Recent news reports included something troubling (as if that were a surprise).

There was an update on the unsolved hit and run death of a teenager from Turner one year ago. DNA evidence was collected from several suspect vehicles and sits in the State Police Crime Lab. It has not been analyzed yet and it waits behind hundreds of other pieces of evidence while criminals involved in those cases walk free.

It seems the current administration refuses to fill vacant positions and fund scientific equipment needed to resolve that backlog of heartache.

I understand how the game of politics is played, and the Democrats played it nastily when they were in power. It just seems that justice should not be one of the things held hostage to politics.

I think that before legislators pass the proposed pay raise (for themselves), they should fully fund the crime lab so victims and relatives could get closure to their private agony and start to move on.

I realize that getting DNA evidence in half an hour as represented in television programs is unrealistic, but a nine-month delay in even beginning, with little hope of beginning in the next 12 months, is justice delayed.

The longer any evidence sits, the more opportunity there is for mistakes or mischief.

Donald Prince, Turner