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5 13 DNA Evidence and Texas' Criminal Justice System 5 HOUSEHOUSE RESEARCHRESEARCH ORGANIZATIONORGANIZATION Texas House of Representatives November 10, 2000 13 2 DNA databases DNA Evidence and Texas’ 3 DNA in the news Criminal Justice System Post-conviction testing 4 issues DNA, the microscopic genetic material in body cells, is playing an ever Box: DNA Testing Laws larger role in the criminal justice system. Interest in using DNA evidence in 5 in Other States criminal cases is growing, fueled by scientific advances in DNA analysis, public awareness of the capability of DNA to identify individuals accurately, 5 Routes to testing and the highly publicized release of inmates from prison after DNA testing. In Texas, post-conviction testing of DNA evidence has resulted in Box: Compensating the Wrongfully Imprisoned gubernatorial pardons and the release from prison of two men this year. In 8 another case, the state postponed an execution to allow DNA testing, then carried out the execution after the test failed to clear the inmate. Many similar 9 Handling DNA evidence cases have occurred in other states. DNA evidence also is used increasingly in Texas during investigation and trial of criminal cases. Privacy issues 9 Unresolved issues about how DNA should be used in the criminal justice system are spurring debate at the federal, state, and local levels. The issues include whether and how prison inmates should be afforded post-conviction DNA testing, how DNA evidence should be handled, and, in Texas, whether the state should expand its DNA database. Lawmakers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and others have called for revising Texas statutes to address DNA testing, and at least one Texas county has begun reviewing cases voluntarily to determine if DNA evidence from past cases should be reevaluated. Texas lawmakers may be called on to resolve issues of how the state should use DNA The Innocence Protection Act of 2000, evidence in criminal cases to convict the guilty introduced in the 106th U.S. Congress by a and exonerate the innocent. bipartisan group of lawmakers, would address many of these issues by establishing DNA testing requirements for states that accepted certain federal grants. The requirements would include allowing prisoners to request DNA testing, requiring courts to grant such requests under certain conditions, Number 76-26 Page 2 House Research Organization and requiring an offender’s DNA profile to be preserved people arrested for certain sex offenses, but the law, as long as the offender is incarcerated, unless the government which was supposed to take effect September 1, 1999, first notifies the offender and the offender’s attorney that has yet to be implemented because of a lack of funding the evidence will be destroyed and they do not object. and the slow development of rules. Databases in 24 states, including Texas, are linked to the federal system that contains DNA profiles from state crime laboratories. DNA databases In 1995, the Texas Legislature directed the Department Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA can be used to identify of Public Safety (DPS) to establish and maintain a an individual from samples of blood, semen, saliva, skin, computerized DNA database to help federal, state, and or hair. Except in the case of identical twins, each person’s local law enforcement agencies investigate and prosecute DNA is unique. In the early 1990s, states began regularly offenses in which biological evidence is recovered. gathering DNA from crime scenes and felons, developing Prison inmates must provide DNA samples if ordered to DNA databases, and using the data to investigate and do so by a court or if they have been convicted of crimes prosecute crimes. specified in Government Code, sec. 411.148. These crimes include murder, aggravated assault, burglary of DNA found as crime-scene evidence can be compared a habitation involving a felony other than theft, and a with DNA from crime suspects. The type of test conducted sex offense that requires the offender to register as a sex can depend on the capabilities of a laboratory and the offender. Similar requirements apply to juveniles quality of a DNA sample. Some tests can identify the committed to the Texas Youth Commission. source of DNA with a high degree of certainty, while other methods may be less precise. Sometimes tests results are DPS maintains the database of prison inmates’ DNA inconclusive, and testing may not be feasible if insufficient profiles in Austin. Forensic labs throughout the state, DNA evidence exists or if the evidence has been degraded, including eight labs run by DPS, send profiles from contaminated, or stored improperly. DNA found at crime scenes to Austin to see if they match any of the database samples. DNA test results