WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC-Blood work backlog is letting drunk drivers off, prosecutors say

Blood work backlog is letting drunk drivers off, prosecutors say

The Attorney General's office says demand is up thirty percent.  Its state crime labs received 5,000 blood drug and alcohol cases last year, but this year have received 7,500.  It says it has approximately 250 toxicology cases that are more than a year old.  That's around six percent of its entire case load. 

The office also says it takes an average of five months for those blood tests to come back. 

But prosecutors we talked with say five months is unusual.  They say they're being forced to continue cases and even let some drunk drivers walk simply because blood work isn't yet back.

"The biggest problem is the delay in getting the lab work back," said Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell.  "It clogs up the courts because cases keep getting continued.  We have to put that case on every few months just to see we have the blood work back."

He says he thinks the bottleneck is only going to get worse.

"We want to prosecute drunk drivers," Bell says.  "We want to get them off the streets and when we are waiting for a lab report to come, it's frustrating."

As one example in Bell's county, you have Crystal Pence.  Her blood work finally come back -- 13 months after she was charged.  Pence now has a trial in a few weeks.

In a Mecklenburg County example, Isaiah Fisher was pulled over October 26th, 2008.  He finally went to court Tuesday.  His bloodwork wasn't brought forth in court.  Despite that, he pled guilty. 

A case in Union County would be one year old on the day we aired this story, November 5th, 2009.  But in the report itself, it says the case was dropped simply because the blood work wasn't back.

"It's becoming more and more frequent that cases are being dismissed," says Kimberly Overton.  She's the chief resource prosecutor who represents all District Attorneys across the state.  We went to Raleigh to interview her.

"I'm frustrated," she says.  "Frustrated and afraid for people who drive on our roadways.  And for victims that are in those cases, who are having those cases continued month after month after month because we don't have the results we need."

The Attorney General's office says staffing was recently doubled in its Raleigh lab. 

Click the red camcorder to see the full report.