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DNA Database

Expansion of the existing DNA index offenses will ensure that criminals are in the system at the outset of their criminal careers, so that those who choose to re-offend will be identified more readily and with greater certainty, thus cutting short future criminal activity.

Under current New York State law, less than half of the individuals who are convicted of felony offenses in our State are required to provide a DNA specimen for the Databank. In comparison, forty-two other states now have laws requiring all felony offenders to be included in their states’ DNA Databank. New York is one of only eight states that don’t require DNA from all felons.

Currently, the New York State DNA databank holds more than 144,000 offender DNA profiles and 15,000 forensic evidence profiles. That means there are 15,000 unsolved cases in which DNA evidence has been recovered, but for which no perpetrator can currently be identified. That would translate into15,000 solved cases if and when the perpetrator’s DNA profile is added to the databank. Based on experience, it’s reasonable to expect that the people who committed these offenses have had other brushes with the law. However, they have not been identified simply because our laws have simply not required them to provide a DNA specimen.

In July 2004, the legislature added approximately 100 new DNA qualifying offenses including sex-related misdemeanors. This small change resulted in more than 80 additional hits linking offenders to previously unsolved cases including 51 rape cases and 13 homicides. The bears repeating – with even an incomplete and non-comprehensive expansion of the State’s DNA Databank, 13 homicides and 51 rapes were solved. Imagine what we could accomplish if we expand the databank to include all convicted criminals.

Recently, in Albany County, a series of brutal cases were solved when the DNA Databank successfully linked Raymon McGill to the rape of an elderly woman in 2000, as well as to two previous homicides. He was identified following his conviction and sentencing for a DNA qualifying offense. If this proposed legislation would have been in effect and allowed the collection of DNA from offenders convicted of misdemeanor offenses, McGill could have been identified at the time of the 2000 rape, and two homicides would likely have been prevented.

The Raymon McGill case serves to confirm the findings of two comprehensive studies by the Division of Criminal Justice Services that show on average, offenders linked to crimes using the DNA Databank had approximately 12 prior convictions. However, nearly five years passed before an offender was convicted of a crime that qualified for DNA specimen submission. In addition, these studies and a review of "hits" in the DNA Databank show offenders tend to be versatile rather than specialized in their offending patterns. For example, of 1136 offenders linked to sexual assault cases through a DNA Databank hit, over 82% were required to be included in the Databank based on a prior conviction for other than a sex related offense (such as larceny, burglary or drug violations).

DNA evidence has been shown time and again to be objective and reliable. In a recent highly publicized series of rapes in New York City, the perpetrator, dubbed in the press as the “Spiderman rapist”, was quickly identified through a DNA Databank hit. Perhaps more importantly, an innocent suspect arrested days earlier in the case was promptly released based on DNA testing.

Simply stated, the use of DNA technology in the criminal justice system has been proven effective in solving crimes and clearing innocent suspects. Criminal investigations move forward more efficiently and the courts are provided objective and reliable evidence on which to base decisions on guilt or innocence. Most importantly, this technology prevents crime and saves lives by catching perpetrators before they visit additional violence on the citizens of our State.

Moreover, DNA evidence helps bring closure for the victims of crime and their families. The quick identification of suspects based on DNA technology can prevent future victimizations and save money. Scarce public resources can be used more efficiently by reducing the cost to police spent in running down futile leads as DNA evidence implicates or eliminates suspects.

It just makes sense to include offenders in the DNA Databank at their earliest conviction rather than wait until they’re finally caught for a more serious crime. Their fingerprints are searchable in the state and national automated fingerprint data systems upon their first conviction. Why not their DNA identification profile which is simply another highly reliable identification tool? Based on experiences in other states, those with the largest offender databases typically show the greatest success in resolving difficult stranger on stranger crimes. This administration will advocate for support in ammending the law to expand the DNA databank.

It is important to note that confidentiality and individual privacy is consided. The databank will be maintained by the Division of Criminal Justice Services and released only to law enforcement agencies in connection with a criminal investigation. The agencies receiving the information must have signed a use and dissemination agreement controlling further use of the information. In addition, the information obtained from a DNA identification test is only useful for comparing DNA samples to one another. It cannot be used to tell physical traits of a person or to identify any genetic predisposition to diseases carried by a person. Criminal penalties apply for unauthorized disclosure of DNA information. Experience shows these controls work.

DNA is a powerful crime-fighting tool that helps convict the guilty, exonerate the innocent, and bring justice for victims. It is time for New York State to move forward and expand the list of offenses that require DNA specimens to include all criminal offenders.

