Can you collect too much physical evidence?

In a recent posting to their blog on the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) poses an interesting question. Can and do police detectives and crime scene investigators collect too much physical evidence? The contention is that overzealous evidence collection leads to backlogs at the crime lab.

In the article titled Investigating the Future of Forensics the author talks about the issues with the so called “CSI Effect” and attempts by investigators to preemptively react to a jury expecting physical evidence. But anyone who has studied the “CSI effect” knows that there is some contradictory research as to to what extent it does effect jury decisions.

At a crime scene you often times do not know what will have evidence value and what will not. I always say “when in doubt, bag it”. Then there is the issue of younger officers wanting to appear competent to victims and/or supervisors who collect everything. This according to Washington DC Crime Lab manager Max Houck leads to backlogs of casses.

A backlog by the way is any evidence submitted for testing that has not been tested in 30 days. Max Houck also talks about how backlogs will stretch resources out. While the article does not mention what resources are stretched it can be assumed he is talking about payroll budgets due to overtime, equipment maintenance, or capital funds to buy new equipment. This leads to a great quote “You have to triage — let’s look at the things that make the most sense and answer the questions”.

I don’t want to brag or anything but here in Wisconsin evidence triage is the normal thing now. Triage is a word used to describe establishing levels of importance.

Last year the Wisconsin crime lab moved to a system where only a limited number of items of physical evidence can be submitted to the lab per case at a time. If after these items are tested then a second set of that same number of items can be sent. The lab will in effect still test everything a police department sends. The difference is now the case is not taken in as one big lump sum. Now only small batches at a time.

Truth be told as an investigator I never need every item of physical evidence tested. I only need a few specific items of importance tested. So this triage system helps investigators to truly think about the case, pick the important items and send these items off for testing. If additional items still need testing, it can still be done. If nothing more needs testing then by not sending it to the lab I have kept their backlog down.

It is Win / Win for everyone.