JACKSON -- Often with a world-weary sigh, cops call the clichéd but widespread perception of crime-solving gizmos at every lawman's disposal "the CSI effect."

"People expect us to pull out tweezers and find that lucky hair in the corner," Jackson Police Chief Dan Zivkovich quipped about rising public expectations stemming from TV shows such as "CSI: Miami."

Noting how the "CSI effect" and crime lab delays can combine to foment perceptions, Zivkovich admitted the two factors can influence public confidence in the overall effectiveness of law enforcement.

"Before the TV show, you'd say: 'It's going to take a month to get this (evidence) back.' And they'd go, 'OK,' because they didn't know any better," Zivkovich said about how attitudes have changed since "CSI" went on the air and he began his career at Wyoming Highway Patrol three decades ago.

Not only is untainted crime-scene evidence often hard to recover and collect, but bad weather and other conditions, Zivkovich and other officials said, can wash away clues. Even given an evidence-rich scene, there's the dilemma of knowing what to do with it all while avoiding overkill in making a case.

"The question is," state crime lab director Steve Holloway said, "'What is needed to prove your case?' Say you've got a misdemeanor charge for someone having a pot pipe that's been submitted for fingerprinting. Because they had it in their mouth, (detectives) request DNA. We can do that. But I ask: 'Why? You've already got fingerprints.'"

Zivkovich, Teton County Sheriff Bob Zimmer, deputy Sgt. Slade Ross and Lt. Bob Mizel of the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office made it clear that their awareness of the state crime lab being stretched thin has made their agencies more discriminating about what they submit to Cheyenne.

But if greater selectivity of evidence for testing is one factor that local investigators can practice to reduce excess demand for DCI's specialized lab services, as far as delays and backlogs go they're hardly unique to Wyoming.

Nationwide, newspapers are reporting increasing, and often troubling, delays in laboratories producing results.

In Maryland, the Washington Post reported earlier this year, a judge let a suspect go free because the lab took too long getting DNA analyzed, even though the results suggested his guilt. In another case, a man was jailed for six months before DNA results proved his innocence.

In part, numerous officials said, the public appetite for police shows like "CSI" had changed not just individual perceptions; TV is also fueling jury expectations for 100 percent forensic certainty to render a conviction.

"What makes a good case has changed, but it's not just limited to DNA evidence," said Teton County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Brian Hultman. After 10 years of trying criminal cases, Hultman said he has noticed that jurors appreciate different kinds of physical evidence to support key witnesses. "Jurors want to see more evidence as opposed to more testimony."

Videotapes of police DUI stops, audio and other recordings of confessions and interrogations are becoming more critical to his success at trial, Hultman said.

"The existence of DNA technology can never be applied to every case ... for various reasons," he said. "Evidence wasn't there, no sample. But I think jurors appreciate that type of evidence. If it's a possibility to bring that kind of evidence, we try."

Old-fashioned police work

The whiz-bang, crime-solving ease depicted on forensic-intensive TV dramas can resemble cruel fantasies far from the slow, incremental and often frustrating daily slog of how police ordinarily work crime in the Cowboy State.

Delays in obtaining results on key evidence are forcing police to fall back on more traditional and time-consuming crime-solving methods and resources. When pressed, some lawmen admitted they're putting their less serious cases on the backburner.

"I'm sorry someone stole your birdcage," one harried detective said about his maxed-out caseload. "But I've got two unsolved homicides, three rapes, six burglaries, copper-wire snatchers and only four investigators, one who's a part-time civilian, the other's just come off ... surgery and isn't up to full-speed yet. So, we'll, you know, get to Grandma's favorite birdcage when we can."

About the lab delays, Zivkovich said the net effect "does have an impact. Not only does it affect solving; it also affects what direction you go in eliminating or including suspects."

Utilizing investigative tools and available assets, over the last two years Jackson police have solved numerous sexual assault cases, a child prostitution ring and an arson investigation.

Zivkovich, Mizel and Ross said investigators can't always count on a single piece of trace evidence or DNA to break a case. So they're also relying on public outreach; Spanish-speaking officers canvassing Hispanic communities; interviewing informants and witnesses they might have otherwise overlooked; responsive media campaigns with computer-generated images of suspects; canvassing neighborhoods door to door; undercover surveillance; and novel interrogation tactics.

In one high-profile and seemingly unsolvable rape case, authorities combined strong physical evidence, eyewitnesses, numerous informants, and good relations with state, federal and international agencies to secure the extradition of two suspects from Mexico who had fled the United States two years earlier.

But often time and nature can conspire to erase eyewitness memories and fragile clues from a crime scene.

Last winter, Mizel took over the highly publicized homicide investigation of snowboarder Benjamin Bradley -- an 11-month-old unsolved mystery he said had gone cold but not hopeless when he inherited it.

Bradley was hitchhiking from Colorado to Jackson when he vanished near Rock Springs two days before his 29th birthday in June 2006. Nearly four months later, sightseers discovered his body in the sand and wind-swept Red Desert.

Recent negative analysis on cigarette butts collected near his remains, which Mizel said in July a private lab had received three months earlier, did not dim his hopes of eventually busting Bradley's killer. Last month, the supervising investigator said his team still hoped to catch a break on analysis of Bradley's clothing submitted to the state crime lab in March.

Statistically, however, detectives say they know most crimes are solved sooner rather than later.

To give law enforcement more options when they need it, Sweetwater and other counties have line items in their budgets to outsource forensic tests that the state lab is either unequipped or not able to complete within a needed time frame.

For such unusual procedures as screening accelerants in arson investigations, creating profiles on unique drugs, and finding element parts per billion in environmental crime cases, Zivkovich said it was sometimes necessary to use private labs with specialized equipment and in-house experts.

But the Bradley investigation highlighted a suspicion shared by authorities statewide in cases where violent suspects are not immediately identified and arrested: Do long waits for forensic results imply that some criminals are getting a big jump on fleeing justice?

Read Tuesday's Casper Star-Tribune for more on the issue.