MS. ABRAMSON: If the meeting would come to order. We are now going to hear from Dr. Paul Ferrara, who is going to talk about criminal histories of sex offenders identified through DNA cold hits.

DR. FERRARA: This is our tenth meeting of the Commission, and during the course of those ten meetings we spent a lot of time discussing the issues regarding DNA data banks and their usage.We've spent a lot of time discussing the cost associated with development of the data banks and reduction of backlogs of convicted offender samples, crime scene materials, and discussions of who should be included in data banks.

In 1989 Virginia and I believe Florida in that same year created the first DNA data bank laws in the U.S., and, as you know, since then all 50 states have passed DNA data bank laws; however, creating a law and actually developing results from such a program don't occur overnight. As you all know, during the last 14 years that we have been involved in performing DNA analysis the available methodology has evolved and improved. As Jim indicated, we are now at the stage of having a system with the 13 core loci STRs to really start to rock and roll with the establishment of DNA data banks.

In Virginia we have been very fortunate. I have been very fortunate to have funding and support early on in my development of the DNA data bank in Virginia. In 1989 our data bank law required just sex offenders and violent offenders to be included. During that first year of that data bank law Timothy Spencer, the south side strangler that had raped and brutally murdered numerous women all over the Commonwealth of Virginia, was finally apprehended. In fact, he was the first capital murderer convicted and executed on the basis of DNA evidence, and when it became clear to the prosecutors that if we had a DNA data bank law that required persons convicted of property crimes, we would have identified Timothy Spencer of the first rape and murder, and that prompted the Virginia legislature to expand the DNA data bank law after studying it for a full year to all convicted felons in 1990. In 1996 it was further expanded to include juveniles age 14 or older who are convicted of a felony if they were an adult.

What I would like to do today is to bring you some very, very recent information with respect to the developments of our data bank or hits in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the implications of the types of crimes we're solving and the criminal record histories of those individuals committing those crimes.

With that, Robin, could I have that first chart.

This chart shows you quite graphically the development of the DNA data bank in Virginia. The burgundy bars represent the number of hits that we have made each year in Virginia using our DNA data bank. The axis on the left shows the number of hits, but this graph is more important than just showing the number of hits.

As you can see, in 1999 the hits jumped dramatically to I believe it's 74 in 1999. In order to try to give you the most recent data I waited until the 5th of July to take the first full six months of calendar year 2000, and, as you can see, we've already exceeded in the first six months this year the number of hits that we had all of last year. We are getting almost a hit a workday in the laboratory right now.

Now, what I would like to bring your attention to is the blue line. We within the laboratory funding work group have discussed two major factors to make DNA data banks effective. One is a database of appropriate individuals of significant size. In 1998 I was able to get the Virginia General Assembly to give me over $9 million over three years to contract with a private laboratory to take a backlog of some 180,000 samples that had been collected since 1989 and run the STR profiles at the rate of about 60,000 of them per year.

As you can see, the blue line represents the cumulative number of samples in the database. As we speak that is approaching 120,000 DNA profiles of all convicted felons. Clearly there is a correlation between the size of the database and the number of hits, but it is not just a function of the number of samples and size in the data bank.
The other side of the equation and the reason that we are seeing the success in Virginia is an emphasis and an ability to run DNA on crime scene materials for which there are no suspects. I think the fact of the matter is around most of the country most of the laboratories are doing everything they can struggling just to do those few cases where at least you develop a suspect and the case is going to trial. You can have a DNA bank of a million people, but if you aren't running unsolved crime scene cases, then you might as well save your money.

The next slide demonstrates the other reason for the effectiveness of this DNA data bank. In 1989 we did a total of 37 DNA cases by the old RFLP methodology. So far this year in six months we have run over 1,300 DNA cases in the Commonwealth of Virginia. So clearly there are two pieces of information and two correlators that contribute to this tremendous increase in the number of hits, the number of samples in the database, the type of individuals who are in the database, and the number of case work samples that are being analyzed in the laboratory.

