Police seek money for Rapid DNA
System would help solve cases faster, but some wary results wouldn’t be as accurate as state lab
The Orlando Police Department is seeking state funding to buy a new DNA-testing technology that would allow officers to test and compare evidence in less than two hours, without shipping it to a state lab.
In its pitch for $250,000 to Orange County’s legislative delegation, the agency said the technology, known as Rapid DNA, “has the potential to change the paradigm for law enforcement and its capacity to solve cases,” including by identifying suspects or linking crime scenes.
“By identifying suspects quickly, Rapid DNA testing has the potential to identify criminals, dramatically reducing the rate of violent crimes,” OPD said. “A major cause of DNA backlog is due to conventional DNA testing, which again requires highly skilled scientists to perform numerous manual procedures.”
Critics are wary of the new technology, unconvinced the underlying science is sound or its results are as accurate as those produced by the state forensic lab.
“Rapid DNA is a privately owned testing system, meaning that no one knows the methodology they use to compare the DNA against the nationwide and Florida databases of DNA samples,” said Richard Hornsby, an Orlando criminal defense attorney.
The concern is similar to one some lawyers share over the breathalyzer system used to deter-
mine if drivers are inebriated, said attorney Stuart Hyman, who in 2014 was among a group of defense attorneys who successfully argued for greater access to the software underlying the Intoxilyzer 8000 device.
Without knowing how it works, a positive test by a device like the Intoxilyzer 8000 or Rapid DNA can be difficult to challenge in court, he said.
“It’s sort of like it’s guilty by machine,” Hyman said. “… The worst-case scenario is that someone gets convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, unless you can assure it’s doing its analysis properly.”
ANDE, the company that makes the Rapid DNA system OPD is eyeing, received approval from the FBI based on the federal agency’s quality standards required to compare DNA results against its national database. In tests, ANDE produced results that matched those from six accredited labs 99.99 percent of the time, according to a study.
The results show the system “successfully produced accurate, reliable, reproducible, and robust results without manual processing,” the company said on its website.
Rapid DNA works like this, according to Annette Mattern, a spokeswoman for ANDE: When a DNA specimen is entered into the machine, either from a crime scene sample or a
cheek code.
“Think of it like a VIN number,” Mattern said, referring to the unique identifying code assigned to vehicles. “It’s only data, so nothing biological is coming out … and when it’s compared to a database, it’s comparing code to code.”
The Rapid DNA output can be compared against an agency’s database or, in ANDE’s case, the FBI’s national database, as long as the DNA tested for FBI comparison is analyzed by an accredited laboratory for confirmation, according to the FBI’s standards.
OPD will find out by May 3, the end of the legislative session, whether it has been approved to receive the funds from the Appropriations Subcommittee on Criminal and Civil Justice. It’s likely the money would become available by the end of the year if the request is granted, city spokeswoman Karyn Barber said.
If OPD is granted the money, it will be the first major Central Florida agency to acquire Rapid DNA. The Osceola County Sheriff ’s Office is also looking into the technology, a spokesman said.
Asked how many law enforcement agencies are using the ANDE system, Mattern said she couldn’t comment.
OPD declined interview requests from the Orlando Sentinel to discuss how it plans to use Rapid DNA. OPD spokesman Sgt. Eduardo Bernal described the potential acquisition as still “in its infancy.”
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It’s unclear whether the agency will use a positive Rapid DNA match as probable cause to arrest a person. Hornsby said he anticipates, if that happens, the state lab would need to confirm the results with forensic analysis in order to bring formal charges against the person.
But that quick.
“You’ll have people arrested on these presumptive DNA tests and held in jail for months, only to find out later it wasn’t actually them or the testing was inaccurate,” he said. process isn’t
But the Florida Department of Law Enforcement anticipates OPD will use the machine primarily as a “pointer system,” to allow officers at a crime scene to sift through potentially hundreds of pieces of DNA evidence and narrow the findings to a handful of promising samples, helping reduce the backlog at the state lab, FDLE Special Agent Danny Banks said.
“They say, ‘Look, we used Rapid DNA at the scene, here’s the 10 (samples) that would appear they have DNA of someone other than the victim,’ ” Banks said.
“And then we’d prioritize looking at those 10.”
Hornsby questioned how the state lab will confirm Rapid DNA’s test results, since the testing process effectively destroys the sample it’s analyzing.
“It’s not like you can use the same sample over and over again,” he said. “So if there’s not sufficient portion of that evidence available, you run the risk of using the sole sample of DNA in this instant DNA kit.”
Banks said that shouldn’t be a problem. The FDLE lab can use “a very, very small, minute piece of evidence,” he said. “A skin cell that is not even visible to mine or your eyes, we can build a DNA profile off that.”
The law governing Florida’s DNA database has expanded in recent years the list of offenses for which a person accused of a crime is required to provide a DNA sample. As of this year, the requirement applies to anyone arrested on a felony charge, as well as those convicted on certain misdemeanor charges.
The federal Rapid DNA Act of 2017 required the FBI to create standards for Rapid DNA testing to take place in the booking process at jails, which will be able to directly compare cheek swabs to the FBI’s national database. The New York Times reported last month that Florida will be among the first five states to see Rapid DNA set up under the FBI’s standards in select booking stations, as soon as this year.
But anyone can consent to a cheek swab. And some may not know that they have the option to decline to provide one when asked, said Orlando attorney David Frakt.
“Many people feel pressured to consent or don’t know that they can refuse, or feel that something bad will happen if they do refuse,” Frakt said in an email.
However, Frakt said there’s only a “small danger” of police testing people during routine interactions or to build their database, primarily because a Rapid DNA test is expensive. A single ANDE test kit costs $250 on average, Mattern said.
OPD’s proposal cited other uses for the machine, including identifying victims, especially in mass-casualty incidents. Law enforcement agencies in California used Rapid DNA to identify those killed in recent wildfires, Mattern said.
The machine also has the power to quickly determine a person is not linked to crime, OPD said in its funding request.
“Samples from a crime scene can then be immediately compared against evidence found on scenes. This information can either link a person to a crime or exonerate a person from a crime,” the agency said. “The impact on solving crimes and relieving the crime lab backlog is profound.”