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Cuomo joins push to expand DNA bank to include anyone convicted of felony or misdemeanor crime



MICHAEL VIRTANEN  Associated Press
First Posted: January 11, 2012 - 3:00 am
Last Updated: January 11, 2012 - 12:34 pm


ALBANY, N.Y. — The addition of petit larceny to a list of crimes requiring DNA samples from convicted offenders has helped solve 51 murders, 222 sexual assaults, 117 robberies and 407 burglaries over the past 5 1/2 years, New York authorities say.

Now the Cuomo administration wants to expand the statewide DNA databank to include all misdemeanor convictions under the penal code, plus all felony convictions under other statutes such as traffic and business laws. That would mean DNA samples for DWI convictions and securities fraud, for example.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week called for putting New York "on the cutting edge of criminal justice" by becoming the first state to collect DNA on all crimes under the state's penal laws, noting that since 1996 the database provided leads to 2,700 convictions while helping free 27 people who were wrongly accused.

"We are missing an important opportunity to prevent needless suffering of crime victims," the governor said. "We are also failing to use the most powerful tool we have to exonerate the innocent."

The databank currently has genetic profiles from more than 386,000 criminals convicted of penal law felonies and 36 misdemeanors, plus samples from nearly 38,000 crime scenes. It links to the FBI's national system with more than 10 million offender profiles and some 400,000 samples of crime scene material.

Legislation to expand the databank passed both houses of the Legislature last year, but it died when lawmakers failed to reconcile the differences.

The expansion would not apply to the lowest-level violations like simple trespassing, loitering, disorderly conduct or privately possessing a single marijuana cigarette.

The Assembly bill had added provisions that would have required better access to DNA evidence for defense lawyers; prohibited other DNA identification indexes; increased the penalty for tampering or misusing DNA samples; and required police to get written consent before collecting a voluntary sample from someone for an investigation. It would require a state commission to review and report on confidentiality safeguards.

"Last year, when the bills crossed, we didn't have the governor's attention because of other matters like the $10 billion deficit," said Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, the bill's sponsor. "I hope that this year we will have the governor's attention and help in passing the bill. But I'd like to see it done the right way."

The Brooklyn Democrat is the Codes Committee chairman. He said, "There's very little in any DNA legislation to protect the innocent substantively because people wrongly convicted don't have equal access to the DNA like the prosecution does."

He said the bill would protect the public. "If somebody is wrongfully convicted, you don't have the real perpetrator, the real person behind bars," he said.

The database began in 1996 with the genetic material from convicted killers and sex predators. It has been expanded three times, in 2006 adding all remaining penal law felonies and three dozen misdemeanors.

Sen. Stephen Saland, a Poughkeepsie Republican and chairman of the Senate Codes Committee, introduced a bill to expand DNA testing to those convicted of any felony and any penal law misdemeanor, which he plans to re-introduce shortly. He said he doesn't want to embrace any ancillary issues but hasn't yet seen the details of Cuomo's proposal.

"DNA is a sword that cuts both ways," he said, helping both to prosecute criminals and exonerate the innocent.

The state District Attorneys Association and the victim assistance organization Safe Horizon say Cuomo's proposal would help convict the guilty and prevent future crimes.

But Robert Perry, legislative director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said unanswered questions remain regarding testing accuracy and sample contamination, the potential for fraud and abuse by authorities of supposedly incontrovertible evidence and the "fundamental fairness" of providing the accused with equal access to DNA information to try to establish innocence.

"In light of the scale of the increase in the number of samples that will be collected and archived in the databank, there must be an equally robust enhancement of oversight and quality assurance procedures," Perry said.

He noted the 2006 article by University of California law professor William Thompson recounting testing errors documented at DNA labs in that state and in Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, mainly because of inadvertent human errors from cross-contamination or sample mix-ups. Thompson wrote that defense lawyers should fight relentlessly for full disclosure of underlying laboratory records for DNA evidence and for court appointment of an independent expert to review them.

According to the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services, they have never had an incident where their DNA databank was compromised. All profiles are done at the state police laboratory, about 3,000 a month with a capacity for about 10,000, while eight other labs regionally help process crime scene samples.

While Cuomo administration officials were reluctant this week to talk about settling legislative differences, they said statistics make a compelling argument and show how frequently offenders convicted of currently non-DNA qualifying offenses are later charged with violent felonies.

