MSP drug lab delayed; suspects walk

LANSING, Mich. (WOOD) - Long delays in getting blood test results from the Michigan State Police Crime Laboratory in Lansing have led judges and prosecutors to dismiss about a dozen cases against suspects accused of driving on drugs, Kent County prosecutors told Target 8.

The tests are taking an average of 11 months -- up from about three months just two or three years ago, the state police said.

"It's wasting the court's time. It's wasting our time because we're going to dismiss it six months down the road because we still don't have blood tests," Kent County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Chris Becker told Target 8 on Thursday.

"We're in a situation where we're adjourning pre-trial conferences three or four times because we don't have the labs," Becker said. "We don't know. Is there going to be drugs? Is there not going to be drugs? What are the results going to be?"

The delays have gotten so bad that prosecutors this summer told Kent County Sheriff's deputies to stop writing tickets for driving under the influence of drugs.

"If they get a suspicious drugged driver, they're not writing a ticket," Becker said. "They're just catching and releasing them pending blood results. ...  We say, 'Bring those down here, we're going to deny them right off the bat pending lab tests.'"

If the results are positive, it could lead to a warrant perhaps a year after the traffic stop, he said.

The backlog was good news for a 53-year-old Grant man who was ticketed by Kent County sheriff's department after a traffic stop in August 2011. He was released pending blood-alcohol results.

In March, 63rd District Judge Steven Servaas issued a court order demanding that MSP produce test results.

"Failure to provide the toxicology results within 45 days of the date of this order shall result in the dismissal," Servaas wrote.

In May, without those results, the judge dismissed the case with prejudice, which means the charge cannot be refiled.

Finally, just last month -- five months after the dismissal -- the results came back positive for marijuana, oxycodone, methadone and zolpidem (a drug used in sleeping pills).

Becker said defendants are entitled to speedy trials, and the delays aren't allowing that.

"After a year, are witnesses going to be able to remember? It's a due process issue," he said.

"It shouldn't take a year to test blood," he added. "If you're getting alcohol-blood testing done within two to three weeks, drugs should be the same."

Michigan State Police officials say they weren't aware that Kent County had been dismissing cases until Target 8 told them on Thursday.

They were trying to learn more about the case involving the 53-year-old Grant man, including whether the state police ever got the court order demanding results.

"If there were a court order involved, I can assure you that we would have expedited the testing on the case," said Michigan State Police Toxicology Unit Supervisor Geoffrey French.

He said prosecutors often call his lab and ask to hurry the tests. It's not clear whether that happened in the Kent County cases.

"If there's a particular case that's coming up for trial, or if it's a fatal accident or a high-profile case in general, we can push that to the front of the line," French said.

French said the toxicology lab in Lansing handles 16,000 blood samples a year. All are tested for alcohol; about 6,000 of those are also tested for drugs.

Drug tests, he said, are far more complicated than alcohol tests. While the lab can perform 65 blood-alcohol tests a day, it takes a scientist 10 working days to finish a batch of 40 drug tests, French said.

He blamed the delays on staff reductions and the loss of his most experienced scientists.

Several years ago, the toxicology lab had 16 employees, including a dozen scientists, two lab technicians and two supervisors. Now, it's down to 13, with 11 scientists, one lab tech and a single supervisor. Not all the scientists are fully trained, he said.

"I'm not happy about it," French said. "It does cause me to have sleepless nights at times, but I can assure you we were doing everything in our power to help alleviate that backlog."

But, he said, there is no easy fix. Even if they added scientists, it takes several years to train them, he said.

"It's not something we can fix overnight," he said. "It's something that's going to take several months and possibly years to get back to the backlog levels that we used to have."