IAPE Evidence Blog

Star-News (Wilm­ing­ton, NC)
BYLINE: Laura Bauer; McClatchy Newspapers

Kansas City, MO

Police and pros­e­cu­tors said some­one spit it out years ago after he broke in and then dam­aged sev­eral class­rooms in a local school. They’ve yet to lock up any­one for the crime, and the statute of lim­i­ta­tions has long expired.

But here’s the thing: The candy con­tained a man’s DNA.

So pros­e­cu­tors charged that DNA.

A crit­i­cal crime solver, genetic sci­ence has clinched guilty ver­dicts in mur­der and rape cases for years. Now, as the tech­nol­ogy advances, pros­e­cu­tors in a few pock­ets of the coun­try sys­tem­at­i­cally use DNA evi­dence to file what are known as “John Doe” com­plaints, or no-name war­rants, in less seri­ous crimes such as bur­glary and vandalism.

“If you don’t stop the clock from tick­ing, there’s noth­ing you can do,” said Ted Hunt, an assis­tant Jack­son County pros­e­cu­tor who spe­cial­izes in DNA evi­dence. “It’s too late.”

Since 2002, Jack­son County, Mo., pros­e­cu­tors have filed 28 John Doe com­plaints, and Hunt said that num­ber would grow sub­stan­tially. That’s because police and pros­e­cu­tors make sure they watch the clock.

When­ever a bur­glary, rob­bery or van­dal­ism with DNA evi­dence is near­ing its statute of lim­i­ta­tion, police alert Hunt’s office, and pros­e­cu­tors file a no-name charge.

By fil­ing these com­plaints, and charg­ing the DNA instead of a named sus­pect, pros­e­cu­tors put cases on hold until they know whose genetic fin­ger­print they charged. These cases oth­er­wise wouldn’t be solved within the statute of lim­i­ta­tions, and the sus­pects would be let off scot-free.

“Before, it was extremely frus­trat­ing,” said Kansas City police spokesman Capt. Rich Lock­hart. “You knew if he got away with it for three years, there was noth­ing we could do. Now, after all the hard work put into a case, some­one will be held account­able for that,” Lock­hart said. “Whether it’s now or 25 years from now.”

Ten of the John Doe com­plaints filed in Jack­son County have had matches in the data­base and sus­pects named. Of those cases, most have been through the court process.

In the candy case, pros­e­cu­tors charged the DNA pro­file in 2006, about a week before the three-year statute of lim­i­ta­tions would run out. Author­i­ties haven’t got­ten a match on the DNA.

Crim­i­nal defense advo­cates said there was a down­fall to charg­ing someone’s DNA. Statutes of lim­i­ta­tions exist for a rea­son, they said.

People’s mem­o­ries fade. Wit­nesses move and can’t be found.

“If a defen­dant in a prop­erty crime is arrested 20 years after the fact, based on his DNA, he’s not able to defend him­self effec­tively,” said J.R. Hobbs, a Kansas City defense attorney.

But lawyers on the other side don’t buy that criticism.

“They claim that DNA is the best evi­dence out there, yet when pros­e­cu­tors and law enforce­ment use that evi­dence to con­vict their clients, they claim it’s unfair,” said Robert Giles, a senior attor­ney. “This isn’t a game where if the per­son can stay away from the police, they get away with it.”

Courts across the coun­try have upheld the use of John Doe com­plaints. Last month the Supreme Court of Cal­i­for­nia ruled the no-name war­rants were autho­rized under state law.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org

The Kansas City Star
BYLINE: LAURA BAUER; The Kansas City Star

Kansas City, MO

Sit­ting frozen in the Kansas City crime lab is a par­tially gnawed piece of candy.

Police and pros­e­cu­tors said some­one spit it out years ago after he broke in and then dam­aged sev­eral class­rooms in a local school. They’ve yet to lock up any­one for the crime, and the statute of lim­i­ta­tions has long expired.

But here’s the thing. The candy con­tained a man’s DNA.

So pros­e­cu­tors charged that DNA.