As you can see, we have a capacity to do probably we will be pushing 3,000 cases in the year 2000. I've got 37 DNA examiners and support staff right now doing this work. One of our messages I hope is that this Commission needs to address and the forensic science community needs to address nationally where are the people who are going to be needed to do this kind of work all over the country going to come from, but that's a different story, but it's extremely manpower sensitive. Right now our examiners are doing on average approximately five to six cases per examiner per month.

Total hits up to the end of June, this number has already increased this month with a couple of very interesting cases which I wish I could share with you, but I did not, but we had a total number of 183 hits. 155 of them are case to offender. The remaining 28 case to case hits. 151 obviously in the last 18 months and I believe 77 in the last six months.

I'm trying to give you a snapshot of what is a work in progress. In addition to the majority being in-state hits, not inconsequential is the four interstate hits that we have already participated in including District of Columbia, Florida, Louisiana, and Georgia, and that's going to really continue to increase. In fact, I should point out that when I'm talking about 120,000 samples in my database right now, those aren't even complete 13 core loci yet. During the next 12 months we hope to round that out so that those are available for searching on a national level, but even in using an ad hoc system the number of in-state hits is apparent.

What I would like to do with the next slide is show you the type of crimes that we have been solving with this database, and some of this data may or may not be surprising to you. As you can see, as we might expect, rape-sexual assaults top the list of the types of crimes that we have been solving. That stands to reason for a variety of reasons. 22 homicides and 11 rape homicides.

We are at the stage now with our laboratory where we're doing a lot of B & E cases. B & E cases are great for DNA data banks because these people cut themselves when they break in. They take a bite out of a honey bun or a drink from a Coke can, leave biological material at the scenes of B & Es, and these kind of cases are really easy relative to sexual assault cases where you have complex mixtures. You have all kinds of problems you're dealing with, but B & E, so often tissue, a little blood, single source, no mixture of epithelial cells and sperm cells, but just simply an easy sample to take a profile of, develop it, and search the data bank.

As a matter of fact, we find that these kinds of cases are good cases for our new examiners to begin their work on because they are relatively straightforward. You can do a lot of B & E cases in a relatively short period of time.

In addition you will see at the bottom of the list there are 15 miscellaneous types of cases that fall into a potpourri of offenses. Among them also is drug possession. A zealous, but determined vice police wanted us to use this technology to establish possession or contact of an individual with a crack pipe. Again, very easily done. So the application of the DNA and the DNA data banks is to all types of crimes. It isn't just for the major crimes.

We certainly have priorities and triage our samples in such a way as to try to get to the most important cases, and we are working our backlog down of crime scene cases. I'm pleased to say that we're below 450 cases backlogged, and we hope by the end of this year to have that backlog of cases eliminated totally, and to us that's very critical.

I'll tell you one reason why it's critical. Intuitively we talk about the impact of DNA data banks on prevention of future crime. It's intuitively obvious, but I want to describe to you a case that brings that point home very poignantly.

Back in October of 1998 when we had about 1,000 cases backlog and a turn-around time in excess of 90 days on an average case, we had a woman raped and stabbed in Norfolk, Virginia. The police in that particular case had somebody they really liked for the crime and actually had sufficient probable cause to get a blood sample eventually from him; however, that was only a few weeks before he came to trial on shoplifting charges. He came to court on the shoplifting charges. Our DNA results were not done. We hadn't completed that examination. He was released on the shoplifting charges. 11 days later he raped and stabbed a woman to death.

When we ran that case as well as the rape -- stabbing case in Norfolk two months earlier, we established that the same man had indeed committed both of those crimes. So in the minds of some, not I, my laboratory is directly responsible for the unnecessary death of a victim, and clearly had that case risen to a top priority among 1,000 other cases, that man would have been arrested, put in jail, and not have committed that murder.

