IAPE Evidence Blog

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.

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

www.emporiagazette.com
Link to Arti­cle
BYLINE: Emer­son Lynn Jr.

Kansas

Should Kansas leg­is­la­tors be charged with mur­der because they failed to give law enforce­ment offi­cials the infor­ma­tion they needed to stop a mur­derer before he killed?

Silly ques­tion.

Still, in mid-September, the Kansas Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion had a back­log of 38,000 sam­ples from those who had been arrested for felonies await­ing test­ing. The DNA pro­files had not been made and recorded because the KBI lab­o­ra­tory is that understaffed.

Which brings us back to the Leg­is­la­ture. The lab is under­staffed because the KBI bud­get has been cut to the bone. Law­mak­ers say they cut the bud­get because the money isn’t there.

The money isn’t there because it hasn’t been raised. It is the sworn duty of the state’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives and sen­a­tors to levy suf­fi­cient taxes to gov­ern the state well. By refus­ing to pro­vide the KBI enough money to do DNA test­ing, leg­is­la­tors have shirked that duty.

The rea­son for cre­at­ing DNA pro­files on those arrested for felonies is to give law enforce­ment the tools it needs to take DNA from the scene of a crime and check it against the state’s col­lec­tion of pro­files taken from a group of rea­son­able sus­pects. When a match is found an arrest can be made and soci­ety can be pro­tected against a poten­tially dan­ger­ous person.

With­hold­ing the funds needed to bet­ter pro­tect Kansans isn’t a crime. But it is another exam­ple of the false economies our elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives are mak­ing in deal­ing with the recession.

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