DIRECTOR ASPLEN: Thank you, Chief. I think the first most appropriate order of business is a word of congratulations to the Chief Justice, who, by overwhelming vote in Wisconsin, remains Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. So congratulations, Chief.

CHAIRPERSON ABRAHAMSON: It's congratulations to the citizens of the State of Wisconsin.

DIRECTOR ASPLEN: Agreed. And wise they are. I'm going to do a couple of things to try to orient us to what we're doing today. First of all, let me explain to you why you're in Santa Fe, which is a question that has come up a couple of times.

The reason that you're in Santa Fe is actually a couple-fold. Number one, we felt it appropriate for those folks who are traveling from the west coast to get a little closer to the west coast, so that they don't always have to be the ones who suffer the jet lag. Also, in the beginning of the week, we had a meeting.

The National Institute of Justice had a meeting in Albuquerque, the Fourth National Conference on the Future of DNA, and as such, since so many of the NIJ staff and so many of the presenters at both meetings were going to be in Albuquerque, we decided to have this meeting close, also.

We were going to try to have it in Albuquerque, so that you didn't have to make the long drive down, for those of you who did, but there just wasn't any hotel space in Albuquerque.

So hopefully, since you've made the long trek out here, be it flying to Albuquerque and driving here or taking the puddle-jumper from Denver, we hope that at least while you're here you enjoy yourself. It is a beautiful little town and the weather is much nicer than it was two days ago, when it snowed. It snowed just about every day this week except yesterday.

So thank you for everyone who has been able to attend.

I want to give you an update a little bit on some of the Commission business that's going on. As the Chief Justice said, we have forwarded the recommendations on the CODIS issue to the Attorney General, with a cover memorandum signed off on by Jeremy Travis, that addressed the two issues that we talked about at the last meeting, the Dallas meeting.

You may remember that what we decided was not to change the recommendation, but to also make the two points, number one, that the database backlog was a fluctuating dynamic, if you will, and that the Attorney General really needed to understand that, and that what we were not saying was if you give this amount of money, that this problem will go away.

But rather, our point was this is the size of commitment that needs to be made now under the current situation, with a commitment to continued reevaluation of reducing the backlogs as they kind of rise and fall.

The second point was the point of not wanting moneys to be taken from other valuable law enforcement efforts and other valuable DNA efforts and simply shift it so that some other program was suffering as a result of this. What we were asking for was a new infusion of financial resource by way of commitment to the backlog reduction.

Along those lines, the President's budget includes $15 million, pursuant to NIJ's request, for backlog reduction and it is still in the budget process at this stage. We have no reason to believe that it won't continue.

Also, the Commission staff has had the opportunity on several occasions to go to the Hill and talk to different Senators about the issue itself and some of the other things the Commission is doing, as they consider legislation on their end. So, again, the Commission is also providing, I think, a significant educational function and resource for the legislators.

Also, in terms of the educational function of the Commission, Lisa and I have had the opportunity to speak at various conferences about the work of the Commission. As I said, we had the NIJ meeting on Monday and Tuesday, where we gave a presentation on the work of the Commission. I've had the opportunity on several occasions to either speak on the radio or on television.

What I have done is I have provided a transcript, and I will make more copies of this for folks who are interested, of the NPR Talk of the Nation segment that I was on with Ray Suarez. It was myself and the President of the ACLU, Nadine Strauss.

I will provide a copy of that transcript for you for two reasons; number one, to get another look into the arguments being made by the ACLU and the concerns that they're expressing, but what is more important to me is that you are comfortable with the representations that I am making when I, in my capacity as Executive Director, go out and talk about what the Commission is doing.

I send these transcripts also over to the Attorney General's office for review by their office. So that what I'm saying, quite frankly, is neutral enough on those issues that there have been no decisions made. Oftentimes, it is just a matter of saying, well, yes, that's an excellent point and that's why the Commission is taking it up. But I want to make sure that the Commissioners are also comfortable with it.

Another thing that I will make available, too, if you're interested, is a videotape of a recent Black Entertainment Television segment that I was on about two or three weeks ago, where we talked about the issue of DNA taken from arrestees. NIJ thought it was a very important program to be part of, and so we did that, and I think it was very valuable.

We had a representative, by satellite, from San Francisco, representing the ACLU. There was also a police chief who was taking the advocate side.

What I said very specifically to them was that if I was to come on behalf of the Commission, they needed to understand it would be purely as an educational function and not as an advocacy position on one side or the other.

So, again, if you're interested in seeing that, we'll provide you a videotape, because we don't have a transcript of it.

The most important thing is that you feel comfortable with the representations that are being made on behalf of your Commission.

The next thing I'd like to do is orient you, to some extent, to what we're doing over the next day and a half and to some of the materials that you have in front of you. We sent you a good number of materials in the mail and we are providing more today. That's because this is an ongoing process, obviously, and we provide them to you as things come in from the various working groups.

What you will be getting today, if it's not already on your chair, you will be getting a copy of the proposed model legislation for post-conviction appeals. You may have read in the USA Today yesterday an article written by Richard Willing in that regard that the post-conviction group met on Monday to develop that based on what Professor Berger had already written.

Professor Berger, true to form, will be joining us today, although this is her vacation. In the meeting on Monday, she said, "Well, look, I'm going to be in Santa Fe anyway. If you would like me to stop by, I would be happy to." So she has been kind enough to give us a couple hours this morning to talk about it and she will be here shortly, I'm sure.

So that is one thing that you will be getting, if you don't already have it. I think you do not have that in front of you.