Cases like that are going to happen all the time. That's why in our laboratory turn-around time of crime scene cases is of paramount importance, but first priority still goes to those cases going to trial, sex offenses, violent offenses and such, but you cannot ignore other cases. I get phone calls from legislators on behalf of constituents whose houses have been broken into saying when in the hell are you going to get around to doing these B & Es? Those cases are just as important to those individuals as any other case. We cannot ignore them.

With the last chart what we did is to the best of our ability take a look at the criminal record history or at least the offense for which the individual who we had the blood sample in the data bank was convicted that resulted in his sample being on the data bank. That data ought to surprise you, but it's very real. As you can see, there are almost 47 cases that we're not even able yet to fill out who those individuals are. Many of them we know are the nonsex offenses, but we don't know what their offenses are. As you can see, clearly in this breakdown the vast majority of the people in our data bank that are responsible for the large number of hits are among those convicted for burglary, breaking and entering. There are only 15 identified sex offenders among those 150 or so case to offender hits.

Grand larcenies, people say what have you got paper hangers and white collar crimes in our data bank for? Well, that's why. Druggies? No problem. 18 of the people we've hit on those crimes are there for drug offenses, and only two individuals who had obviously been convicted of homicide, but released and were free to commit others.

This particular data -- I want to emphasize this data is very fresh off the sheet. We're going to study in more depth the criminal record histories of these individuals to the same extent as we did with a much smaller sampling, which the study is included in your handout material, and which are actually reported quite well I might add in today's USA Today where in a nutshell of some 50 rapes or rape-homicide only cases that we made early on with the data bank, only 60% of those individuals we identified had prior sex crimes. The other 40% were almost entirely property crimes.

That's all I have to really say. I will be glad to answer any questions if I can.

MR. REINSTEIN: Do these numbers match pretty much the research in Great Britain as far as the type of crimes as far as criminal histories go?

DR. FERRARA: Only qualitatively that seems to be the trend. They are seeing a much higher percent. I've heard reported as much as 75% of their hits are coming from those with burglary and property crime convictions, but their database is so much different, both their felon database or their database -- it's not necessarily a felon database -- and then their sweeps and such I'm not sure how comparable they are. But I do know that Illinois, Florida, and Virginia have got a fairly significant number of hits, and I know at least in Florida they are observing that same trend, that property crimes are an early indicator, if you will, are responsible for a large number of future violent crimes.

MR. HILLARD: What is the average turn-around time? What would be the average turn-around time?

DR. FERRARA: If it goes to the top of the heap, we're talking about as little as a week for a full report. I mean the analytical end is 24, 48 hours, but by the time you get the evidence, prepare a report, and such, I usually try to say a week, and, of course, obviously that depends on the type of case.

One of the most difficult problems we have is you get a homicide case, for example, where you've got hundreds of pieces of evidence, many of which have a large -- may have some biological material present that might be of probative value, and cases like that, even if you start may take weeks because of pouring through, looking for the mere presence of a biological material, identifying it, and then dealing with the issues of mixtures and so on. But when a rape case takes place, a relatively straightforward rape kit, we could probably get that case out in a week complete.

(Inaudible question by Mr. Hillard.)

DR. FERRARA: The answer to that is no, and one of the reasons it's no is because in March of last year my examiners got an almost 20% across-the-board increase. What we did is we conducted a salary survey to include federal agencies and other competing private laboratories in the locality, and we were 20% low, and we got that corrected.

Now, that's not going to stop turnover. I mean most of my early DNA examiners are working for Dwight now. That's terrific. As long as they're in the field. I think a couple of years ago in Illinois Susan Johns, who is a good friend, called and asked can I borrow Barbara Llewlyn for a week to help us with some problems we're having in our laboratory. I said sure. About six months later she resigned and accepted a job in Illinois, but she's doing great work.

