run labs. Pinellas sends its evidence to the Tampa lab, which also serves Citrus, Sumter, Hernando, Pasco, Hillsborough, Polk and Hardy counties.

Thogmartin admits the goal is ambitious but hopes his lab will have turnaround times of as little as 30 days, more than five times as fast as what the Tampa lab manages.

That reduction could mean savings that offset the lab’s cost.

Quicker analysis allows cases to move more swiftly through the court system, allows plea deals to be struck sooner and reduces the time a suspect is held in custody.

Pinellas Public Defender Bob Dillinger estimated 300 inmates are at the county jail whose cases are in limbo until DNA analysis gives his office and prosecutors direction on how to proceed with a case.

“When you are talking $80 a day to incarcerate someone, that starts to add up to real money,” he said.

The state does not cover the public defender’s costs for DNA work. A few times a month, Dillinger has to pay a private lab between $1,500 and $2,500 to analyze evidence.

Pinellas’ State Attorney’s Office gets its DNA work done free at the Tampa lab. As long as that’s the case with Thogmartin’s lab, too, State Attorney Bernie McCabe backs the medical examiner’s plan.

Although a final decision has not been made, the goal is for the lab to provide DNA analysis to ap­pro­priate agencies free of charge.

“It’s a good idea,” McCabe said. “I’m confident that we have enough DNA business to keep a local lab busy.”

[Last modified May 27, 2006, 22:32:50]