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                            LexisNexisª Academic

                   Copyright 2002 Gannett Company, Inc.
                                 USA TODAY

                   October 7, 2002, Monday, FINAL EDITION

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A

LENGTH: 2532 words

HEADLINE: DNA testing fails to live up to potential

BYLINE: Richard Willing

BODY:
It's been 15 years since a science-savvy prosecutor convinced a jury that a
little-known body chemical called DNA proved that an Orlando man named Tommy
Lee Andrews was guilty of rape by a 10 billion-to-1 probability.

Since then, DNA has become a fixture in the U.S. justice system. It has
sprung 10 wrongly convicted murderers from death row, exonerated 100 other
convicts of lesser crimes and helped prosecutors clear thousands of cases
that might have gone unsolved. An FBI computer system that compares DNA from
unsolved state and federal crimes with samples drawn from convicts has
scored nearly 5,500 matches in the 10 years it has operated.

But for all its successes, DNA's promise to solve old crimes and prevent new
ones remains largely unfulfilled. A USA TODAY review of the nation's DNA
system found that:
* Evidence from tens of thousands of unsolved rapes and homicides during the
past several years has not been tested for DNA, and so is not reflected in
the FBI's national database. State and local crime labs say they are swamped
by current cases, but they have been slow to apply for new federal grants
aimed at reducing the backlog.

* The effectiveness of the DNA crime-solving system varies from state to
state. Criminals in some states are far more likely to be caught through DNA
evidence than those in other states.

Virginia, Florida, New York and Illinois -- states that have spent
aggressively to build DNA databases and contribute to the federal system --
have accounted for 56% of the national database's 5,436 DNA matches since
1992. In some states that haven't been as committed to building a DNA
database, solving crimes through DNA testing is rare. Through August, 13
states had made no DNA matches using the federal database, and five others
had made fewer than 10 each.

* Federal efforts to help states and cities pay for DNA testing have
encouraged states to pursue rapists but not murderers. Testing in homicide
cases can be far more complex and costly -- $ 10,000 or more, compared with
$ 500 for a test in a typical rape case. Critics say federal grants for DNA
testing push states to test evidence from unsolved rapes first.

* DNA matches have provided law enforcement officials across the nation with
the identities of suspects in thousands of unsolved cases. But state and
federal officials have no idea how many of those matches have led to
convictions, making it impossible to assess DNA's true impact. There is no
system for tracking how police follow up once matches are made.

DNA specialists and U.S. officials say the problems reflect both the promise
and the shortcomings of the still-developing DNA system.

"There have been 5,000 hits (through the federal database), but there ought
to be 50,000," says Mark Stolorow, director of Orchid Cellmark labs in
Germantown, Md., which has done DNA testing for the New York City police.
"The science is moving ahead at incredible speed. It's our ability to make
it work for us that's in question."

'We were on to something'

DNA research dates to the 19th century. But the science has been used by law
enforcement only since August 1987, when police in Narborough, England, used
it to solve two rape-murders. Orlando prosecutors read of that case, and
three months later used rudimentary DNA testing to convict Andrews, a local
warehouse worker. That case and a subsequent conviction netted Andrews a
99-year sentence.

"We had good circumstantial evidence, but the jurors told us later that the
science made all the difference," recalls Orlando defense lawyer Timothy
Berry, the prosecutor in that case, the first DNA-related conviction in the
USA. "We could see we were on to something."

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a natural for crime-solving. It holds an
individual's unique genetic code and is carried in most body cells. Patterns
in DNA often are present in blood, semen and other evidence left at the
scenes of violent crimes.

Some states were quick to seize upon DNA's potential for investigating
crimes with no apparent suspects. In 1989, Colorado began to draw DNA from
convicted sex offenders and to place their DNA profiles in a state database.
Virginia did so a year later and soon expanded its testing program to
include all felons.

In 1992, the FBI launched the Combined DNA Index System as a national
crime-fighting tool. The idea was simple: Get every state to build a
database of convicted offenders' DNA, and link the databases through a
national computer network. Then solve crimes by matching DNA from crime
scenes with the genetic profiles in the convict database.

"The theory was that, especially with sex crimes, people who had offended
before were likely to do so again," says John Hicks, who then was the FBI's
lab director and now is New York state's director of forensic services. That
made DNA "especially useful in solving cases that had no suspect."

FBI lawyers and crime lab technicians lobbied state legislatures to create
their own databases of convicted offenders to add to the combined system. By
1998, all 50 states had complied.