So I don't have a large turnover, but we do nurture those examiners. They're treated and paid very well, but we also created a laboratory environment that's conducive to keeping them. I mean people don't stay just because of money, although that's a very important factor.

My concern is that laboratories all over the U.S. probably need to expand their DNA staff 10, 20 fold over what they have now, and that means a lot of examiners are going to come from laboratories such as Dwight's and my own and Sue's, and there has got to be someplace where training of those examiners can take place en masse.

We were fortunate in Virginia to be the beneficiaries of a million and a half dollar endowment from crime writer Patricia Cornwall, and she gave that to Virginia, and now the state has picked up the funding for the next two years of that institute. We trained 14 forensic scientists, six of them in the DNA field, two forensic pathologists, two toxicologists, four drug chemists, and those people are trained by national standards. So, for example, the DNA examiners trained in both platforms I might add could go anywhere and get a job.

Now, this first class, I was able to get ten new positions in Virginia, and so I grabbed them right up and they're working in my laboratory, but I've got six more DNA examiners who have begun their training, and they will be graduating next year, but it needs to be 600. The analysis of the crime scene material and increasing the compensation and the quality of the laboratories that these people are working in is critical, as you well know. You've done that same thing.

MS. BASHINSKI: I had a question about your raises. Were they directed only at the DNA analysts? We were able to get a stipend of $300 a month directed just at DNA analysts, and, of course, what that creates is a morale problem within our organization because why are these people worth more than someone else who is doing a good job at the bench?
DR. FERRARA: You make a good point, Jan. That could create problems. That 20% went across the board to all forensic scientists, so it was nice for me because those scientists of mine, my firearms examiners, my trace evidence examiners, et cetera, et cetera, who said you always like DNA best, I can point to them and say, well, look, what you have to realize is the DNA scientists are creating an environment that is carrying over to all of the fields.

To this day, Jan, we do not compensate the DNA examiners differently than the other forensic scientists, and I think that's important to do because s unique as DNA analysis is, the unique sets of talents and requirements for firearms examiners and toxicologists, et cetera, et cetera, is the same.

Now, the support staff is more problematic, and I do get a lot more turnover of my support staff, but typically my support staff are -- they have master's degrees in biology, molecular biology, forensic science, but they haven't had an opportunity to get into the institute or get into a trainee position. Those people will jump to another laboratory if another laboratory has an opportunity to train them as examiners.

I think we're starting to see hopefully with the work of this Commission some increased awareness on the parts of the departments to expand the staff of personnel. You just can't do this work. You can't automate crime scene work very well. It's as simple as that. You just can't rush some things. Five, six cases per month is probably generous.

MS. BASHINSKI: Yes, that's good.

DR. FERRARA: I might add that's only recently have we been running the complete 13 core loci on every case, so that's even going to more keep that number of examiners down.

MS. ABRAMSON: Any other questions?

MR. CLARKE: To return to the criminal history chart, what was telling to me -- and I thought you had explained anecdotally over the years the number of burglary cases -- that is, defendants who were matched -- the number of burglary criminal history offenses who ultimately resulted in a match -- I know you've anecdotally described that. To me what is very telling there is what would be at least apparent to me is a very high percentage of the nontraditional database statute crimes. In other words, the typical database statute in this country is generally the sex crimes plus some murders, homicides, et cetera. In your percentage of hits there are more outside that group than there are inside that group just from judging by the chart, and I think that's very telling on perhaps what direction our states need to consider.

DR. FERRARA: I couldn't have said it better.

MR. CLARKE: I don't know what the number is. Did you calculate a percentage?

DR. FERRARA: No, I haven't. Some of this data got done at 2 o'clock this morning, so much of it -- I probably was too ambitious trying to bring you right up to the first six months of this year, but --

MR. CLARKE: It actually appears to be fairly consistent with you may recall Commissioner Saffer last year described I think the last 100 sex arrests in spots he had pulled, and it was determined a very small percentage of those cases were sex suspects who had any sex priors whatsoever, and this is at least somewhat consistent with that.

