So Paul, you're on again.

COMMISSIONER FERRARA: Thank you very much, Chief.

The laboratory funding working group, which consists of myself, Cecelia Crouse with West Palm Beach Laboratories, Steve Masgoda with CODIS FBI, Barry Fischer who is the director of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and president of the America Academy of Forensic Science, our own George Clarke, and finally Dick Weaden (phonetic). The working group has met twice thus far, once on conference call and most recently in-person in Washington.

The role of the laboratory funding working group was to provide the Commission with information as to the estimated costs associated with the reduction of backlogs.

Now, to begin with, let me first define what we mean by backlogs. When we use that term, what we are referring to is the accumulation of samples that are available for analysis, but for reasons of resources cannot or are not being run.

For the purposes of our working group, we divided the backlog into two areas. First that of convicted offender samples, and the other being backlogs of crime scene samples or casework.

For the purposes of this discussion we are confining ourselves to the issue of the reduction of the backlog of convicted offender samples.

Now I have a very short summary of the report which you have in front of you. There is a four page narrative that describes our findings.

It was the consensus of our laboratory working group that, one, the full implementation of the combined DNA index system will allow forensic scientists from all over the United States to develop foreign DNA profiles from crime scenes and victims, and to be able to search a national database of DNA profiles of a recidivistic population and identify the perpetrator.

The working group's ideal goal would be that for a forensic science laboratory all over the country to be able to get an analysis on samples submitted from crime scenes almost immediately upon receipt, develop a foreigner profile, search a databank of that for a match profile and provide the results of that search to the law enforcement agencies. All within a matter of hours or days of the events, the sooner the better. That is the ideal situation.

We determined that two different ways to accomplish the goal of clearing the backlog of some 450,000 convicted offender samples within one to two years of the availability of funds. Now, again when I refer to the backlog for the purposes of this discussion, if you harken back to Carl Salavka's presentation he talked about collected and owed. We are talking here about collected samples, those that actually exist in laboratories or repositories all over the country.

Steve Masgoda and the CODIS people have estimated that at this particular time we approximate some 450,000 of such samples to be extent throughout the U.S. Keep in mind that's a snapshot, if you will. Samples are being collected all the time, samples are being analyzed all the time.

As an example of that, in Virginia we continue to collect approximately 24,000 samples a year. Since July, we have been running or have had run for us approximately a thousand of those convicted felon samples per week. So at least in Virginia, each year I'm reducing this backlog by approximately 30, 25,000 samples.

But anyway, for purposes of our discussion we centered on a target of eliminating a backlog of some 450,000 convicted felon samples and to accomplish that backlog reduction within one to two years.

The two methods by which we identified to reach this goal was, one, to assist State laboratories which are current in the STR technology to process these samples in-house, and/or outsource the analysis of these samples to qualified vendors for the STR/DNA analysis.

It was our conclusion that the single most effective short term means to enhance, jump start, get the forensic DNA databank program, is through an immediate infusion of $22.5 million specifically designated for the STR profiling of 450,000 convicted offender samples collected to date nationally at the 13 standard STR loci.

The working group further determined that improvements in the mechanism for collecting convicted offender samples in accordance with State statutes are needed to assure that appropriate individuals are included in the database. Prioritization of these 450,000 samples based upon a sentence or the release dates is not recommended by our working group.

We also determined that a convicted offender database, such as we've described this week, poses no significant risk to the development or release of forensic based genetic information for non-forensic purposes.

We base that conclusion on three factors. One, State laws which preclude the use of these samples for anything other than identification purposes. Two, the 13 standard STR loci at this point are not known to code for any expressed trait. And thirdly, that when these convicted felon samples are coded with an unique number and referred to after receipt as only by that number, that precludes the possibility of personal information being released.

As an ancillary to that, and I think Amanda pointed out that forensic science laboratories like many private laboratories are not in the business of doing genetic research and don't have the resources to do that.

We further determine that the short term costs of this development and implementation of a National DNA databank will, in fact, be mitigated by inestimable long term savings of investigative and judicial time, a decrease in violent crime as a result of incarceration of repeat offenders, and providing closure for those families and victims of unsolved crimes.

Lastly, we felt that State, local, and Federal forensic science laboratories must also develop the necessary resources to train and equip sufficient numbers of DNA examiners in order to be able to process evidentiary samples in a timely and complete manner.

We recognized that this technology will give rise to many more samples and cases, cold cases, postconviction cases, lesser crimes, that will drive the need for more examiners.

This last issue will be the goal of the work of this working group next year, that is how to address the crime scene samples.

And with that, Madam Chair, I will summarize in my report.

MADAM CHAIRMAN ABRAHAMSON: I thank you Mr. Ferrara.

Previous	Contents	Next
Back to National Commission Main Page