often are reported as an “inclusion” or “exclusion.” In a criminal case, an inclusion, also called a DPS has received about 62,000 DNA samples for match, generally means that DNA evidence from a crime its database as of late October. About 9,400 samples scene matches that of a suspect or a known person. An had been analyzed by both an older method and the most exclusion means that the suspect’s DNA does not match up-to-date method available, while another 2,600 samples the DNA obtained from the crime scene. had been analyzed only by the older method and will have to be reanalyzed. The remaining 50,000-plus samples In most cases, developing a DNA profile — a have not been tested. The lab receives an average of description of the content of part of a person’s DNA — 3,000 samples per month; about 90 percent are sent by can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000, depending on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the rest the type of sample, whether it is taken from a crime scene are ordered by courts for persons on probation or parole. or from an individual for a database, and the type of report to be produced. The DPS lab can analyze about 300 to 400 samples per month. Since October 2000, DPS has used a federal All states allow DNA to be collected from some grant to contract with a private lab to analyze samples. convicted criminals, according to the National Conference The lab analyzed 500 samples in October and is projected of State Legislatures (NCSL). In general, states use their to analyze more each month through January 2001, when it DNA databases to compare DNA evidence from unsolved will have analyzed 10,000 samples. DPS estimates that crimes to DNA profiles of convicted offenders. Thirty-six it will have a backlog of about 15,000 samples when the states require collection of DNA samples from people $1.75 million grant runs out on July 31, 2001. DPS also convicted of sex crimes and certain other serious crimes, plans to use the grant money to build a new DNA lab that with five of these states requiring samples from people can handle more work than the current lab. convicted of all felonies. Fourteen states require samples from people convicted only of specific sex offenses. In 1997, Not counting personnel costs, it costs DPS about Louisiana enacted a law requiring DNA samples from $14 to analyze each DNA sample for the database. DPS House Research Organization Page 3 is paying the private lab about $29 to analyze each DNA George W. Bush’s administration. In 1997, the governor sample. Developing DNA profiles from samples taken pardoned Kevin Byrd and Ben Salazar, both of whom had from offenders generally is less expensive than analyzing served time for rape. In June 2000, Gov. Bush pardoned crime-scene evidence, because samples from offenders A.B. Butler, who had served time for kidnapping and rape, are pristine, whereas crime-scene samples can be more and in August 2000, he pardoned Roy Criner. difficult to extract and must be preserved and handled in specific ways. Those who advocate changes in current law often cite Criner’s case as an example of the importance of DNA The DNA database has been instrumental in solving testing. Criner, who served 10 years of a 99-year sentence 12 crimes as of late October, according to DPS. In these for aggravated sexual assault, received his pardon following cases, DPS matched DNA from crime-scene evidence DNA tests of crime-scene evidence and a spate of publicity with profiles in the database or with material from another surrounding the case, including a feature aired on the crime scene in which the offender was known. Public Broadcasting System’s Frontline program. DNA evidence was tested twice by agreement with Criner’s attorney and the prosecutor’s office. The Board of Pardons DNA in the news and Paroles voted 18-0 to recommend a pardon, and Gov. Bush agreed, saying that credible new evidence had raised The most discussed issue regarding DNA in the substantial doubt about Criner’s guilt. The district judge, criminal justice system is post-conviction testing, the use district attorney, and sheriff in the case also recommended of DNA evidence to prove a prison inmate’s guilt or the pardon. innocence after the inmate has been convicted and sentenced by a court. Lower courts had overturned Criner’s conviction twice before, once during the appeals launched soon after Debate was fueled initially by a 1996 report of the his original conviction and again in 1998, after the first National Institute of Justice DNA test reported that Criner’s (NIJ), Convicted by Juries, DNA did not match that of the Exonerated by Science: Case Those who advocate changes in semen found in the 16-year-old Studies in the Use of DNA current law often cite Gov. Bush’s girl he was convicted of raping.
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