IAPE Evidence Blog

The Billings Gazette, billingsgazette.com
BYLINE: JESSIE MCQUILLAN and DAN WEINBERG The Billings Gazette
Link to Article

Billings, MT

The Mon­tana House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has before it a bill that, if enacted, will mea­sur­ably improve our jus­tice sys­tem. Sen­ate Bill 58, co-sponsored by Sen. Lynda Moss, D-Billings, and Sen. Jim Shock­ley, R-Victor, will have county law enforce­ment pre­serve DNA sam­ples on evi­dence found in cer­tain seri­ous, vio­lent crimes. The bill has already passed the Mon­tana Senate.

The Mon­tana Asso­ci­a­tion of Coun­ties doesn’t want this bill to pass. Its lob­by­ists claim the expense of stor­ing small bits of DNA evi­dence is too expen­sive for the coun­ties to take on. They also claim that facil­i­ties that store evi­dence are already inad­e­quate. There are sto­ries of mold grow­ing in one evi­dence room and poor doc­u­men­ta­tion in others.

MACO’s claims of poor evi­dence stor­age are true. Some of Montana’s coun­ties need to do a bet­ter job of main­tain­ing evi­dence. The integrity of our jus­tice sys­tem depends on it. Cases are deter­mined by the qual­ity of evi­dence. Their claims are not true that stor­ing small bits of DNA evi­dence would be unpre­dictably and unnec­es­sar­ily expensive.

If you were to talk with MACO rep­re­sen­ta­tives or lis­ten to the leg­isla­tive hear­ings, you would envi­sion entire auto­mo­biles and sofas being stored in enor­mous ware­houses. These require­ments are false. SB58 requires only that small sam­ples of DNA be pre­served, and offers clear ways for coun­ties to dis­pose of unnec­es­sary evidence.

Since DNA was first used in foren­sic sci­ence, hun­dreds of peo­ple nation­wide have been exon­er­ated for crimes they did not com­mit. DNA tells a story with 100 per­cent accu­racy. Match­ing bio­log­i­cal mate­r­ial, assum­ing the evi­dence is main­tained, is accu­rate and true. The other value of DNA is that it has shown us how fal­li­ble the other meth­ods of foren­sic sci­ence have been. The true value of eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, hair analy­sis, bal­lis­tics analy­sis and coerced con­fes­sions all dimin­ish com­pared to DNA.

Texan Craig Watkins is the Dal­las County Dis­trict Attor­ney. When he took office sev­eral years ago, he was asked to sign a piece of paper that would have cleaned up the county’s evi­dence room and destroyed sam­ples of DNA. Mr. Watkins chose not to sign that paper. Since that day, over 40 men and women, con­victed in Dal­las and housed in Texas jails and pris­ons, have been exon­er­ated using those sam­ples of DNA. These were all inno­cent peo­ple, wrong­fully con­victed and imprisoned.

If jus­tice is not your chief con­cern but safety is, then con­sider this: In nearly 40 per­cent of the cases where some­one has been exon­er­ated of a crime using DNA, law enforce­ment went on to find the real per­pe­tra­tor using that same sam­ple of DNA. When we prop­erly store and use DNA evi­dence, we get real crim­i­nals off the street.

If jus­tice is not your chief con­cern but eco­nom­ics is, how do you rec­on­cile the cost of stor­ing small sam­ples of DNA with the cost of impris­on­ing inno­cent peo­ple (more than $34,000 per inmate per year)? MACO com­plains that the state of Mon­tana should store DNA, not the coun­ties. Presently, the state crime lab does main­tain some stor­age. The coun­ties need to do their part.

What is the value of free­dom for Mon­tanans who have com­mit­ted no crime? What is the value of jus­tice? This is our Dal­las moment.

Jessie McQuil­lan of Mis­soula is exec­u­tive direc­tor for Mon­tana Inno­cence Project. Dan Wein­berg is the organization’s founder and president.

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

KOAT 7 ABC, FIRST ON, koat.com
Link to Arti­cle
One Video

Albu­querque, NM

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A 31-year-old man accused of giv­ing his semen dis­guised as a free yogurt sam­ple may face a bat­tery charge for the inci­dent, police say.

Albu­querque police said DNA tests showed Sun­flower Mar­ket employee Anthony Gar­cia gave his semen to a female cus­tomer dis­guised as a free yogurt sam­ple, and police sources said the man may have tried the same thing at a dif­fer­ent Sun­flower location.

“The Albu­querque Police Depart­ment con­firmed that the sam­ple taken last week from the Sun­flower Mar­ket was semen,” said Trish Hoff­man, of the Albu­querque Police Depart­ment. “It was con­firmed that the sam­ple was from Anthony Garcia.”

