FORENSIC CHEMIST URGES BILL FOR CLOSED CONTAINER TESTING

When someone under the age of 21 is caught in possession of intoxicating beverages, police often seize the alcohol along with the young offender.

Then the law enforcement agency will send the liquor to the Southeast Missouri Regional Crime Lab for testing to prove to a court that what is in the can or bottle is as the container reads. This goes for open and sealed containers.

Pam Johnson, who has worked as a forensic chemist with the crime lab for nearly six years, thought that testing the sealed cans was wasting time that could be devoted to testing evidence from other, more serious cases.

"As I traveled to seminars and conventions across the country, talking to other forensic specialists, I learned that everyone was only testing the open cans or bottles," she said. "In fact, before the passage of the Missouri legislation this session, this state and Kansas were the only two in the country that were still testing sealed cans."

So Johnson contacted Rep. David Schwab, R-Jackson, and explained her dilemma.

"He (Schwab) thought the proposal was a common sense sort of thing," Johnson said. "He told me to get him some background information and he'd get to work on it."

Schwab originally offered the proposal in HB 1572, which would eliminate unnecessary testing by crime laboratories to determine whether unopened cans of beer or liquor are indeed what their labels advertise.

But Schwab was able to add the item as an amendment to another bill that now awaits Gov. Mel Carnahan's signature.

If signed, Johnson and other forensic chemists will not have to test sealed containers seized after Aug. 1. The courts will assume a sealed can of bear contains beer.

"If you buy the beer or whatever, you expect to find what the label advertises inside," Johnson said. "If there is not beer or liquor inside the can or bottle then the defendant probably has grounds for a civil suit against the company.

"It's when the containers are open that there is the risk of tampering or having something inside that isn't what the label advertises," she added. "Those are the ones -- the only ones -- we need to be testing."

Besides, Johnson said, in most trials in which she is called to testify, the question is not over what is inside the can, but which defendant the can belonged to.

"We get about 20-30 samples every week from all over Southeast Missouri," said Johnson. "Over half of them are sealed cans or bottles.

"It takes me the better part of a day to set up the machine and run the tests on the containers -- open and sealed," she said. "On top of that, we charge each department that sends us the sample one hour of lab time when we test it. If we get 15 samples in a week, that's 15 hours that could be better spent working on drug cases, fingerprints, arson cases, burglaries or just about anything else."

To test any container of liquid, Johnson has to open it, dilute the sample, add an internal standard and then allow a machine purchased with grant money to run its course.

"From the standard, we can tell the percentage of alcohol content in the sample," said Johnson. "We go through all of that to tell a judge or a jury that yes, there was beer in the sealed can that said it was beer."

Schwab's amendment included a passage to require a defendant to pay for the testing if he or she so desires such evidence for trial purposes.

"I guess I kind of got aggravated by testing closed containers all the time," said Johnson. "By not having to do that anymore, it will free up all kinds of time to do work for more serious crimes.

"We received evidence from about 250 cases this month alone," she added. "We only have three full-time people working here, so this bill could really take a load off our caseload."