Backing off on cop DNA checks
Lab to only eye samples with crime evidence ties
The city medical examiner’s office — which says it has the largest public DNA lab in the world — will no longer analyze criminal suspects’ DNA unless police provide some other criminal evidence to which it can be compared.
The new rules, which took effect Sept. 9 and are spelled out on the city’s website, don’t prevent police from collecting someone’s DNA. Cops can get suspects’ DNA samples voluntarily or through some surreptitious means, such as by taking it from a soda can or coffee cup from which a suspect sipped.
But the medical examiner’s office says that before it compares DNA samples gathered by police with information in its database, police will have to provide “associated evidence” for comparison.
“Associated evidence” might include such forensic evidence as items found at a crime scene.
The medical examiner’s new rule is a response to critics who say its DNA database is unregulated and rife with privacy violations.
The database contains genetic information about thousands of people who have never been charged with a crime, or who were not convicted of any crime when their profiles were addedadded.
Contrast that with the database run by New York State, which only has profiles of adults convicted of felonies or misdemeanors.
The medical examiner’s new limits on its examination of DNA samples does not go far enough for the Legal Aid Society, which represents indigent criminal defendants.
The new guidelines are “limited,” mainly because they don’t deal with samples the medical examiner already has on file, said Terri Rosenblatt, a lawyer who runs the society’s DNA unit.
“It does nothing to remove the tens of thousands of New Yorkers, including children, who are in the city’scitys DNA index unjustly and illegally,” said Rosenblatt. “And there is no guarantee that it won’t be reversed under pressure from the NYPD as it continually expands its surveillance state.”
Amid criticism from the City Council and calls for legislative reform, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said in February that the department would review and overhaul its DNA policy.
At the time, the plan was to audit the estimated 32,000 DNA samples police have taken from suspects and filed with the medical examiner’s office. About half of those samples were obtained on the sly from soda cans, drinking cups and tthe like.
About 8,000 of the 32,000 ppeople with samples on file had not been convicted of a crime, according to City Council testimony. Of those 8,000 pprofiles, about 1,600 — or 20% — belonged to juveniles.
Earlier this month, the mediccal examiner’s office gave cops a list of about 20,000 DNA profiles it believes should be removed from its database of 332,000 profiles. It’s not clear how the office came up with the 20,000-profile list.
Shea recently said the Police Department had agreed to the removal of a “significant” nnumber from that 20,000. It was not clear Wednesday exactly how many of the 20,000 profiles the police agreed could be removed.
“The Department has been diligently reviewing profiles for removal consideration that were provided by OCME [Office of the Chief Medical Examiner] and an overview of those results will be publicly released,” police spokeswoman Sgt. Jessica McRorie said in a statement.
She said the NYPD’s new policy on DNA collection “in place to ensure fairness and allow the city to use this scientific and unbiased tool to enhance public safety.”
The ME’s office did not respond to a request for comment.