State halting DNA searches
Judges stop warrants to search state’s databank of samples
A New York court halted the use of a DNA crimefighting tool that has helped crack cold cases and put murderers behind bars, but has also raised privacy and racial discrimination concerns, because state lawmakers never approved the practice.
Known as familial DNA searching, the technique allows law enforcement agencies to search the state’s DNA databank for close biological relatives of people who have left traces of genetic material at a crime scene.
A panel of judges on a midlevel appeals court ruled Thursday that regulations for the technique were invalid because a state committee implemented them without consent from the Legislature.
Three of the panel’s five members voted to suspend the searches, which were challenged by a group of Black men who worried they could be targeted for investigation because their biological brothers were convicted of crimes and had genetic information stored in the state’s DNA databank.
Judge Judith J. Gische, writing for the majority, noted that familial DNA searching is useful in investigating crimes — including in identifying serial killers in Kansas and California and a recent Bronx cold case arrest — and that the court’s decision to stop the practice was based on concerns about government separation of powers.
“We find that the overwhelming policy issues inherent in authorizing the use and limitations upon familial match searches of DNA information collected in the New York State databank warrants a conclusion that it is an inherently legislative function and that the challenged regulation cannot stand,” Gische wrote.
The ruling pertains only to the state’s DNA databank, which is populated with samples from people convicted of crimes in the state, not databanks that are maintained by private companies such as Ancestry and 23andme for genetic genealogy research.
Regulations on searching the state databank were adopted in 2017 by New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services, part of the state’s executive branch, and the independent Commission on Forensic Science.
New York has approved just 30 applications from law enforcement to conduct familial DNA searches since adopting the technique. It disclosed names of matches to police in 10 cases, two of which resulted in arrests.