Fulfilling the Promise of DNA Technology
President’s DNA Initiative Brings Hope of Crime Lab
Funding, Backlog Resolution
By Kelly M. Pyrek
While the promise of DNA technology has long been understood in the lab and
in the courtroom, it has only been recently that lawmakers are recognizing DNA’s
impact on criminal investigations and criminal justice, and endeavoring to empower
the entities that can harness and use the power DNA affords in the solving of
rapes, homicides and other violent crimes.
To this end, President Bush has endorsed a significant DNA initiative, “Advancing
Justice Through DNA Technology,” that is slowly earning bi-partisan support
in the House and Senate of the 108th Congress. The President’s DNA Initiative,
announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft on March 11, 2003, proposes a financial
commitment of $232.6 million for DNA-related purposes for fiscal years 2004
through 2008.
According to Sarah Hart, director of the National Institute of Justice, the
initiative proposes six areas of improvement and funding:
- DNA backlog elimination: $92.9 million to assist in the clearing of backlogs
of unanalyzed crime-scene DNA samples and offender DNA samples
- Strengthening crime lab capacity: $90.4 million to increase forensic laboratory
capacity at the state and local levels for DNA analysis, for federal DNA lab
programs, and to operate and improve the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS)
- Research and development: $24.8 million for DNA-related research and development
- Training: $17.5 million for training in the collection, handling and use
of DNA evidence for law enforcement and medical personnel
- Postconviction DNA testing: $5 million to defray costs of postconviction
DNA testing in state systems
- Missing persons identification: $2 million to promote the use of DNA technology
to identify missing persons
Paul Ferrara, PhD, director of the Virginia Division of Forensic Science and
a member of Ashcroft’s Working Group on DNA Laboratory Analysis Backlog Reduction,
was one of a handful of influential forensic science and criminal justice experts
who made their case for greater funding in front of the Subcommittee on Crime,
Terrorism and Homeland Security of the Senate Judiciary Committee this past
July. “For all of (DNA’s) promise, our forensic science laboratories today face
a crisis of increasing demands and reduced resources that threatens the full
potential of this marvelous technology,” Ferrara emphasized in his testimony.
“Physical evidence that potentially can quickly establish the identity and guilt
or innocence of a suspect languishes in a police property room or in forensic
laboratory evidence storage for months or years waiting until a highly trained
and qualified analyst even opens the evidence containers.” Ferrara pointed to
a number of cases in which incomplete or delayed forensic analysis and implementation
severely impacted open cases, and said that the successful use of DNA technology
and databanks — particularly in the critical early stages of a criminal investigation
— depended upon the presence of a sophisticated and secure data processing system
that allows searching of DNA profiles within a state or locality, and between
states, localities and the FBI; the maintenance of large databases of DNA profiles
from persons previously arrested or convicted for certain crimes; and having
the capacity to process all crime-scene evidence from all types of criminal
cases and develop any foreign DNA profiles present.
Ferrara believes he and others who testified this summer were able to make
an impact on the lawmakers in whose hands so much rests — or at least direct
their attention to deficits not addressed by previous legislation and funding
under the Coverdell Act.
“After testifying, I talked to several members of the Virginia delegation who
were really excited and proud of what Virginia has achieved with its cold hits,
but it might be their own parochial pleasure at seeing Virginia’s success as
opposed to really grasping the issue,” Ferrara says. “They seemed to take the
issue to heart and were upset by the backlog situation.”
One of the most substantial issues facing the criminal justice and forensic
community is the backlog of unanalyzed DNA samples and biological evidence from
crime scenes. According to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the current
backlog of samples from rape and homicide cases is 350,000. NIJ estimates of
the backlog of convicted offender samples is between 200,000 and 300,000, as
well as between 500,000 and 1 million samples that are required under law but
not yet collected (23 states require all convicted felons to provide DNA samples).
In the Department of Justice (DOJ) report, “Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology,”
it is hoped that analysis and placement of sample profiles into the Combined
DNA Index System (CODIS) can dramatically enhance the chances that potential
crime victims will be spared the violence of repeat offenders.
A second issue is that of diminished capacity of forensic laboratories to analyze
and process DNA samples in a timely fashion due to limited equipment resources,
outdated information systems, lack of qualified personnel and overwhelming caseloads.
“Certainly there is attention being brought to bear on this issue,” Ferrara
says. “There’s been a lot of talk about the ‘CSI effect,’ the misrepresentation
of the speed with which labs can process evidence. The average guy on the street
thinks investigations are run just like CSI portrays them, and we know that’s
not true. I am approaching a 2,000-case backlog that keeps building even though
my resources have remained constant. We’re working on striving to increase productivity
without people, essentially.”