But the states have made uneven progress in setting up their databases. Some
have been aggressive and have built large databases by drawing DNA not only
from sex offenders but also from other violent criminals, drug users and
even burglars and forgers. On the other hand, Connecticut, Delaware and
Mississippi don't even require convicted killers to submit DNA samples.

At least a dozen states that have authorized large databases haven't
collected DNA from some convicts because the process can be expensive or
fraught with legal problems. In California, prison officials balked at
collecting DNA from thousands of resisting inmates until courts approved
rules governing the procedure. This June and July, California nearly doubled
the number of convicts it has tested for DNA, to more than 78,000. But the
nation's largest state still lags behind Florida, New York and Virginia.

States with the largest databases have made the most DNA matches through the
federal database. Virginia had more than 123,000 DNA profiles on file
through August, the last time the FBI performed a system audit. The state
had scored matches in 927 cases, the most in the nation. Neighboring
Maryland, which until recently tested only inmates convicted of the most
violent crimes, had taken about 11,500 samples and had recorded matches in
23 cases.

As elsewhere, about 90% of the crimes solved through DNA analysis in
Virginia and Maryland were committed by criminals with a previous conviction
in the state.

One state's experience

Oklahoma's experience shows the value of building a DNA database -- and the
potential risk of waiting to do so.

State lawmakers authorized a DNA database in 1996. But a lack of money for
testing and a dearth of experienced lab technicians meant it was this August
before any profiles were entered. Oklahoma scored an immediate hit, linking
a 1999 rape in Norman, Okla., to eight similar crimes in Arizona, California
and Nevada. Authorities acknowledge that if the testing had been done
earlier, the alleged serial rapist, James Selby, might have been identified
more quickly and other assaults prevented. Selby was arrested Sept. 24 in
Colorado; authorities have not determined where he will face trial.

"There's a definite connection between the size of your (convicted offender)
DNA database and your success rate," says Dawn Herkenham, a lawyer in
Albany, N.Y. who advises the FBI on DNA matters. "You have to maximize your
convicted offender samples to really see what the system is capable of."

States also have been slow to perform DNA analysis in unsolved crimes and to
submit those samples for possible matches. As of August, only about 39,000
DNA profiles from unsolved crimes were in the database system. But nearly
1.2 million offender profiles are in the databases. Officials say the
numbers reflect how the DNA system is underused, particularly in solving
rapes and murders.

"If you don't put (unsolved) cases in, you don't get any cases solved," says
Howard Safir, a former New York City police commissioner and an advocate for
performing DNA tests on all arrestees. "We've got fewer (unsolved) cases in
there now than there are unsolved rapes in a given year" across the country.
"That's a scandal."

Priorities and costs

The FBI says about 48,000 of the 90,000 rapes reported in 2000 -- the most
recent year for which statistics are available -- were not solved.

When it comes to solving old rape cases, many police agencies don't even
try. A survey done for the Justice Department in 1999 estimated that
evidence kits from 180,000 unsolved rapes, some nearly 10 years old, had
never been tested for DNA. Many public crime lab directors say they are busy
doing DNA tests on active cases and have no money to analyze the old
evidence.

In August, the Justice Department hired a consultant to survey police
departments and crime labs and learn exactly how much untested evidence
remains. A preliminary report is due Oct. 21.

Congress allocated about $ 45 million to help states perform DNA tests on
unanalyzed evidence in 2002 and 2003. But as of September, only 24 state
crime labs had applied to test fewer than 20,000 rape kits -- the cotton
swabs that hospitals use to draw semen from victims. That's a small fraction
of the backlog.

"The truth is, nobody knows what (untested) evidence is out there, and
nobody's in a hurry to find out," says Rockne Harmon, an assistant
prosecutor in Oakland who specializes in DNA evidence. "It could be a little
embarrassing to have to explain (to victims) that you had this stuff and
hadn't moved on it."

States have been even less eager to test evidence from unsolved homicides.
In 2000, the Justice Department required the 21 states that took federal
funds to pay for DNA tests of convicted offenders to use some of the money
to test unsolved cases. Only about 15% of the cases the states chose were
unsolved homicides. More burglaries were submitted for testing.

Lab specialists cite the wide-ranging costs of DNA testing. Homicides often
require complex tests to separate victims' and attackers' bloodstains.
Often, several pieces of evidence must be analyzed. Costs can exceed $
10,000. Testing rape evidence, by contrast, usually involves a single cotton
swab and costs about $ 500.

Critics say the Justice Department's DNA grant process favors rape testing.
They note that most grants are made to crime labs, which often are in charge
of storing evidence from rapes. But homicide evidence generally remains with
police, who seldom are part of the grant process.

