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DNA crime fighting being boosted, wrongfully convicted not

 
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 6:28 pm    Post subject: DNA crime fighting being boosted, wrongfully convicted not Reply with quote

This is very good news, but justice will not be perceived as just until all crimes involving DNA are checked to see if the person being convicted is actually innocent. Only thoise seeking a conviction instead of the truth would stand in the way.

rd


from www.usatoday.com (fair use)

More funding directed to DNA crime fighting
By Richard Willing, USA TODAY
March 8, 2004

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has begun spending hundreds of millions of dollars to perform DNA analysis in unsolved rapes and other old cases and to make improvements in the nation's computerized DNA crime-fighting system.

The infusion, which could top $800 million during the next five years, is aimed at clearing up old crimes and helping police and prosecutors solve new ones. The current and proposed spending reflects an unprecedented commitment to DNA technology by the administration. In contrast, Congress appropriated $106 million for DNA testing from 2000 through 2003.

"It's outstanding that some significant funds are finally starting to be put into the (DNA) system," says Mark Stolorow, director of Orchid Cellmark laboratories of Germantown, Md., which performs DNA tests for government. "That's the only way to ensure justice for hundreds of thousands of rape victims and other crime victims who are still waiting to be helped by (DNA) technology."

One source of controversy in the administration's DNA spending is the omission of significant funding aimed at exonerating the innocent or preventing wrongful convictions. Such measures are key elements of a DNA bill stalled in the Senate since last fall.

DNA, a cellular acid that is unique for each individual, can be used to solve crimes when blood, semen and other biological evidence found at crime scenes are matched with a suspect's DNA. Since 1992, the FBI has maintained a national database that stores DNA profiles of convicted felons and matches them with crimes.

As of last month, the FBI had more than 1.6 million DNA profiles and had scored matches in more than 12,000 cases. There are no statistics on how many convictions have resulted.

In January, President Bush approved $100 million in DNA spending for the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. About $60 million of that amount is to help state and local governments test evidence from unsolved crimes and for taking DNA samples from convicts. Most of the rest is for crime lab improvements and training. The money was part of an omnibus spending bill approved by Congress.

The administration proposes spending nearly $177 million for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. If Bush is re-elected this fall, the administration plans to spend equal or greater amounts each year through 2008, said Glenn Schmitt, deputy director of the National Institute of Justice, the Justice Department's research arm.

Barry Scheck, a New York City lawyer who specializes in exonerating convicts through DNA evidence, said the administration's decision to bypass provisions that could free the innocent was "truly unfortunate." The Innocence Project, which Scheck co-founded, has used DNA tests to exonerate 142 convicts.
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propria



Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 630
Location: northern illinois

PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 11:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

>>> The infusion, which could top $800 million during the next five years, is aimed at clearing up old crimes and helping police and prosecutors solve new ones. <<<



sure would be nice to think that dna testing would be done in pursuit of justice for chandra, at least on the contact lens that was found ... although her clothing was pretty weathered, i'd like to think it was thoroughly tested for traces of dna, too. wonder what the chances of that might be ... maybe somewhere between slim and none??? do we know who the senators are who are holding up congressional progress on the bill?


nanci
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 2136
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 12:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

What this needs is someone with a little clout to get behind it. I was at the American's Most Wanted website, after watching one of his tv shows, and they had a signup thing going to promote special channels for emergency cell phones, so that the police and others do not get jambed up in an emergency.

I filled out a few lines of a form and clicked the button, and that sent out about six emails, one each to my elected Congressman and Senators, and about three more to somewhere else. I did not even look close, I think the other three or so were to certain committees in the House and Senate.

All we have to do is to write to the right person about Chandra at the right time and things would begin to go forward. I wrote William Randolph Hearst the owner of the Hearst newspapers once about ads in his newspaper for pornographic movies and other sex shows. I must have written to him at the right time because I got an answer back from him in the mail, and in a short time the San Francisco Examiner had quit running ads for sex shows, all except on Sunday, when the Examiner and the Chronicle published a joint Sunday paper.

Hearst said he would not take any money for the ads published on Sunday, but somehow that broke through, the Chronicle gave the Examiner its share of the money, and eventually the Examiner began advertising the sex shows again every day of the week.

Dna might work a little better.

benn
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 12:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's true a DNA bill is stalled in the Senate because of efforts to include money to test the convicted. I would think there wouldn't be that many cases where no other strong forensic evidence existed and a DNA test may show the person wrongly convicted.

In those circumstances, why would we not test when we could? Cost of course. I read once something like $20,000 for a test, but parental DNA tests were only $200 to $2,000, were they not? What's wrong with that picture?