The DOJ hopes that the $90.4 million in FY ‘04 funding will help improve the
infrastructure of local, state and federal crime labs. The President’s DNA Initiative
also will devote $24.8 million in FY ‘04 funding to develop new methods in analyzing
DNA samples.
A third issue is the need for advanced training of forensic scientists and
lab personnel in order to maximize the use of DNA technology. The initiative
has earmarked $17.5 million in FY ‘04 to fund these efforts.
Ferrara hopes the initiative will pass Congress this year, and that the House
of Representatives will pass a generous version of legislation to match that
which has been passed in the Senate. “I have received assurances, and I don’t
know if I can take them to the bank, that the House version is realistic and
has every chance of being passed. The Senate version had a price tag that was
too great for anyone to realistically consider. The conventional wisdom is senators
can posture and get a lot of publicity about promoting their crime lab improvement
act, knowing full well they would put the onus on the House because the House
couldn’t possibly go along with the Senate because of the money involved. So
they leave the House to be the bad guys and say, ‘Sorry, we can’t do this.’
With the House and the president endorsing this measure at $1 billion over five
years, the suggestion is that the Senate will be OK with a trimmed-down version;
therefore the Bush initiative represents a common ground both the Senate and
House can ultimately agree on.”
Ferrara says there is some dissention in the ranks regarding the strong DNA-centric
focus of the initiative, despite the fact that much of what was discussed was
straight out of Ashcroft’s DNA committee.
“The only controversy, primarily among the forensic science community, has
to do with the specific DNA focus as opposed to a broaderbased focus with respect
to forensic disciplines,” he explains. The forensic consortium representing
groups like the American Academy of Forensic Science (AAFS), the American Society
of Crime Lab Directors (ASCLD) and the National Association of Medical Examiners
(NAME), said many forensic disciplines need help. They were sort of going on
record as opposing Bush’s initiative on the basis it was too narrow in scope,
as opposed to Coverdell, which was about half the money but more across the
board. The NIJ was saying, ‘Right now, DNA is hot, so let’s continue to ride
the horse we rode in on. It’s a lot more money and you can figure out how that
money gets to your other needs,’ and I agree with that. I think politically,
it’s best to jump on the horse you think is going to make it to the finish line.
Especially since this initiative offers a lot more money. It’s been my thought
all along that you get the money first and there will be plenty of opportunities
to modify language to make it more broad-based. The focus is on DNA primarily
because that’s what’s out there. It’s sexy and new and powerful and garnering
attention, and is extremely powerful, especially on sexual assault cases.”
With the two main thrusts of the initiative — the DNA database expansion and
the DNA backlog — being equally important, which issue will be resolved first?
“I think the DNA database will get caught up or at least we’ll be able to make
serious inroads as funding becomes available,” Ferrara says. “There’s a cottage
industry of private labs lining up who have the capacity and the wherewithal
to run a large number of convicted offender samples. This is a resource the
public labs can and should use to reduce the rape-kit backlog so they can focus
attention on crime-scene evidence. It’s this crime-scene evidence backlog that
I see nagging for some time. As DNA training, education and awareness continues,
more and more evidence that can be collected will be collected.
In Virginia we’ve seen an almost 90 percent increase in DNA work in the last
three years. We think that’s a result of the awareness of what we can do and
what kind of cases to which the technology is applicable. That continues to
grow faster than the lab’s capacity to do it. We constantly ponder what case
to do next and how to prioritize cases because as the backlog increases, the
impact of it will come back and bite us — there will be the cases that don’t
get done.”
Although automation is the wave of the future and has its place, Ferrara believes
robotics can never truly replace the human element, especially when it comes
to the gist of the process — expert interpretation of the results.
“Robotics will be important but it can’t help the front end and back end of
any DNA case, meaning the evaluation of physical evidence for the presence of
some meaningful biological fluid,” he adds. “Robotics can do extractions, and
such but when the results come in, it’s back to the analyst who must record
and interpret the results, come to conclusions, write reports, do the statistical
analysis, do the review and all of the quality steps and make sense of all the
data. I just don’t know how we’re going to solve that problem in the short term.”
Which brings Ferrara back to outsourcing. “I was asked by a senator if I thought
a private lab would play an important role and I said, ‘Absolutely.’ The success
of our databank in Virginia wouldn’t have been possible without the involvement
of a private lab. Some states are choosing to do convicted offender samples
inhouse and outsource rape kits. Of all the different types of crime-scene evidence,
the rape-kit swabs are amenable to a private lab running them and seeing if
there is foreign DNA present. I would assume the full work-up of that case will
still fall back to the local lab as well as all of the follow-up and full confirmation,
but at least it affords a quicker initial assessment of what you have in a case.”
