Update on Commission Business

9 MR. ASPLEN: Thank you.
10 Just a couple of update matters. First of all, my
11 congratulations to Barry at least on the Front Line article.
12 I think he felt better about the Front Line article than
13 perhaps the article in the New Yorker. I don't know.
14 Chief, it may go back to the old law school adage that you
15 never ask a question that you don't know the answer to.
16 MR. SCHECK: The Front Line, if we could get a
17 copy for every member of the Commission. Without knowing
18 who saw it, I think anybody who saw it was powerfully
19 impressed. It is essential to the work that this Commission
20 has done, and I think people like it.
21 MR. ASPLEN: I also think the timing is great,
22 having the folks from the Criminal Case Review Commission
23 here to talk about a way that you can actually do things a
24 little bit differently. I do appreciate their being here on
25 relatively short notice.
1 I would also like to mention the members of our
2 Legal Issues Working Group. Some of them are here and I
3 think the rest of them will be showing up later, but they
4 will be here primarily for tomorrow's discussion on the
5 legal issues report. I appreciate them being here today to
6 kind of take in some of the things we are talking about
7 also.
8 A little bit later on, when I'm finished, which
9 will be soon, we will hear from Drs. Collins and Scarborough
10 on some of the work they are doing with the CD-ROM.
11 To give you a brief report on Dr. Forman and my
12 trip to London and the forensic sciences service
13 international conference on human identification, I think it
14 was a wonderful conference, but what was most striking about
15 it, I think, especially from the context of what the
16 Commission is doing, was the international response to the
17 post-conviction work that we had done and the publication
18 that the Commission put forth.
19 We went to talk largely about future technology
20 issues and the work of the Commission, and I would say, of
21 my presentation, maybe two or three minutes of it had to do
22 with the post-conviction work, simply because that's what
23 they told us to talk about.
24 However, at the end of my presentation there were
25 maybe 10 or 15 more minutes for Dr. Forman to speak, and at
1 the end of my presentation the entire box of post-conviction
2 recommendations that we had brought with us was empty. We
3 received cards from about 15 different people from 15
4 different countries, including Russia, Croatia, Greece,
5 Ireland, Malta, Finland, New Zealand, Australia, asking for
6 our recommendations. We have also received numerous
7 requests over the Internet for it, because they recognize
8 that this is an issue that if they are not presently facing
9 they will face in the future.
10 So I commend the Commission on its work to the
11 extent that it is really having international implications
12 and I think will continue to do so. We will talk a little
13 bit tomorrow about a recommendation to the attorney general
14 that she forward the publication to her counterparts in
15 different countries, to ministers of justice throughout the
16 world to try to apply the same principles in their given
17 systems.
18 So again, the impact of the Commission's work is
19 spreading further than even we thought perhaps.
20 A couple of other updates. Dr. Forman is going to
21 talk. We are going to squeeze in some time for her to
22 speak. She is looking at me somewhat surprised. She is
23 going to give us a short update on the CODIS solicitation
24 and the monies that have been allocated by Congress.
25 I think when we spoke at the last meeting in
1 Washington we believed that it was going to happen, but
2 nothing is a sure thing until you actually have it in the
3 bank. Well, I think we finally have it in the bank. The
4 Department of Justice and the National Institute of Justice
5 did receive $15 million for the express purpose of DNA
6 offender database backlog reduction.
7 We don't call it elimination; we call it reduction
8 because we know that that won't do the job. However, NIJ is
9 working, and specifically OST is working, fast and furiously
10 to get that money out the door.
11 It will be somewhat of a complex proposition, but
12 we want to do it and we want to do it quickly so that we
13 can, most importantly, reap the benefits and results of
14 getting those samples into the database so that we can go
15 back for the next funding cycle and make the argument how
16 successful the spending of that $15 million was.
17 Maybe a little later Paul can give us a little bit
18 of insight. He has gotten some numbers back on his
19 outsourcing that have been extremely impressive.
20 Again, in terms of the work that you have done,
21 needlessly to say I think the Commission's work on that
22 issue had a great impact on Congress' decision to make their
23 priority to allocate that money and I think they will
24 continue to do so.
25 CHIEF JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON: Tell us about what you
1 view as the windup period for this Commission.
2 MR. ASPLEN: The view of the calendar at this
3 point in time is that we will probably have two more full
4 Commission meetings between now and probably July. These
5 next two will be working meetings like this. Then in
6 October what we are anticipating is a national symposium on
7 the legal issues. That will be held in conjunction with a
8 major law school, if you will. We are trying to work that
9 out right now. So we anticipate two more meetings.
10 After that, the Commission staff will stay on for
11 the purpose of making sure that any publications get out the
12 door that need to get out the door. There may be a few
13 cleanup items that we need to take care of, but that should
14 be it.
15 So the work that the working groups are pursuing
16 kind of fits that schedule. Kind of. Now that we have an
17 ending time frame, those are the time frames that we are
18 pushing towards.
19 CHIEF JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON: The report of the
20 Commission is envisioned to be a brief overview of the
21 Commission's work with publications that are put out by the
22 various working groups and approved by the Commission as a
23 whole rather than rewrite each of these reports.
24 MR. ASPLEN: Yes. The way we see it working is
25 there are still a number of individual publications that
1 need to be finished and published. Things like the cold
2 case analysis report; Dr. Crow's report; the legal issues
3 report, et cetera. Most of those things will go out as a
4 separate publication. Which means that when the Commission
5 is actually finished its work, what the final full
6 Commission report will be is, as the Chief Justice says, a
7 compilation of those things.
8 We also have the CD-ROMs that are being worked on.
9 That will be separate from and individual products that will
10 be compiled into that final report.
11 Tentatively scheduled. The next two Commission
12 meetings: April 9th and 10th in Chicago; July 9th and 10th
13 in D.C. We will see how that fleshes out with everybody's
14 schedule hopefully sometime in the next couple of days.
15 There are probably some other things that should
16 be noted. First of all, Judge Reinstein has weathered yet
17 another high profile case exceedingly well, as always.
18 Every time we turn around he has got one of the more
19 interesting cases in the country.
20 I think it is also appropriate to commend both
21 Superintendent Hillard and Chief Gainer for the work that
22 they did in their cities given the New Year's celebrations
23 and how successful that was. I know that was a tremendous
24 amount of work, more so than any other New Year's eve
25 celebration you've had. I talked to Chief Gainer
1 afterwards, and he put in a tremendous number of hours. I
2 know that Superintendent Hillard worked and did some
3 tremendous things in terms of coordinating with other
4 agencies to make these celebrations that were so monumental
5 also so safe. Thank you to them for their work.
6 CHIEF JUSTICE ABRAHAMSON: We won't ask them how
7 many DNA samples they got.
8 We are up to Drs. Pam Collins and Kay Scarborough
9 of Eastern Kentucky University on the prototype
10 demonstration of the interactive DNA training CD-ROM for law
11 enforcement.

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