DR. FERRARA: That's right. In the study we did of the 50 rape and rape-murder cases you will notice 60% had previous sex offenses and only 40% didn't. When we went in depth into some of the backgrounds and looked at presentence investigation reports and trial transcripts and such, it became apparent that some persons who were convicted of a property crime, there is good reason to believe that the property crime could be part and parcel of an aborted attempt to break and enter into a home and perhaps rape a victim or a rape incidental to a break-in or a break-in to steal a pair of panties, a stalking type.

So there is some of that going on, too. I don't mean to imply and I'm not a position to imply that the burglars and the breaking and entering and the robberies are just strictly financially motivated. I suspect there is some of that or they're bleeding down to some cases. That's what gets really tough to take this kind of data and really capture the correct picture, but I think fundamentally the trend is clear, and the point you is we wouldn't have half of our hits if we didn't have these.

MR. REINSTEIN: What is the status right now on funding for just not the backlog on convicted offenders, but also is there any source for current case work and also nonsuspect case work?

MR. ASPLEN: The story on that is there is a tremendous amount of different legislation -- there has been a flurry of activity on Capitol Hill regarding that. Originally there were three pure funding measures in the House by Representatives Gilman -- one by Gilman, one by Weiner, and one by Kennedy for various and sundry sums of money, and differing in terms of whether or not they were just for convicted offender backlog, although I think two of the three were for both convicted offender and for forensic index backlog lag production; however, since that time on the House side there has been the introduction of a bill by Representative McCollum which proposes to provide $50 million, and again that is for both convict offender and for forensic index backlog. It's spread out 10 million per year over the next five years.

On the Senate side there was legislation introduced by Senator Hatch on the post conviction issue, but which attached to that proactive funding, and that amount was -- I think it's $50 million there also. It was a large sum. That is kind of still sitting out there. Senator Leahy's post-conviction legislation did not provide affirmative funding, but rather attached compliance with the post-conviction provisions in that bill for the states to receive any funding that was allocated; i.e., the current $50 million program that we already have, clip monies, et cetera.

So that's kind of a little snippet of what the legislative landscape looks like. There was testimony at the one Senate hearing on the post-conviction issues. I think it was Senator Schumer who at that point in time said he was going to introduce legislation for $100 million, to which Senator Biden and Senator Hatch said we will support that. So the discussion is out there.

DR. FORMAN: I'll tell you what is happening with the $15 million we do have. We had 21 submissions from 21 different states representing about 250,000 convicted offender samples.

MR. ASPLEN: Lisa, just be clear what 15 million you're talking about.

DR. FORMAN: The 15 million for the CODIS backlog we got for the year 2000. Those 21 states are all being funded in their entirety and will take the approximately $15 million for the CODIS backlog reduction program for fiscal year 2000. I should say that they are in the process of being funded in their entirety. We do not anticipate that there will be anything that will derail any of those particular funding authorizations.

The state match for that program this year was a 1% contribution of unsolved case work, so if we are funding approximately 250,000 convicted offender samples, there will be 2,500 unsolved cases that will be worked to be compared again to those samples at the end of the day.

I should tell you that this year it has been the Administration's task in our department to involve the states in a couple of extra assurances involving both privacy and environmental impact statements, so that has slowed down our ability to get the states' money a little bit because they have to respond to a lot of these environment assessment and privacy human testing issues that have come up for anyone who is receiving a grant, but we expect that those red books will go through pretty quick. Ray is working on them, and that funding will be given out, distributed before the end of this fiscal year.

MR. REINSTEIN: And the goal for Year 2 is also $15 million?

DR. FORMAN: We expect to have another $15 million, and it's still in the budget as far as I know for fiscal year 2001. We will at that point consider upping the ante for state contribution to a higher level of unsolved case work that will need to be done. We will also consider in certain circumstances, certain controlled circumstances that states who have the ability to perform their unsolved -- I'm sorry -- their convicted offender case work in house in certain situations will be allowed to do that instead of outsourcing, but we have not made that final decision yet.