Ferrara says quicker turnaround of violent-crime cases such as rape can be
of extraordinary benefit to victims who wait in fear while evidence sits on
a shelf.
“The idea of developing a DNA profile of a sperm donor who is not a consensual
sex partner of the victim means a profile is searchable very quickly, so I think
there will be more privatization of rapekit processing. Rape-kit evidence sits
for nine to 18 months or more and victims wait for some word on their cases.
They are going to get very frustrated and will start making some noise, which
is a good thing because we always close the barn door after the horse has escaped.
In rape cases, instead of a six- to nine-month turnaround, it ought to be six
to nine days. I don’t know how we’re ever going to get to that because
we are buried with evidence and resources remain the same due to budget problems.”
With the President’s DNA Initiative calling for almost $1 billion in funding
over five years, Ferrara thinks it’s a solid start — but the need is almost
indefatigable.
“It will be enough money to start the ball rolling; the problem is, I don’t
know if the impact will be felt for a number of years,” he observes. “Some of
this stuff gets down to bricks and mortar, which is going to take time. And
where are the new DNA examiners going to come from? Who is going to train them?
That takes time. I’m afraid there will be an expectation for this tremendous
improvement overnight and that’s not going to happen. Bush’s initiative will
be a great benefit in the long run. Is it going to do everything? No, but it
will be able to fund most of what the states can do right now. Initially, you’re
looking at money for equipment, supplies and training, but it doesn’t create
new buildings, big labs and new people overnight. I suspect in five years, we’ll
be in better shape than we are now, hopefully doing two to three times as many
cases as we are doing now.”
Still, the avalanche of evidence mounts. “We are up to almost 1,500 cold hits
and a lot of that is due to submission of evidence in cases that would never
have been considered prior,” Ferrara says. “I am digging in my heels and saying
to investigators, ‘No, we are not going to use DNA technology to help you with
a misdemeanor drug case.’ We’re going to concentrate on felony cases. Among
our 2,000 cases are rape cases and a lot of breaking and entering (B&E),
but you do the rape cases first. The difference is B&E cases usually consist
of one or two samples — a little bit of blood on a piece of glass. You don’t
have a differential extraction, you don’t have multiple donors, etc. Rape cases
are a lot more complicated; you have several known samples and a wide variety
of potential probative samples. Another issue is that if we don’t analyze every
piece of evidence that comes in, the defense is going to ask why. So we’re not
being afforded the opportunity to unilaterally say, ‘Look, this was a vaginal
rape, we looked at the vaginal swab, developed a foreign profile, ran it and
got this hit. We didn’t bother looking at the bed clothing, the underpants,
oral swabs or other samples.’ So the defense says, ‘Maybe my guy was there but
it was consensual, or maybe he didn’t murder her because there was somebody
else there.’ I have some cases with up to several hundred samples in each, which
means dozens of rape cases could have been done in that time instead. These
are the elements working against us in terms of catching up. In some ways you
don’t want to discourage the complete collection of samples in all types of
crimes, but we’re at the stage where casework volume is exploding.”
This is due in part to Virginia’s success with its violent offender arrestee
law, where DNA samples are taken from offenders at the time of arrest.
“We now have about nine months of experience with this arrestee law, and we
made 36 hits so far, including nine rapes and four homicides out of about 5,400
persons arrested for violent felonies. The kicker is we have had to remove a
third of them because those people have been dismissed or found not guilty,
which blows me away. These are arrests for violent felonies and to think such
a large chunk are being pleaded down to misdemeanors. That’s why these misdemeanor
property crimes are gateway-type crimes. There’s a good chance these guys are
violent offenders but yet to be convicted of it.”
For more views, information and resources on crime lab funding, DNA technology,
backlog and database issues, including a legislative update and Q&A with
Lisa Hurst of DNA-related government affairs law firm Smith Alling Lane, log
on to: www.forensicfocusmag.com.
12/04/2003
Cal State L.A. Offers Winter Series Focus on Forensic Science
11/25/2003
DNAPrint Announces Forensic Eye Color Results at Amsterdam Forensic Meeting; World's First Genomics-Derived Test For Forensics Investigation With Predictive Capabilities
Orchid Cellmark Awarded FBI Contracts to Develop SNP Technology for Advanced Forensic Applications
11/17/2003
Zebra Technologies and Porter Lee Partner to Fight Crime; CSI Bar Code Application Increases Security While Reducing Time in Tracking Evidence From Collection to Disposition
11/14/2003
LUC Treats Launches Line of Mints/Gum to Help Stop Domestic Violence
New Evidence About the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy Revealed
11/11/2003
Study Documents Law Enforcement Efforts Combating Internet Sex Crimes Against Children
More News
|