But the Bush administration has released $100 million for DNA testing that was included in the latest budget, and will continue to do so, so I'm not sure what the problem is benn.

rd
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 2136
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 9:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rd, if the dna testing is going along, fine. I thought your previous message sort of suggested that there was not enough testing scheduled to check for people in prison maybe wrongly convicted.

I don't watch the politicians too much anymore. What they are going to do they will do, and maybe some of them will be gone after each election.

D.C is even having trouble with lead in their water system.

benn
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
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Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 9:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is pure plagarism here. I saw this, and I liked it, and I stole it. ....:)

"I'm sure you believe and you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize what you heard is not what I meant."

benn
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 3:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's pretty good. :) Here's a great story today from Associated Press on the state of the FBi DNA database. This has come along very well in ten years.

rd


from Associated Press (fair use)

AP: FBI's DNA Database Gets Heavy Use
Mar 9, 1:24 AM (ET)
By JOHN SOLOMON

WASHINGTON (AP) - In California, the remains of a boy missing for two decades are finally identified. Two cold murders are solved in Kansas. And in Texas, a serial sexual predator is captured. The cases are cracked thanks to technology police are calling the fingerprints of the 21st century.

The FBI's DNA database, filled with genetic samples from prison inmates nationwide, has helped local authorities identify suspects in more than 11,000 cases in the last few years, officials say.

Just as important, police and lawyers say, the Combined DNA Indexing System, or CODIS, has freed prisoners wrongly convicted of crimes and helped detectives eliminate wrong suspects, saving manpower chasing false leads.

"The potential for us in the criminal justice field to solve crimes with this technology is boundless," said Joseph M. Polisar, police chief of Garden Grove, Calif., and president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

The FBI says more than 8,000 samples of genetic evidence from unsolved cases have been matched to past or current convicts in the database, helping solve crimes. An additional 3,000 samples have been matched to unidentified suspects in other cases that remain unsolved, creating links between cases.

The FBI lab was struck by controversy over shoddy work and exaggerated or false testimony by its scientists in the 1990s. Its current director, Dwight Adams, has addressed those issues and made a priority of expanding the DNA database.

A DNA scientist, Adams acted to insulate the DNA database from legal or scientific attack. His lab created a sophisticated identification system to safeguard the privacy of samples and ensure matches are double-checked before suspects are arrested.

"The process doesn't stop just because you make a match to an individual in the database," Adams explained in an interview. "The next stop in the process is for the law enforcement agency to obtain a warrant, get a blood sample from the same individual and do the same testing to ensure there is a match."

CODIS has genetic samples from more than 1.6 million criminals, most taken after they've entered prison. The database has more than 80,000 DNA samples gathered from unsolved crime scenes. Each month, local authorities add between 10,000 and 40,000 new samples.

The database was started in the early 1990s as a trial and expanded to 50 states in the late 1990s. Now, at least 170 local crime labs across the country can run DNA samples through the database and find matches.

One of the database's more dramatic successes occurred in Houston last November, when the FBI matched DNA evidence to help capture a bike-riding sexual predator who assaulted young boys at knifepoint.

The case stumped authorities for months and forced parents to keep their children inside before the database was used to match DNA from a victim to a known sexual offender in CODIS.

Other successes:

_Police in Wichita, Kan., were able to crack two old murder cases by finding DNA matches to prisoners. One was charged for the 1995 murder of an elderly woman; the other for a fatal stabbing.

_Massachusetts authorities were able to charge a convicted murderer last summer in the 1998 death of an elderly Foxboro woman who was stabbed 29 times.

_Police in California cracked the case last year of 16-year-old boy who disappeared in 1982. A man pleaded guilty to manslaughter after the FBI was able to extract DNA from headless skeletal remains and matched it to the missing boy's mother, confirming the victim.

CODIS also can affect the wrongly convicted. Lawyer Barry Scheck and his Innocence Project have used DNA to help free more than 100 prisoners.

Defense lawyers, though concerned about privacy issues, applaud the FBI's efforts and say they want the lab to make DNA science irrefutable, increasing the current 13 markers used for matches.

"Any mechanism which increases communication and cooperation between law enforcement agencies is a good idea. What we especially value or encourage ... is an increased reliance on scientific evidence over more traditional and less reliable forms of proof," said Steve Benjamin, a Virginia lawyer who co-chairs the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' committee on forensic evidence.

When Adams joined the team of six FBI analysts and technicians that started the FBI's DNA section in 1988, it took six weeks to get police test results. Today, with 100 scientists on the FBI's DNA team and new technology, testing takes as little as 24 hours.

"If we can get this down to a few hours or less, we will improve all the more because there are still more cases and more samples that can be worked," said Adams.

---

On the Net:

FBI: http://www.fbi.gov

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers: http://www.criminaljustice.org
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