The Justice Department is studying ways of getting more grant money to reach
unsolved homicide cases. One proposal would give local police detectives $
100 per case to search their records for homicides that might be solved
through DNA testing.

The DNA database is "a federal system, but the states are at the heart of
it," says Viet Dinh, assistant attorney general and the Justice Department's
point man on DNA. "The challenge is to get the horse to the water and to
make him drink."

Another shortcoming in the DNA system is its inability to track what happens
to a case once a match is made through the federal database. Neither the
states nor the federal government requires the labs that do the tests or the
computer specialists who make the matches to follow up with police and
prosecutors to see whether convicts matched to crimes are convicted or even
prosecuted.

Last year, New York state tried to determine what had become of the cases in
which the state made its first 102 DNA matches. The state found only four
that had resulted in convictions and 14 others in which charges were
pending. In two-thirds of the matches, available records did not indicate
what had become of the cases.

The lack of records concerning DNA's impact on convictions is the system's
"No. 1 problem," says New York City attorney Barry Scheck, who specializes
in using DNA to win release for the wrongly convicted. "How can you go (to
legislators) and ask for more money for something in which you can't even
demonstrate real results? We ought to be answering that question first."

'We can't stop now'

Congress and the Justice Department are examining several ways to improve
the DNA system.

On Sept. 12, the Senate unanimously passed a bill that would give state and
local governments $ 275 million over the next five years to pay for DNA
testing in unsolved rapes. Another $ 60 million would help states pay for
tests of convicted offenders and add them to databases. The plan is now
before the House of Representatives.

Separately, the Justice Department is considering new programs aimed at
improving state and local crime labs, and at making the national DNA
matching system easier for police and prosecutors to use. And the FBI has
also begun to increase the capacity of the DNA system's computers from the
current 1.5 million DNA profiles to 50 million. The FBI plans to maintain
all the system's records at a central Web site.

For David and Ann Scoville, the changes can't come soon enough. In October
1991, their daughter Patty, 28, was raped and killed on a hiking trail near
Stowe, Vt. The Canandaigua, N.Y., couple are lobbying state legislatures to
fund DNA databases.

Their daughter's killer hasn't been caught, but David Scoville is convinced
that will change as more DNA samples are collected.

"We can't stop now, just because the system hasn't worked out perfectly," he
says. "We've got to grab this and run with it, as a society. It's not DNA
that makes the system effective. It's us. We can't stop now."

TEXT WITHIN GRAPHIC BEGINS HERE

FBI and states share DNA to solve crimes

The DNA database monitored by the FBI has more than 1 million samples
collected from state and federal convicts and from scenes of unsolved
crimes. Thirty-seven states, the FBI lab and the U.S. Army crime lab have
made more than 5,000 matches since 1992, through August:

Alabama: 126

Alaska: 15

Arizona: 97

California: 99

Colorado: 33

Connecticut: 46

Delaware: 0

Florida: 917

Georgia: 268

Hawaii: 0

Idaho: 0

Illinois: 595

Indiana: 95

Iowa: 0

Kansas: 0

Kentucky: 29

Louisiana: 0

Maine: 36

Maryland: 23

Massachusetts: 137

Michigan: 18

Minnesota: 63

Mississippi: 0

Missouri: 130

Montana: 0

Nebraska: 3

Nevada: 40

New Hampshire: 0

New Jersey: 22

New Mexico: 25

New York: 614

North Carolina: 77

North Dakota: 0

Ohio: 113

Oklahoma: 8

Oregon: 150

Pennsylvania: 128

Rhode Island: 0

South Carolina: 18

South Dakota: 0

Tennessee: 34

Texas: 302

Utah: 3

Vermont: 0

Virginia: 927

Washington state: 47

West Virginia: 2

Wisconsin: 154

Wyoming: 1

U.S. Army crime lab (Georgia): 9

FBI crime lab (Washington): 19

GRAPHIC: GRAPHIC, Color, Web Bryant, USA TODAY (ILLUSTRATION); PHOTO, Color,
1991 family photo; PHOTO, B/W, Jay Capers for USA TODAY; GRAPHIC, B/W,
Adrienne Lewis, USA TODAY, Source: FBI (MAP); Patty Scoville: Her unsolved
murder has turned her parents into DNA database activists.<>We can't stop
now": Ann and David Scoville lobby for funding for DNA databases. Their
daughter was killed on a hiking trail in Vermont.

LOAD-DATE: October 07, 2002