A crit­i­cal crime solver, genetic sci­ence has clinched guilty ver­dicts in mur­der and rape cases for years. Now, as the tech­nol­ogy advances, pros­e­cu­tors in a few pock­ets of the coun­try — includ­ing Kansas City — sys­tem­at­i­cally use DNA evi­dence to file what are known as “John Doe” com­plaints, or no-name war­rants, in less seri­ous crimes such as bur­glary and vandalism.

“If you don’t stop the clock from tick­ing, there’s noth­ing you can do,” said Ted Hunt, an assis­tant Jack­son County pros­e­cu­tor who spe­cial­izes in DNA evi­dence. “It’s too late.”

Since 2002, Jack­son County pros­e­cu­tors have filed 28 John Doe com­plaints, and Hunt said that num­ber would grow sub­stan­tially. That’s because police and pros­e­cu­tors make sure they watch the clock.

When­ever a bur­glary, rob­bery or van­dal­ism with DNA evi­dence is near­ing its statute of lim­i­ta­tion, police alert Hunt’s office, and pros­e­cu­tors file a no-name charge.

By fil­ing these com­plaints, and charg­ing the DNA instead of a named sus­pect, pros­e­cu­tors put cases on hold until they know whose genetic fin­ger­print they charged. These cases oth­er­wise wouldn’t be solved within the statute of lim­i­ta­tions, and the sus­pects would be let off scot-free.

“Before, it was extremely frus­trat­ing,” said Kansas City police spokesman Capt. Rich Lock­hart. “You knew if he got away with it for three years, there was noth­ing we could do.

“Now, after all the hard work put into a case, some­one will be held account­able for that,” Lock­hart said. “Whether it’s now or 25 years from now.”

Ten of the John Doe com­plaints filed in Jack­son County have had matches in the data­base and sus­pects named. Of those cases, most have been through the court process.

In the candy case, pros­e­cu­tors charged the DNA pro­file in 2006, about a week before the three-year statute of lim­i­ta­tions would run out. Author­i­ties haven’t got­ten a match on the DNA.

Crim­i­nal defense advo­cates said there was a down­fall to charg­ing someone’s DNA. Statutes of lim­i­ta­tions exist for a rea­son, they said.

People’s mem­o­ries fade. Wit­nesses move and can’t be found.

“If a defen­dant in a prop­erty crime is arrested 20 years after the fact, based on his DNA, he’s not able to defend him­self effec­tively,” said J.R. Hobbs, a Kansas City defense attorney.

But lawyers on the other side don’t buy that criticism.

“They claim that DNA is the best evi­dence out there, yet when pros­e­cu­tors and law enforce­ment use that evi­dence to con­vict their clients, they claim it’s unfair,” said Robert Giles, a senior attor­ney with the National Dis­trict Attor­neys Asso­ci­a­tion. “This isn’t a game where if the per­son can stay away from the police, they get away with it.”

Courts across the coun­try have upheld the use of John Doe com­plaints. Last month the Supreme Court of Cal­i­for­nia ruled that the no-name war­rants were autho­rized under state law.

A sys­tem­atic approach for lower-priority crimes may not be fea­si­ble for some coun­ties. The resources just aren’t there, said Wyan­dotte County Dis­trict Attor­ney Jerome Gorman.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab com­pletes test­ing for vio­lent crimes in Wyan­dotte County, such as rapes, sodomies and mur­ders. Ask­ing the lab to do test­ing on bur­glary cases would be too much, Gor­man said.

“There’s no way they can do more with­out more fund­ing,” Gor­man said.
In John­son County, time and peo­ple can also be issues, said Steve Howe, the county’s dis­trict attorney.

“One thing we need to be care­ful about is there are only so many chemists,” Howe said. “We need to pri­or­i­tize what we’re work­ing on.”

In the mid-1990s, DNA evi­dence seemed most exclu­sive to crimes such as mur­der and rape. In those cases, crim­i­nals often leave behind a genetic fin­ger­print and a large enough sam­ple to test.

