The Boulder County Sheriff's Department is no longer using the state’s lab for DNA analysis, citing the year-and-a-half backlog for rape kit testing results, and concerns about mismanagement within the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
“I'm just not confident in their work,” said Sheriff Curtis Johnson. He told CPR News he made the decision to contract with the Jefferson County Regional Lab in Golden instead.
The Sheriff’s Department has about 14 investigators and handles cases in unincorporated Boulder County and the towns of Superior, Lyons and Nederland.
“Our move to the Jefferson County Lab is the right thing for people who have been victimized because ultimately we want to provide them timely justice with good evidence,” said Johnson.
However, that switch comes at the cost of additional county dollars, because unlike the CBI lab, which is state-funded, law enforcement agencies must pay dues to use the Jefferson County regional lab. Boulder County Commissioners recently approved spending $100,000 for the new annual contract. Other law enforcement agencies in the county, including the police department for the city of Boulder, are not switching over for the time being.
“We have eight other law enforcement agencies in Boulder County who are not going to be able to make the move as easily as the Sheriff's office has, in terms of the financial impact,” said Boulder County DA Michael Dougherty who supports the Sheriff’s decision.
Dougherty said he learned of CBI’s rape kit backlog in late fall from the county’s sex crimes unit deputy. She told him the turn-around time for a kit was averaging a year and a half.
“That is outrageous. It was shocking to me. I actually didn't believe the email when I first got it,” he said. “My response was, ‘What are you talking about? 530 days?’ I mean, think about how long that is, especially to a victim, a survivor of a sex assault who's been traumatized and who is waiting for justice to be done.”
A CBI spokesman said they respect and understand Boulder County’s decision. They’ve publicly said the backlog is unacceptable and that they’re ramping up staffing and bringing in an outside firm to investigate “where did we screw up?” as CBI Director Chris Schaefer put it.
The Jefferson County Regional Crime Laboratory declined to comment on the new contract with Boulder or the delays at the CBI lab.
CBI’s backlog for rape kit testing came to light in a very public way in January during a joint hearing of the House and Senate Judiciary committees. CBI officials testified that the already-long backlog doubled in the last year, in part because of the discovery that former CBI forensic scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods allegedly manipulated more than a thousand DNA test results in criminal cases. Woods faces more than 100 criminal charges; a preliminary hearing in her case is scheduled for Thursday.
During the hearing, Director Schaefer told lawmakers the Woods situation basically took half of CBI’s DNA scientists out of commission while they reviewed her cases, leaving new cases to pile up. The hearing shocked lawmakers in both parties who were mostly learning of the scope of the situation for the first time.
Democratic Rep. Jenny Willford has also kept the issue at the forefront at the Capitol and elevated the impact delayed DNA results have on victims. Willford said she was raped by a Lyft driver in Thornton a year ago and is still waiting for the DNA analysis from CBI.
“I feel like I'm walking through a nightmare every day, that I have this little cloud that follows me around reminding me that I don't have answers and I don't have justice,” she recently told her colleagues on the House floor.
Willford said the lack of DNA evidence has meant the police investigation in her case isn’t complete and her assailant is not yet facing charges.
“I've had panic attacks sitting in the post office parking lot because I saw a car that looked like his car. I have frozen, and stood still in grocery store aisles because I saw someone that looked like him,” she said.
Boulder DA Dougherty has no inside knowledge of Willford’s case but said it’s fairly common for prosecutors in sexual assault cases to wait for the DNA analysis to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to file criminal charges.
“In every investigation, the prosecutor has the ethical duty of determining, do we have enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, not just probable cause for the arrest,” said Dougherty.
For Boulder County, the concerns with CBI are also rooted in Woods, who is charged with allegedly deleting data, tampering with or skipping steps in DNA testing, and misreporting findings over decades. That could mean some people are sitting behind bars wrongfully convicted based on Woods’ inaccurate or falsified DNA analysis.
It could also mean others are getting lighter than expected sentences. Sheriff Johnson points to a triple homicide that was being re-tried in Boulder County; because of concerns about Woods’ handling of DNA evidence, prosecutors offered a plea deal instead.
“The resulting sentence was significantly less than what you would expect for someone who was pleading guilty to killing three people in our community,” said Johnson.
Johnson said it’s worth it for public safety reasons to use county funds to switch testing labs. He said he won’t consider sending Boulder County’s DNA evidence to the CBI in the future unless he sees some real accountability.
“Until they can demonstrate that they have systems in place to make sure that they are properly handling evidence and analyzing it within the standards that are set… until I have confidence that it's working appropriately, I will continue to partner with Jefferson County,” he said.
