Because of the ridiculous way loony Oregon decides which services deserve funding and which services don't when it comes to money crunch time (which is most of the time in loony Oregon), one of Oregon's most important services, the Oregon State Crime Lab, can be expected to cut employees if measure 30 doesn't pass. Of course, even if Measure 30 passes the Oregon State Crime Lab is still way short of the people needed to do its job properly.
In two of my previous posts I've written about crime labs, their problems, their lack of funding and other issues that seem to plague crime labs. The posts follow:
Post number one:
Inside the DNA Labs - Rocked by allegations of deceit, misconduct and incompetence, DNA crime labs across the nation increasingly are finding themselves under both federal and state criminal investigations. Even the FBI's DNA crime lab is under scrutiny by Justice Department Inspector General (IG) Glenn Fine, who ordered a sweeping audit of the bureau's forensic laboratory. But Fine didn't stop there. He was so incensed by the bad science infecting crime labs nationwide that he expanded his probe to review several local police DNA crime labs where errors may have jeopardized thousands of cases and sent innocent people to death row.
Post number two:
According to the news report Caseload Crunch, the laboratory that conducts tests for all of Kentucky's criminal courts is struggling with a record backlog of 10,000 cases.Sounds like the laboratory employees are way overworked, under appreciated, and not given enough resources by the state of Kentucky to do the job the way it should be done.
Of course, in most states public defenders also have the same problems.
Apparently crime labs and public defenders are not seen as important parts of the justice system. Too bad, because when crime labs and public defenders are not given the resources to do the job, there really is no "justice" in the justice system.
One of the reasons I'm bringing up the crime lab situation in Oregon is because of an amazing case that was solved by some very good detectives who actually believe in gathering evidence, the Oregon State Crime Lab, the help of some federal agencies, and Norm Frink of the Multnomah County DA's Office actually not being given a chance to blow this case with his usual inept prosecutorial blunders.
Here in loony, homophobic, racist Washington County, Oregon there is also a team of forensics experts but I don't know their status mostly because retired sheriff Jim Spinden spent a lot of his time running around trying to solve non-existent crimes committed by the "international homosexual Satanic Ritual Abuse gang", the "Illuminati gang", the "International Jewish Conspiracy gang", the Conspiracy's many allies, and the "intergalactic space aliens who abduct innocent bystanding Washington County residents". All these horrible non-existent crimes were pointed out to Jim Spinden by his super duper, master Aryan race buddy and intrepid ex-Multnomah County Prosecutor, Roger Weidner.
Emma at the Oregon blog has her opinion about spending and budgets and how Oregon might pay for needed services.
Posted by John at January 20, 2004 10:24 PM | TrackBackNOTE: I've got better things to do than erase the childish, immature, psychotic, obscene comments from looney Roger Weidner and his gang of illiterate morons, so just put your opinions at the Johnhays.net Forum.