But if inves­ti­ga­tors found DNA in bur­glar­ies, rob­beries or van­dal­ism, it often wasn’t enough to test. Or agen­cies couldn’t send crime scene inves­ti­ga­tors out to every prop­erty crime scene.

Not any­more. In Kansas City, spe­cially trained patrol offi­cers col­lect DNA evi­dence at bur­glary crime scenes.

Tech­no­log­i­cal advances allow for minutely small sam­ples to be tested.

When an intruder used a crow­bar to pry open the door of a busi­ness more than three years ago and swipe $6,000 in mer­chan­dise, crime lab tech­ni­cians were able to extract DNA from that tool.

Tech­ni­cians also tested a small blood smear found below shards of glass at a break-in at an area museum more than three years ago.

With­out sus­pect, author­i­ties charge DNA before statute of lim­i­ta­tions expires The Kansas City Star Feb­ru­ary 15, 2010 Monday

In those two catches, author­i­ties have yet to get a DNA match.
Other pros­e­cu­tors across the coun­try also are look­ing for a way around time lim­its for prop­erty crimes. Some use John Doe com­plaints on a case-by-case basis. But oth­ers, such as Hunt, use the more orga­nized and sys­tem­atic approach to mak­ing sure crimes with DNA don’t reach the time limit for fil­ing a charge.

The dis­trict attorney’s office in Den­ver takes it a step fur­ther.
Pros­e­cu­tors there have filed about 100 John Doe com­plaints for prop­erty crimes in the past five years.

But Den­ver Dis­trict Attor­ney Mitchell Mor­ris­sey said his office did not wait until the statute of lim­i­ta­tions was almost up.

If the DNA is there, pros­e­cu­tors typ­i­cally quickly file a John Doe charge to help pre­serve the case.

“We may have 2 1/2 years left — it doesn’t mat­ter, we file the case,” Mor­ris­sey said. “We freeze every­thing in place.

Oth­er­wise, the bad guy gets away.”

Den­ver police are so aggres­sive that they worked on a case in which a car win­dow was bro­ken and just $1.40 in coins were stolen.

A drop of blood was found on a car seat. When no match came up in the data­base, they went even fur­ther, check­ing for near-matches in what’s called a “famil­ial DNA” search.

The name of a con­victed felon came up. In the end, the felon’s brother was arrested.

Hunt, the Jack­son County assis­tant pros­e­cu­tor, also is a pro­po­nent of “famil­ial DNA” and said state lab tech­ni­cians would pass that on to local law enforce­ment if they found it.

“It’s the genetic equiv­a­lent of intel­li­gence you would get on the street,” Hunt said. “You’re using that for pur­pose of your investigation.”

The Asso­ci­ated Press con­tributed to this report.

To reach Laura Bauer, call 816 – 234-4944 or send e-mail tolbauer@kcstar.com .

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org

The Raw Story, rawstory.com
BYLINE: Daniel Tencer
Link to Article

CA, CO, KS, NY, MO & WI

In their effort to beat the statutes of lim­i­ta­tions that pre­vent peo­ple from being charged with a crime after a cer­tain amount of time has passed, pros­e­cu­tors in some parts of the US are try­ing a new tac­tic: They’re charg­ing half-eaten food, saliva-crusted glasses or other inan­i­mate objects with the crime.

That’s because pros­e­cu­tors now have DNA evi­dence as a way to get around statutes of lim­i­ta­tions. One way to make sure a crim­i­nal doesn’t get away by hid­ing long enough is to sim­ply charge the DNA itself, and wait until the DNA is matched to an actual person.

Laura Bauer of the Kansas City Star reported Mon­day that pros­e­cu­tors “in a few pock­ets of the coun­try” have begun issu­ing “John Doe” arrest war­rants that iden­tify only a person’s unique DNA sig­na­ture. Once the arrest war­rant on the DNA is in place, the statute of lim­i­ta­tions on the applic­a­ble crime will no longer run out. Bauer reports:

Since 2002, Jack­son County [Mis­souri] pros­e­cu­tors have filed 28 John Doe complaints.…

When­ever a bur­glary, rob­bery or van­dal­ism with DNA evi­dence is near­ing its statute of lim­i­ta­tion, police alert [pros­e­cu­tor Ted] Hunt’s office, and pros­e­cu­tors file a no-name charge.

