Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says it’s unacceptable that it takes 125 days for the state to give prosecutors DNA results from evidence at crime scenes. “It is literally life and death,” DeWine tells the Columbus Dispatch. DeWine, a former county prosecutor and U.S. senator, campaigned hard on a promise to improve the crime lab, which is under his office’s control.
He named a new director of the lab’s parent agency, Tom Stickrath, and he is combining an infusion of new money, personnel, and technology with a reshuffling of procedures that DeWine said could dramatically cut the turnaround time. A goal is to reduce the days needed for DNA testing to 35 from 125, a 72 percent decrease.