DNA Proposal Gains Congressional Steam

by David Tamasi

WASHINGTON - A $1.3 billion bill that aims to solve more crimes with DNA evidence - including perhaps thousands that have languished for years -- cleared a key congressional hurdle Wednesday.

The House is expected to vote on the bill next week that emerged from the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday with bipartisan support. The bill has received widespread support from liberals and conservatives, including law enforcement officials and victims' rights advocates.

The bill would make $755 million available over five years to test DNA samples currently sitting in crime labs across the country. President Bush sought $1 billion for DNA testing when he proposed the legislation in March.

The bill also would provide $500 million in grants to expand the DNA testing capacity of federal, state and local crime laboratories; increase research and development of new DNA technologies and provide training for law enforcement officers dealing with DNA. The remaining money would be spent to give convicts a chance to prove their innocence with DNA evidence.

Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said his office "would welcome any assistance the federal government could give to reduce the DNA backlog and expand the database."

Nationally, an estimated 350,000 rape kits and DNA samples remain untested because states can't afford the laboratory costs, according to the Justice Department.

"Testing these kits has the potential to take 50,000 to 100,000 rapists off the street and prevent countless others from committing crimes," said Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, which operates a national rape hotline and lobbied on behalf of the bill.

A spokesman for the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab said the number of statewide, untested DNA samples was "unavailable" and that the state police did not comment on pending legislation.

Under the bill, DNA collected from rape and murder victims and at crime scenes would be matched against samples taken from convicted criminals - and, in states that choose to do so, from suspects who have been arrested but not convicted -- and put into a national computer database. The technique has been used to solve a number of cases around the country, but there hasn't been enough money to use it uniformly.

The American Civil Liberties Union, while not officially taking a position on the bill, expressed "concern with the expansion of the database" to include people who have not been convicted, said Jesselyn McCurdy, legislative counsel for the ACLU in Washington. California and Louisiana are the only states that currently take DNA samples from suspects who are placed under arrest, she said.

Last month, the state House of Representatives passed a bill that would require all convicted felons to submit DNA samples to the state, which would place them in a database. That measure would apply both to violent and non-violent offenders, as well as to those behind bars, on probation and parole.

But the state Senate is expected to come up with a different list of offenses that would be included in the database. As a result, differences between the House and Senate bills must be negotiated. Gov. Mitt Romney is expected to sign the bill.

It would cost Massachusetts $3.5 million to catalogue the DNA samples of current inmates, according to a spokesman for House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, D-Mattapan. It is unclear whether the state could receive federal grant money to expand its DNA database. But Charles Rasmussen, the spokesman for Finneran,, said the state "would appreciate any help the federal government could provide." Finneran has previously said the state would finance the database expansion if it had to.

The federal bill would also give convicts the chance to prove their innocence through DNA tests. The bill would provide $25 million to conduct DNA tests on convicted inmates who assert their innocence, subject to charges of perjury if the testing affirms their guilt.