By fil­ing these com­plaints, and charg­ing the DNA instead of a named sus­pect, pros­e­cu­tors put cases on hold until they know whose genetic fin­ger­print they charged. These cases oth­er­wise wouldn’t be solved within the statute of lim­i­ta­tions, and the sus­pects would be let off scot-free.

But it may be more than “a few pock­ets of the coun­try” that are try­ing out this tech­nique. Accord­ing to the Web site of the dis­trict attor­ney for Den­ver, Col­orado, “John Doe” DNA war­rants have been used at least in Cal­i­for­nia, Col­orado, Kansas, New York and Wisconsin.

“We may have 2 1/2 years left” on the statue of lim­i­ta­tions, Den­ver Dis­trict Attor­ney Mitchell Mor­ris­sey told the KC Star. “It doesn’t mat­ter, we file the case. … We freeze every­thing in place. … Oth­er­wise, the bad guy gets away.”

Last month, the Supreme Court of Cal­i­for­nia ruled that no-name war­rants based on DNA evi­dence are allowed under state laws. Accord­ing to Kelly Lowen­berg at the Stan­ford Law School blog, the court ruled that DNA-based war­rants are spe­cific enough to be con­sti­tu­tional, and that they do “stop the clock run­ning” on statutes of limitations.

But while this new crime-fighting tech­nique may be use­ful to pros­e­cu­tors, it raises ques­tions about the rel­e­vance of statutes of lim­i­ta­tions on crimes in the age of DNA. Defense attor­neys argue that stat­ues of lim­i­ta­tions exist for a rea­son — if a per­son is charged with a crime after too long a period, it may be dif­fi­cult to defend against the charges. “People’s mem­o­ries fade” and “wit­nesses move and can’t be found,” Bauer reports at the KC Star.

“If a defen­dant in a prop­erty crime is arrested 20 years after the fact, based on his DNA, he’s not able to defend him­self effec­tively,” Kansas City defense attor­ney J.R. Hobbs told the KC Star.

And the like­li­hood of the long arm of the law reach­ing even fur­ther grows as DNA data­bases in the US and around the world expand.

Last year, the FBI announced it would start col­lect­ing DNA sam­ples from peo­ple who weren’t charged with a crime. Thus far, only peo­ple charged with an offense had their DNA taken. It’s esti­mated that the FBI’s data­base will grow at a rate of 1.2 mil­lion DNA pro­files per year from now on, com­pared to a growth rate of about 80,000 per year prior to the new pol­icy. The FBI already has an esti­mated 6.7 mil­lion DNA pro­files on record.

Some civil rights advo­cates worry about the impli­ca­tions to pri­vacy and per­sonal free­dom from a grow­ing reliance among gov­ern­ments on DNA evi­dence. For instance, in the United King­dom it was alleged last year that police forces were ran­domly arrest­ing peo­ple sim­ply to get their DNA on to the books. Some accused British police forces of racial pro­fil­ing in that effort, not­ing that three-quarters of Britain’s black males under the age of 35 are now on the DNA database.

The KC Star’s Bauer notes that DNA is now being used in a much wider array of crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions than has been the case in the past. While DNA test­ing was usu­ally reserved for mur­der and rape inves­ti­ga­tions, its easy avail­abil­ity today means it is being used in rob­bery and even van­dal­ism cases.

Den­ver police are so aggres­sive that they worked on a case in which a car win­dow was bro­ken and just $1.40 in coins were stolen.

A drop of blood was found on a car seat. When no match came up in the data­base, they went even fur­ther, check­ing for near-matches in what’s called a “famil­ial DNA” search.

The name of a con­victed felon came up. In the end, the felon’s brother was arrested.

- — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — -
Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org