Police said Gar­cia was booked on an out­stand­ing war­rant for a crim­i­nal sex­ual con­tact of a minor, but it’s what he’s accused of doing inside a store that has received national attention.

Inves­ti­ga­tors said Gar­cia offered a female cus­tomer a sam­ple of what he said was Greek yogurt, but she called the police. The police did a DNA test and now, Gar­cia may face a bat­tery charge.

Police said that another alle­ga­tion has been waged against Gar­cia after the first vic­tim accused him of pass­ing off semen as yogurt.

“(We) have never dealt with a case like this in all the years (that) I’ve been in law enforce­ment. It’s hor­rific. It’s hor­rific for the vic­tim,” Hoff­man said.

Hoff­man said even the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion is involved with the investigation.

“If in fact there was a tam­per­ing with the food, (FDA offi­cials) could pos­si­bly seek charges,” Hoff­man said.

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

The Star, shelbystar.com
BYLINE: Rebecca Clark, rebeccaclark@shelbystar.com
Link to Article

Shelby, NC

A Shelby police offi­cer holds a swab from a DNA test­ing kit. A new law will require DNA sam­ples of peo­ple who com­mit cer­tain crimes. Brit­tany Randolph/The Star

A Shelby police offi­cer holds a flat stick in a gloved hand, demon­strat­ing what the DNA swab looks like and what is in each test­ing kit.

Tues­day was the day a new law went into effect requir­ing offi­cers across the state to col­lect DNA from peo­ple arrested for cer­tain crimes.

Most of the crimes on the list involve vio­lent felonies or sex offenses.

Sher­iff Alan Nor­man said per­son­nel at the Sheriff’s Office have already been trained on using the kits.

Once some­one is arrested and prob­a­ble cause is estab­lished, the suspect’s DNA is col­lected through a cheek swab and then sent to the State Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion, Nor­man said. The DNA is used for com­par­isons with other crime scenes or stored in state and fed­eral databases.

“Hope­fully it will lead to the arrest of indi­vid­u­als that have com­mit­ted crimes in the past,” Nor­man said. “It can also be used for crimes that hap­pen in the future.”

He said cases that have been sit­ting dor­mant could be solved with the new law.

“It’s going to allow com­par­i­son of DNA that has been col­lected in cases that have been at a stand­still for years,” Nor­man said. “On the other side, it could also find indi­vid­u­als inno­cent of crimes that they have been con­victed of.”

As of Tues­day after­noon, nei­ther the Shelby Police Depart­ment nor the Sheriff’s Office had per­formed a DNA collection.

Nor­man said the entire process takes about a minute and half.

“If they refuse to coop­er­ate, they can be held in the deten­tion cen­ter until they coop­er­ate with the DNA col­lec­tion,” he said. “That will be a stip­u­la­tion with their release.”

Around 20 crimes are included on the DNA col­lec­tion list.

“Hope­fully this is just the start,” Nor­man said. “Hope­fully more crimes will be added to that list.”

The pro­gram will cost the state an esti­mated $1.3 mil­lion for the first year.

Civil lib­er­ties groups have opposed the bill, argu­ing that col­lect­ing DNA with­out a con­vic­tion or a search war­rant raises Fourth Amend­ment concerns.

Shelby Police Chief Jeff Led­ford said safe­guards are in place.

“I think some of the safe­guards they’ve built in are really good,” said Led­ford. “For instance, if we take a DNA sam­ple from some­body once prob­a­ble cause has been estab­lished, if that per­son is found not guilty or the charges are dis­missed, then that DNA is taken out of the reg­istry. If you’re found not guilty, they don’t keep it.”

He also empha­sized that the mea­sure is law and must be fol­lowed by law enforce­ment officials.

“Peo­ple need to under­stand this is not an option,” Led­ford said. “This is not some­thing law enforce­ment can do, it’s some­thing we have to do. We can’t be selec­tive. We are strictly bound by statue.”

The only down­side Led­ford could see was the time involved in the process.

“It’s a great pro­gram and I think it has ben­e­fits far beyond what we see right now, but the down­side is you’re adding some­thing to the book­ing process,” Led­ford said.

Not only is there an extra step in the process, but there is the paper­work that goes with it. 

Ulti­mately, Led­ford said the effort is worth it.

“The return is worth the invest­ment, I believe,” he said.

Nor­man also said he thought it was time well spent.

“It will more than pay div­i­dends,” he said.

Reach reporter Rebecca Clark at 704 – 669-3344.

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