MR. REINSTEIN: Of the 21 states that sought funding you didn't have to apply the formula that you were talking about originally which was based upon the backlog?

DR. FORMAN: We have appropriate funding to meet the entire request.

MR. HILLARD: Was Illinois involved in that?

DR. FORMAN: We didn't bring the data with us.

MR. ASPLEN: We can call the office and find out before you leave today.

MS. ABRAMSON: Why don't you get a list of states.

MR. ASPLEN: The other thing that I should probably add to that is the folks responsible for administering this at NIJ, which are primarily Dr. Forman and Ray and John Paul Jones, have worked very hard to try to improve the program next year, and by that I mean we've identified that by a certain voucher system as opposed to the way the money is being allocated right now directly to the states. We have had discussions with legislative staffs regarding how they could change the legislation for next year that will allow for a voucher system, which would increase our volume by a third, that we would get a third more bang for our buck if we could do it this way. So hopefully we will improve upon this year's.

DR. FORMAN: We're hoping for better economies of scale, but at this point we're not dissatisfied with the way the program is. Also it was unfortunate that we were not able to streamline the process better for the states so that each state has to have developed their own RFP with an outsource lab, which is cumbersome. It is cumbersome.

MR. ASPLEN: We tried very hard. We tried to talk the Office of General Counsel into seeing it our way, but ultimately it was decided that the way the legislation was written could not accommodate that scenario this year, which is why we're trying to get the legislation.

MR. REINSTEIN: Are your samples all blood or are you taking the swabs as well?

DR. FERRARA: For the convicted offender samples they're still venous blood samples, Judge, although two years ago I got our legislation changed to allow me to go to saliva or tissue samples. I just simply haven't developed a kit and tested it to make a change. The corrections in the jail sort of like the blood sample because they're already drawing one and they're comfortable with it.

Ultimately I think the safer route, particularly with the issues of transportation of potentially hazardous samples from a high-risk population and taking that liquid blood and allocating it is worrisome to me, so I would like to perhaps goes to swabs or even a finger prick, but I haven't worked that out, and meanwhile their blood tubes are coming in.

MS. BASHINSKI: Have you calculated a hit rate and, if so, how has that changed over time?

DR. FERRARA: Are you talking about the number of hits per number of samples in the database?

MS. BASHINSKI: Number of cases searched. Of cases searched what percentage do you get a cold hit on?

DR. FERRARA: I don't. That's a good question. I'm not sure.

MS. BASHINSKI: You have how many thousand would you say in your forensic index now?

DR. FERRARA: There are approximately 1,400 cases in our forensic index.

MS. BASHINSKI: So you've got over 10% of those.

DR. FERRARA: Yes, that's right if you look at it that way because those are obviously cases in which we didn't make a hit.

What is interesting I might add is our hits occur two ways. You run a crime scene sample and you search your database and you make a hit, but if you don't make a hit, of course, that sample resides in the forensic index. Every two weeks or so when the contract laboratory delivers X number of thousand new profiles, they're entered, and we're making hits that way.

So for those reasons some of these hits could be delayed not just because of the case work, but because of the convicted felon samples. One hit we searched. It was a rape of a coed at the University of Virginia, and we got a really nice profile. Within a week we had searched the database and didn't make a hit. Two weeks later fortuitously that individual sample had been run by the contract laboratory because they're up to about running 1998 convicted felon samples, and he was in there, and, boom, we made the hit that way. That was all within one month of the original offense.

MS. ABRAMSON: Any other comments or discussion? Then thank you. That was very interesting, as you can tell from the reaction here.

The next item of business is having lunch. It's a working lunch, so if you get your food, plan to come back here, and then we will be talking about the November seminar.

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