The state has tapped the director of the Massachusetts forensic laboratory to run Connecticut’s troubled crime lab, which has struggled under one of the country’s biggest backlogs of crime-scene cases.
Guy Vallaro’s appointment follows several key reforms at the lab, which, at its lowest point last year, lost both its accreditation and its ability to post DNA profiles of Connecticut offenders on the FBI’s national data bank. That is one of the major functions of any crime lab. The Courant reported in November that as the backlog of DNA cases grew, the lab’s top two DNA scientists built up large amounts of compensatory time and used it do consulting work for private clients out of state.
Vallaro, who will begin Dec. 28, was selected after a national search, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Reuben Bradford, commissioner of Emergency Services and Public Protection, announced in a press release Monday.
Vallaro, with a doctorate in pharmaceutical sciences and toxicology, said in the news release that his first priority will be to reduce the logjam of crime-scene cases from throughout the state that are awaiting DNA testing. In many instances, felony investigations have been delayed because key evidence is sitting at the lab
Malloy said Vallaro’s appointment here follows “a decade of neglect” at the Connecticut forensic center. Once the province of Henry Lee, one of the nation’s foremost forensic scientists, the lab has staggered under rising caseloads, a lack of funding, a staff shortage, and an absence of direction.
“Dr. Vallaro is the perfect leader to restore our lab to what it once was: the envy of the nation,” Malloy said in the statement.
Vallaro directed the state police crime laboratory in Massachusetts. That lab recently took over a health department lab in the Bay state that had been tainted by the transgressions of a chemist who worked on drug cases for municipal police departments. After the scandal broke earlier this year, Gov. Deval Patrick merged the health department lab into the Massachusetts state police crime lab.
Since last summer, the Connecticut lab has been bolstered by additional staff, a reorganization of management, and new case-processing protocols. Fifteen technicians whose federally funded salaries were about to expire have been made state employees; 19 new staff members have been hired; and 14 more will be hired over the next year.
New rules that reduce the amount of evidence that police departments can submit to the lab has slowed the flood of new cases by more than 40 percent since January.
The lab’s accreditation was restored in February, as was its ability to post DNA profiles nationally.
Once part of the state police chain of command, the crime lab now functions independently, and Vallaro will have the authority of a deputy commissioner. He’ll report directly to Bradford, instead of a police major and the colonel. His appointment means that for the first time since Lee, the lab director in Connecticut will be a doctorate-level scientist.
Michael Lawlor, Malloy’s chief of criminal justice planning, led a panel of experts that recommended the reforms.
“There’s a national consensus that a crime lab’s independence from any police agency is important to its credibility,” said Lawlor.
Bradford said Vallaro is a “seasoned senior-level laboratory executive” with the experience needed to confront any remaining problems at the Connecticut lab. Vallaro was chosen by a search committee that included Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, Karen Goodrow, director of the Connecticut Innocence Project, and Nora Dannehy, the deputy state attorney general and a former federal prosecutor.
“We looked at very good group of applicants and he was the best,” said Kane. “He’s a respected scientist, but, more importantly, he’s a proven manager and a priority and policy setter.”
JOSH KOVNER, Hartford Courant