Crime-fighting’s conundrum
Last week’s revelation that investigators used DNA to track down suspected Golden State Killer highlighted its value, but some say it can blur our liberty
California has amassed one of the world’s largest databases of criminals’ DNA, but law enforcement officials and victims advocates say all’s not well with the state’s genetic fingerprinting efforts.
Last week’s dramatic revelation that investigators used DNA to track down the suspected Golden State Killer in one of California’s most notorious cold cases highlighted its value in modern crime fighting. But it also exposed a simmering debate over whether DNA should be collected for nonviolent offenses and frustration over DNA analysis backlogs in rape cases.
Advocates are pushing a ballot measure and legislation to expand DNA collection and testing. But in the case of DNA collection, it has met resistance from civil libertarians who question whether such government intrusion by collecting personal genetic information is warranted for minor offenses.
“It’s been a struggle to bring DNA in California to the forefront” as a forensic crime-scene investigation tool, Bruce Harrington said at last week’s news conference announcing the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, who allegedly killed Harrington’s brother, Keith, and sister-in-law in 1980.
Harrington met with what he called a “buzz saw of opposition” in the Legislature in the 1990s over his efforts to get California to create a DNA database. Ultimately, voters in 2004 approved Proposition 69, which required
DNA collection from all felons. California now maintains the largest state DNA database in the country and the third largest in the world.
Harrington is now backing a proposed initiative called the “Reducing Crime and Keeping California Safe Act of 2018,” which he said is needed to restore the DNA collection requirement for certain crimes that a recent criminal justice reform measure, Proposition 47 in 2014, reduced to misdemeanors.
The proposed initiative also would prohibit early prison release for such offenses as felony domestic violence and assault of a peace officer. Backers need some 500,000 valid voter signatures by mid-June to qualify it for the November ballot.
While the state database didn’t lead investigators straight to the Golden State Killer, there’s no question DNA evidence was key to cracking the case.
Since its first U.S. use in securing a criminal conviction in a 1987 Florida rape case, DNA has transformed criminal investigations in the way that fingerprints did a century ago. Like fingerprints, a person’s genetic DNA profile is unique, and can be found in hair, skin cells, blood and other bodily substances left behind at a crime scene.
In the Golden State Killer case, DNA analysis in 2001 linked the shadowy prowler known as the East Area Rapist in Northern California and Original Night Stalker in Southern California.
More recently, investigators using DNA evidence and a genealogy website created a family tree for the Golden State Killer who terrorized residents with a spree of rapes and murders in the 1970s and 1980s. That led to last week’s arrest of the 72-year-old retiree in suburban Sacramento, who was once a disgraced cop. But California’s wave of tough-on-crime initiatives such as Prop 69 have been pared back by criminal justice reform measures aimed at easing prison overcrowding.
Proposition 47 in 2014 reduced some crimes — such as forgeries, thefts under $950 in value and some drug possession — from possible felonies to misdemeanors. But in doing so, it eliminated a requirement for those offenders to submit their DNA to the state database.
Assemblyman Jim Cooper, a Sacramento-area Democrat and former Sacramento County sheriff’s captain who tried to pass legislation to restore DNA collection for those crimes, supports the proposed initiative.
He said there have been about 2,000 fewer “hits” or matches on the state DNA database since Prop 47, about 450 of them connected to murder or rape cases. He said studies have linked 78 percent of unsolved rape and murder cases to a lower-level offense.
But critics of the proposed initiative, including the Oakland group PICO California, call it “a serious threat to criminal justice reform” that would roll back Propositions 47 and 57 and expand prison populations. PICO California representatives did not respond to questions from this news organization, but on Twitter they called for a boycott of grocers who contributed funding toward the initiative.
Critics of Cooper’s bills to restore DNA collection for lower-level offenses include the American Civil Liberties Union, California Public Defenders Association and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They argued that expanding the range of crimes requiring DNA collection to lower-level nonviolent offenses was overly intrusive and would not necessarily solve more crimes.
But San Jose City Councilman Johnny Khamis, who urged the city this week to officially support the proposed initiative, called it “common sense.”
“DNA has helped us solve crimes, and acquit people too,” Khamis said. “If we don’t collect DNA evidence on crimes it will hurt our solve rate.”
Apart from the debate over DNA collection, there is also a concern that evidence collected from rape victims is languishing in evidence lockers and not being sent to crime labs for analysis.
According to the Joyful Heart Foundation victim advocacy group, there are more than 13,000 untested “rape kits” — evidence samples from victims — in California.
Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley is sponsoring Senate Bill 1449 by Senator Connie Leyva, D-Chino, that would require speedy processing of rape kits for DNA analysis, and provides $2 million in funding to assist in processing. Current law does not set firm deadlines. The bill has no known opposition.
The issue has garnered attention locally. O’Malley in 2014 began a countywide audit that found some 1,900 untested rape kits. Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez has urged processing of rape kits in the county’s crime lab within 30 days to clear the current backlog.
“I just feel like it hasn’t been made a priority,” Leyva said. “When that rape kit doesn’t get tested, it’s incredibly disappointing to the victim, and it also does not catch the bad guys.”
Contact John Woolfolk at 408-920-5782.