Dna Database

Re "Using DNA to Trawl for Killers," March 10: Good story on DNA testing. But I disagree with the civil libertarians who object to widespread testing. There is no such thing as a "DNA witch hunt," which implies that innocent people will be convicted. Exactly the opposite is true. The DNA test will exclude the innocent and help convict the guilty. If you were innocent, why would you not want to help the police? Would you want a killer to go free? I think the police should establish a nationwide database to compare DNA results with those of convicted and suspected criminals.

A man who escaped a Florida prison in 1977 only to be recaptured three decades later in the Inland Empire is now suspected of killing at least four women in Southern California during his years on the run. Larry D. Hubbard was arrested by Ontario police on an outstanding Florida escape warrant in May 2007, and died following an attempted suicide after he was returned to Florida. But Los Angeles cold case homicide detectives say they have now linked Hubbard through DNA testing and other evidence to the slayings of four women, each found strangled and abandoned in open fields.

The Orange County district attorney's office has nearly quadrupled its DNA database over the last nine months, to about 15,000 individual profiles, and officials say they hope to start using it to identify criminal suspects by early next year. The agency's effort to build a database exempt from the rules that govern state and national DNA repositories has made Orange County unique among local governments in California. Much of the rapid growth has come from cases in which prosecutors drop charges against low-level offenders who agree to submit DNA samples.

In 2004 California voters approved Proposition 69, which authorized the collection of DNA evidence not just from convicted offenders and people arrested for homicide or sex crimes, but from anyone arrested on suspicion of a felony. The profiles generated from samples obtained under the law are shared with police in other states. This page opposed the measure as overly broad. It's one thing to build a database of samples from convicted criminals, but it's quite another to keep genetic profiles of people who are arrested but ultimately determined to be innocent of any crime.

IF YOU'RE CONVICTED of a felony (or in some states a misdemeanor), your DNA goes into a database. That information primarily helps in the pursuit of repeat offenders. But some people want to extend the reach of that data to find people who are only a partial match. It's a particularly personal form of a law enforcement fishing expedition. The technique is called "familial searching," and it targets not only the convicted but their relatives as well.

Summary: This measure would require the state to collect DNA samples from all people, adults or juveniles, arrested in felony cases, regardless of whether they are convicted. Currently, DNA is collected only from felons convicted of certain offenses. It would also expand the state's DNA database. The cost to the state would be $20 million annually, according to the state legislative analyst's office. Local costs would be offset by raising fines for some offenses. Supporters: The measure's author and key backer is Bruce Harrington, a Newport Beach attorney and real estate developer whose brother and sister-in-law were killed in 1980 in a crime that remains unsolved.

Critics are calling a plan by the U.S. military to establish a DNA database on all 1.5 million service members--the largest genetic identification project in history--the first step toward Big Brother.

Despite the threat of a lawsuit, justice officials said Wednesday that they are ready to quickly expand a DNA database designed to catch criminals, after voters overwhelmingly authorized it. Approved by 61.8% of voters on Tuesday, Proposition 69 mandates that DNA be taken from every adult and juvenile convicted of a felony in California and from every adult arrested for certain felonies, including sex offenses, murder and voluntary manslaughter.

Virginia authorities have launched a substantial review of the state's DNA database after discovering that thousands of felons may have skirted a legal requirement to submit genetic samples, partly because local and state agencies may have failed to make them do so. Public safety and crime lab officials estimate that at least 20% of felons' DNA profiles could be missing from the database, a flaw that could hamper criminal investigations across the state and nation.

Orange County's district attorney won approval Tuesday from the Board of Supervisors for a contract that allows him to create a local database of DNA samples of people on probation. Under the program, DNA will be collected as a condition of probation and the evidence will be stored for comparison against evidence collected at crime scenes. Local law enforcement officials say it will be the first program of its kind in the nation.

DNA evidence was undeniably the key to the arrest and charging of Lonnie David Franklin Jr., believed to be the Grim Sleeper responsible for a string of slayings in Los Angeles between 1985 and 2007. Many will cite this use of DNA evidence in a high-profile serial murder case as one more reason to increase reliance on this important investigative tool. But in fact it's precisely at a moment like this when an investigative triumph can blind us to the dangers of expanding genetic surveillance.

President Obama may have given credence to a relatively new but questionable law enforcement practice that the rest of the developed world is starting to shun: taking and retaining DNA samples from individuals arrested for a crime but not convicted. That is, putting innocent people's DNA in criminal databases. During an interview with the president last month on the television program "America's Most Wanted," host John Walsh enthusiastically supported the expansion of this practice in the United States, saying, "We now have 18 states who are taking DNA upon arrest.

San Francisco police announced Thursday that DNA evidence had linked Richard Ramirez, the Southern California serial killer known as the "Night Stalker," to the 1984 slaying of a 9-year-old girl. Ramirez, who is on death row for a string of murders committed more than two decades ago, submitted DNA samples to detectives Wednesday morning at San Quentin State Prison, according to the San Francisco Police Department. Authorities are also trying to determine whether Ramirez is connected to any other slayings in the San Francisco area during that time.

The Orange County district attorney's office has nearly quadrupled its DNA database over the last nine months, to about 15,000 individual profiles, and officials say they hope to start using it to identify criminal suspects by early next year. The agency's effort to build a database exempt from the rules that govern state and national DNA repositories has made Orange County unique among local governments in California. Much of the rapid growth has come from cases in which prosecutors drop charges against low-level offenders who agree to submit DNA samples.

Europe's top human rights court struck down a British law that allows the government to store DNA and fingerprints from people with no criminal record -- a landmark decision that could force Britain to destroy nearly 1 million samples on its database. The case originated when British police refused to destroy DNA samples of two Britons whose criminal cases were dropped.

Over nearly two decades, a serial killer has shot and strangled at least 11 people, often dumping their battered bodies in alleyways of Inglewood and Los Angeles. Most were black women or girls, the youngest just 14. The latest was found last year, shrouded in a garbage bag. Police have determined through DNA and other evidence that the killings were the work of a single person.

Beginning today, the nation's police will be able to use a national computer system to match DNA evidence from convicted felons with that collected in unsolved crimes. Jan S. Bashinski, the primary developer of California's DNA database, which began operating in 1992, said the FBI's new crime-fighting tool could reduce the number of sex crimes and make it harder for criminals to evade authorities by crossing state lines.

Several justices of the California Supreme Court suggested Thursday that a defendant's right to a fair trial is not violated when he is charged with a crime that occurred decades earlier based on new DNA evidence. During a hearing, the state high court examined a variety of legal issues in so-called "cold hit" cases in which defendants are identified through a search of a DNA database.

IF YOU'RE CONVICTED of a felony (or in some states a misdemeanor), your DNA goes into a database. That information primarily helps in the pursuit of repeat offenders. But some people want to extend the reach of that data to find people who are only a partial match. It's a particularly personal form of a law enforcement fishing expedition. The technique is called "familial searching," and it targets not only the convicted but their relatives as well.