What you will also be getting is a copy of David Kaye's report on behalf of the legal issues working group, some of the Constitutional issues. As we discussed both at the Commission meeting and then at the subsequent working meeting, which was in Chicago, which I think was a very valuable, successful working group meeting, of which you should have received the report from, the notes from that meeting already. You should have received them about a month or two ago. We sent them out pretty much as soon as we got them, to kind of get you thinking about some of those issues. So that will be, I hope, a good discussion today, also.

We've also provided today -- if you haven't already gotten them, the color proofs of the post-conviction DNA testing recommendations and the What Every Officer Should Know pamphlet are for your review and for your consideration, with the caveat that once we decide which one the Commission likes best, the forces that be at the Department of Justice say, well, that's too many colors or, well, we need to reconfigure it for this reason or that reason.

The contractor that we have used to develop them is familiar with the Federal Government contracts and as such, has made the appropriate changes and the appropriate additions in terms of the appropriate seals that need to go on the publication as a DOJ publication, et cetera, et cetera.

We will talk tomorrow about some editorial changes that need to be made in that particular document, regardless of which of the three we select. The substance in all three is the same.

Finally, what I would like to do is talk a little bit about some materials that you have, but I want to bring to your attention in case some issues arise over the next day and a half in terms of numbers, particularly as they relate to CODIS, the backlog, non-suspect case analysis, et cetera.

One of the things that you received was the CODIS summary report, the survey, 1998 DNA Laboratory Survey. That, I think, is going to be very valuable to us and I will point your attention to a couple of things during the laboratory funding section.

What I also have, though, in my possession is a copy of some preliminary results from the BJS survey. They are very preliminary. They expect the final report to be done in about three months. They were very kind and cooperative to give them to me. However, the caveat is I can't copy them, I can't disseminate them, I can only talk about them in generalities.

So as those issues come up, when we need to, I'll be happy to try to give us some guesstimates on issues like backlog, how many laboratories are doing non-suspect cases, what the policies are in receiving cases and things like that.

Again, the final report will be in about three months. I appreciate their willingness, however, to give us the information that they have, but they did place those restrictions on that.

The other thing that we will talk about is the survey which you should have received that we're going to be asking the Police Executive Research Board to conduct for us, and that is a survey that relates to the number of cases, essentially backlog cases in the police departments, not in the laboratories. Those cases which are not even being sent to the laboratories in the first place.

That is, I know, in the minds of some of the Commissioners, probably one of the most important numbers to get a grasp of; to what extent are we truly utilizing the technology from an investigative standpoint and why are we not doing that.

So, again, keep those things, those resources in mind.

The other thing I have here is the uniform crime report for '97. It's the most recent one. They're always about two years behind. However, when we talk about things like number of arrests in the country, number of arrests for violent felonies, when we talk about the investment of CODIS, I've got those numbers here, also.

Finally, I will talk about we had asked at the last Commission meeting for Commissioners who wanted to send questions, to send five questions that they felt needed to be addressed by the Commission. We received a number of responses.

Fortunately, I think we're on the right track. I was very comfortable with the questions that we got and feel like we are addressing most of them.

One of the issues that came up that had not been specifically addressed was posed by Dr. Davis and that was more specific cost-benefit analysis in the context of the cost of crime in the first place, and Dr. Davis asked whether or not we had any statistics, any studies on what the cost of crime is. That's really the only way we could evaluate the cost-benefit analysis of something like an investment in a database system. We've done that. We've looked -- there was an NIJ study, in fact, that you have a summary of, that you were given today, and we may be getting a full copy today overnighted to us from NIJ.

But, again, we can talk about that issue, also, but I wanted to let you know that that issue had come up and that we're in the process of addressing that.

What we don't have right now is a good recent study on recidivism. It's our understanding that those things are underway, that a study like that is underway, but we don't really have a good one. We have a lot of anecdotal experience and we have some individual states to go on, but not a comprehensive recidivistic study.

Finally, you will be receiving today a report or a paper from a gentleman named Terry Knowles, from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, and that is a look at rape investigations in Kansas. First of all, I want to thank Terry for sending it to us. Terry literally called the office out of the blue, having heard about the Commission, and asked if we would be interested in looking at his material.

He is the, I think, Deputy Commissioner or Deputy Director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, former FBI agent, Director of the Sacramento office for a number of years, and I think you will find the report very, very interesting. I think you will find it interesting in to the extent to which law enforcement officers do not consider the database in their investigative procedures really at all.

Again, this is not in any way a knock on the State of Kansas and I really applaud their efforts to evaluate how they're using it and to improve it. But what they do is, Terry really puts together a lot of those numbers on victimization, the cost of victimization, and the cost-benefit analysis and law enforcement attitude toward the database. So I commend that to your reading, also.

That is a document that will also not be distributed publicly beyond the Commissioners, only because it has not been officially submitted by Terry to his reviewing committee at the college that he is submitting this for.

So if anyone in the audience would like a copy of it, I'm sure, if you contact Terry, he'd be happy to give you a copy. I don't feel like it's our place to disseminate it beyond the Commission, but I'm sure that you'll be able to get a copy from him directly.

So I hope that orients you a little bit to the mass of material that you have in front of you. I will try further to direct you.

If you need anything, if any of either the participants or the Commissioners or the audience members need anything over the next day and a half or beyond that, Robin Wilson is here, the Executive Assistant for the Commission. Dr. Forman is also here. She is the Deputy Director of the Commission. We will do anything that we can to help you.

That's all that I have at this point.

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