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We are missing an important opportunity to prevent needless suffering of crime victims," the governor said. "We are also failing to use the most powerful tool we have to exonerate the innocent."

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are taken from 48-percent of convicted offenders.

"If you were a doctor and you had medicine that you knew could help cure a patient, wouldn't you want to be able to use it in 100 percent of your cases?" asks Kate Hogan, Warren County District Attorney.

Gov. Andrew Cuome, backed by prosecutors and police is, pushing to become the first state in the nation to have an all-crimes DNA Databank.

It would include all felonies, including those under Vehicle and Traffic and Ag & Markets law. And all penal code misdemeanors---things like criminal possession of stolen property and unauthorized use of a vehicle. Elizabeth Glazer, the state's deputy public safety secretary says today's murderer could be yesterday's shoplifter, "People who commit serious crimes, also often commit crimes that aren't that serious," said Glazer. "DNA stops crime and it's not just in movies, or in TV. It's in real life."

Police call the expansion of the database a no-brainer.

Bud York, Warren County's sheriff would even like to someday include all people arrested---just like fingerprinting---but predicted that would never happen.

Not everyone is thrilled with the idea of collecting DNA from those convicted. "We oppose the bill as it stands. We would like to work with the Governor to try and revise the legislation to take into account the safeguards that need to be put in place to make sure collection and evaluation of the DNA is infallible," said Melanie Trimble of the New York Civil Liberties Union Capital Region Chapter.

If approved by the legislature, the expanded databank would take effect October 1st and cost taxpayers about $1.2 million dollars annually.

Quoted from Box A Rox

WOW!  A 5-Fer!

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Accuracy of DNA "Matches" to Definitively Identify Suspects Questioned


New research has called into question the reliability of some use of DNA tests to definitively identify suspects in criminal investigations. After recent evidence of chromosomal "matches" based on DNA testing turned out to belong to unrelated individuals, some scientists wonder whether there are flaws in the assumptions that underlie the FBI’s statistical estimates of DNA accuracy. In 2001, Arizona state crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on the state’s database when she came across two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles. They matched at 9 of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people. While the FBI estimated the odds of finding unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be 1 in 113 billion, Troyer found the men to be unrelated and of different races--one was black and the other white.

Since that initial discovery, Troyer has found dozens of similar "matches," sparking a legal fight over whether the nation’s genetic databases should be more closely scrutinized. At the time of her discovery, many states looked at only nine or fewer loci when searching for suspects (most attempt to compare 13 loci when evidence is available). Because of her results, Troyer and her colleagues believed that a 9-locus match could lead investigators to the wrong person. “We felt it was interesting and just wanted people to understand it could happen,” Troyer explained. “If you’re going to search at nine loci, you need to be aware of what it means. It’s not necessarily absolutely the guy,” added Troyer’s colleague Phoenix Lab Director Todd Griffith.

Inspired by these findings, defense attorney Bicka Barlow investigated if there might be similar matches in DNA databases to challenge prosecutors’ assertions that the odds of a coincidental match were as remote as 1 in 1 trillion. She subpoenaed a new search of the Arizona database and found that there were 122 pairs of individuals that matched at 9 of 13 loci and 20 pairs that matched 10 out of about 65,000 felons. For years, courtrooms have treated DNA results as the gold standard in evidence, finding it hard to argue with odds like 1 in 100 billion. “Troyer’s discovery threatened to turn the tables on prosecutors. At first blush, the Arizona matches appeared to contradict those statistics and the popular notion that DNA profiles, like DNA, were essentially unique.”

The FBI’s estimates originated from a sample population of a few hundred people in the 1990’s. The FBI sent out a nationwide alert to crime labs warning of defense requests after Barlow’s subpoena. Illinois did a similar search of their database in 2006 and found 903 pairs of profiles matching at 9 or more loci in a database of about 220,000. Maryland searched their database for matches in 2007 and found 32 pairs matched at 9 or more loci among fewer than 30,000 profiles.
(J. Felch, M. Dolan, "How reliable is DNA in identifying suspects," L.A. Times, July 20, 200. See Studies and Innocence.


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Quoted from bumblethru

Just heard about this on the car radio. They are selling it this way.........it solves crimes and exonerates those falsely accused. Eventually it will be mandatory at birth.........to protect the innocent!!!  It will be included with finger prints and dental records. ............then...........RESEARCH!!!

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There is no difference in accuracy between a DNA blood test and a DNA home test kit. Some testing companies will test your DNA twice to make an even more evident analysis.