Medical examiners and coroners’ offices around the state, including Clark County’s, are seeing longer wait times for results on toxicology screenings from state crime labs, which is slowing investigations, the Clark County medical examiner said.
Clark County Medical Examiner Dr. David Wickham said his office, which frequently sends samples to the toxicology lab in Seattle, started noticing growing wait times in the middle of last year.
Wickham is also a member of the Forensic Investigations Council, which oversees the state’s crime labs, or Bureau of Forensic Laboratory Services.
The workload for the scientists at the toxicology lab has increased dramatically, and much of it, he said, appears to come from the rise in impaired driving cases opened after recreational marijuana was legalized. The system is straining under the workload.
“The number of cases has gotten to the point it’s broken,” he said, and it’ll take a significant increase in staffing at the lab to address the growing backlog of tests.
In 2017, the lab processed almost 16,000 cases, a 47 percent increase from 2012, Washington State Patrol spokesman Kyle Moore said.
Many of those were impaired driving cases. The lab handled 7,000 cases in 2015, and about 9,700 last year.
By the lab’s reckoning, Moore said, the median turnaround time for toxicology test samples went from 18 days in 2015 to more than 46 days in 2017.
Wickham said he wasn’t sure how the crime lab measures their turnaround time, but on his office’s end, many tests seem to be taking significantly longer.
“Usually we’re right up against 90 days, or over 90 days,” he said.
The increasing workload comes with a growing amount of ancillary work. Specifically, there has been a rise in the number of legal discovery requests made to the lab. Many of those are likely for attorneys in DUI cases, Wickham said.
In 2015, the lab received 216 requests for records from attorneys, according to information provided to Wickham through the Forensic Investigations Council. That number more than tripled by 2017.
The raw output of pages of documents has grown as well, from more than 1 million in 2015 to almost 5.6 million pages last year.
“All of that has increased a huge amount,” Wickham said.
Moore said the toxicology lab has 18 scientists on staff, with a budget for 27 total full-time employee positions.
The lab’s 2017-2019 budget was set at about $7.4 million. Moore said the state patrol and Forensic Investigations Council are trying to secure funding for additional scientists at the toxicology lab.
The lab needs the help, Wickham said.
He estimated the toxicology lab needs nine more analysts, at least one more supervisor, and more help on the office side.
“It’s important that our legislators understand what’s going on,” he said.
Waiting on toxicology results means investigations take longer, he explained.
The wait could mean it takes longer for families to get a final word on how a loved one died, or they’ll have to spend more time dealing with insurers and getting estates in order.
Occasionally, Wickham said, a cause of death might seem clear, then his office will get a test back and get totally new information, meaning they have to return to the investigation after a long wait, dramatically increasing how long it takes.
“What’s that do to families?” he said. “Everything the lab does impacts not just law enforcement and us, trying to do our jobs, it also impacts the family members of the decedents and those who are victims of crime.”
