DNA Evidence Is No Panacea for Solving Crimes: Huge Backlogs, Inept Testing and Corruption Stand in the Way

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted July 16, 2009.

Although they were originally intended to target sex offenders, before long, the subject pool for these samples widened to anyone convicted of a "violent felony."

In 1998, the FBI launched the Combined DNA Index System Program (CODIS), an automated DNA information-processing and telecommunication system, to augment and support NDIS.

Described as "the core of the national DNA database," CODIS was designed to store DNA profiles from laboratories at the local, state and national levels. (According to the Department of Justice, the FBI provides CODIS software free to any state or local law enforcement laboratory performing DNA analysis.)

According to the description on DNA.gov, which provides state-by-state information on the DNA laws from Alaska to Wyoming, "The CODIS software … provides a central database of the DNA profiles from all user laboratories. A weekly search is conducted of the DNA profiles in this national database, known as the National DNA Index System, and resulting matches are automatically returned by the software to the laboratory that originally submitted the DNA profile."

Consolidating and cross-referencing DNA samples from dangerous criminals sounds like a smart idea, especially if information is processed in such an efficient-sounding manner. But since the creation of CODIS, years of legislation to expand DNA collection has led to a forensics backlog of emergency proportions -- and in some places, it has meant justice delayed in just the sort of cases the DNA database was supposedly designed to assist.

Take, for example, this growing mess in Los Angeles: In a stunning move, last month the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department announced it was halting DNA testing in sexual assault cases. Describing it as "out of cash and understaffed," the Los Angeles Times spoke to officials who said the department's lab simply could not keep up with the amount of DNA evidence in its possession.

The decision came some 10 months after the L.A. Police Department, "under pressure from watchdog groups and politicians," began a new policy of testing all rape kits for DNA instead of only those requested by detectives in a given case.

The promise, made last November, was considered farfetched from the start. ("That was never realistic," one supervisor told the L.A. Times.) Yet the policy was a response to intense criticism, which was summarized neatly by the New York Times in an editorial last fall condemning the "shameful" backlog of untested rape kits in the hands of L.A. law enforcement.

"Lawmakers need to address this ongoing insult to women and the intolerable loss for effective law enforcement," wrote the N.Y Times, blaming the crisis on "a lack of resolve, trained personnel and accountability."

Now, with California mired in a financial emergency, funding for the California Department of Justice lab could be cut by as much as $20 million next year, according to the L.A.Times -- "a move that, if approved by lawmakers, would force the lab to stop providing free DNA testing to 47 of the state's 53 county governments."

It was recently estimated that there are 400,000 rape kits languishing untested in crime labs and police possession nationwide, according to the National Institute of Justice.

But rape kits are only part of the story. Forensics labs across the country have been understaffed, underfunded and generally dysfunctional for years.

In 2004, a sweeping investigative story in the Chicago Tribune painted an alarming portrait of the nation's DNA labs.

"Revelations of shoddy work and poorly run facilities have shaken the criminal justice system like never before, raising doubts about the reputation of labs as unbiased advocates for scientific truth," it reported.

The far-reaching crime lab scandals roiling the courts are unlike other flaws in the criminal justice system -- the rogue prosecutor, the incompetent defense attorney, the unscrupulous cop -- because for years, the reputation of the labs had been unquestioned. 

But the consequence of lab errors, whether due to incompetence, imprecision or fraud is frequently the same -- an innocent person behind bars.

The Tribune cited problems from Virginia to Oklahoma to Texas, where the Houston lab scandal is the stuff of legend, and where calls to halt executions while the mess was sorted out fell on death ears. (In 2004, a whopping 280 boxes of evidence were discovered untouched from some 8,000 cases, some of which were 25 years old. "The boxes," the Tribune reported, "contained everything from clothing and weapons to a fetus.")

Things weren't much better at the federal level. In May 2004, FBI lab analyst Jacqueline Blake pleaded guilty to making false statements about approximately 100 DNA reports. In 2005, the Department of Justice Inspector General found that Blake had falsified her lab documentation to cover her tracks.

Discoveries like this are massive in their implications. As the Tribune report put it, "Given the sheer volume of cases that labs handle, the discovery of even a single flawed analysis raises the prospect of re-examining hundreds, if not thousands, of cases."

See more stories tagged with: bush administration, fbi, privacy, aclu, dna, economic crisis, rape kits, chicago tribune, propublica, dna databases, codis, ndis, dna backlog, larry frankel, alec jeffreys, gordon thomas honeywell g

Liliana Segura is an AlterNet staff writer and editor of Rights & Liberties Special Coverage. Follow her on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/LilianaSegura

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