An appetite for evidence

Prosecutor Morley Swingle is involved in a case that hangs by a hair. The case is about a Columbia police officer who was allegedly having an affair with a male college student. The student was found dead, his body naked with the exception of his undershorts. The victim's throat was slashed, and the police officer was charged with the murder.

There were no witnesses to the crime, but the police officer's DNA puts him at the crime scene.

A hair matching the police officer was found on the victim's chest.

In this case, where Swingle is working as an appointed special prosecutor, a phenomenon known as "the CSI effect" will work in the prosecution's favor.

Jurors, many of whom may watch the three "CSI" television dramas per week, will be familiar with what DNA is and how investigators collect evidence. The science behind the evidence likely won't confuse a jury as it may have done 10 years ago.

But there's a flip side to Hollywood's popular depiction of crime solving. Juries, many lawyers say, are expecting science to prove guilt in more and more cases.

"Jurors expect more scientific evidence," Swingle said. "Let's say there's a domestic assault and the victim points to the person and said, 'That's the guy who hit me.' That might not be enough these days. They expect the bells and whistles of fancy scientific evidence."

Pamela Johnson, the director of the SEMO Regional Crime Laboratory in Cape Girardeau, said her daughters don't let her watch "CSI" with them anymore because she picks out so many flaws in the investigating or the storytelling.

Johnson's workplace looks nothing like the contemporary lab where Gil Grissom follows the evidence in the original "CSI" series, set in Las Vegas. The lab on Ellis Street in Cape Girardeau is lit with fluorescents, not the cool, blue glow of accent lighting. The walls in Cape Girardeau's lab are bland like that of a tiny hospital. Johnson speaks with a typical cadence and meter, unlike the dramatic and suave delivery of David Caruso on "CSI: Miami."

As Jay Stuart leans over the microscope checking for gunshot residue in the Cape Girardeau lab, no hip tune is rocking in the background. He's just a guy. And it's just a microscope.

But the local crime lab can do many of the things that are shown on the television shows. The lab can't currently process DNA results, but it is close to getting that portion of the lab back online after the DNA technician left not long ago, Johnson said.

Other than that, the lab can process fingerprints, work arson cases and produce toxicology (drug) and serology (blood) results.

Johnson said the television shows, though not accurate in the way the investigators are involved in the scientific process, don't affect her job.

But credibility has come into play among crime labs nationwide. Much like the profession of journalism, many labs were called into question in recent years when evidence was fabricated. Now, there is a trend to reach certain accreditation standards.

Some states require crime labs to be approved by the American Society of Criminal Laboratory Directors and the Laboratory Accreditation Board. About half of all crime labs are accredited.

Though official accreditation is not required in Missouri, the regional crime lab is working toward that goal. Johnson said she hopes to have the status in a couple of years.

"It'll take that long just from the sheer volume of paperwork we have to generate," she said. Along with credibility, the U.S. government is pushing accreditation, she said, as federal grant money for equipment is being tied to accreditation.

The accreditation simply means a formal checks-and-balances system is in place and has been reviewed by the proper authorities.

"Most labs are already doing that anyway," she said. "And even if you are accredited, you can have a scientist who if he wanted to go out and do something on purpose could do it. It's just he's more likely to get caught."

About 60 percent of the work done in the Cape Girardeau lab involves identifying drugs.

But occasionally, the lab processes a dramatic clue. For instance, not long ago the regional crime lab found DNA on a glove and was able to solve a year-old cold case in Perryville, Mo.

A warmer attitude

Steve Wilson, a defense lawyer in Cape Girardeau, said the feeling toward police officers' and investigators' credibility is warmer here than in other places.

In Cape Girardeau, he said, defense attorneys ask potential jurors if they will believe any testimony just because it comes from a police officer. In St. Louis, prosecuting attorneys ask potential jurors if they won't believe any testimony just because it comes from an officer.

Wilson said he hasn't seen the CSI effect come into play in any of his cases. He said the credibility issue doesn't come into play here. However, there was one case in which the prosecution tried to use DNA to say that two men smoked from the same cigarettes. Wilson questioned the procedures, saying the investigator collected the cigarettes in the same envelope, meaning the DNA could have transferred from one cigarette to another.

Wilson and Swingle disagree on one central issue. Swingle says eyewitnesses to a crime should be enough for a conviction and that collecting scientific evidence for certain "ordinary" cases would be a waste of taxpayer money.

Wilson, on the other hand, says he believes juries put "too much faith in eyewitness identification." He said the numerous cases where DNA has exonerated the convicted suggests as much.

"If the burden of proof is on the prosecution, then why not unleash everything you've got in order to prove it?" Wilson said. "Why not do it if it proves the case at the risk of some juror thinking you didn't put on the evidence because it didn't help the case?"

bmiller@semissourian.com

243-6635