Hatch bill on DNA may stall

WASHINGTON — If justice delayed is justice denied, then advocates of a $1 billion crime-fighting measure to eliminate the backlog DNA and forensic evidence could be denied for another year.

That despite the fact the Senate Judiciary Committee late Tuesday voted 11-7 to send the "Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act" bill, sponsored by Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, to the full Senate.

By delaying action until the last couple weeks of the congressional session, there are no "real prospects for floor debate," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the ranking Democrat on the committee and co-sponsor of the legislation.

Hatch, however, remained hopeful that "we can continue to work in good faith so that the full Senate can pass this important measure" in the final days of the session.

At the heart of the bill is $755 million over five years in grants to states to eliminate the current backlog of 350,000 DNA samples collected from rapes and homicides and other crime-scene evidence awaiting analysis in crime labs around the country.

According to the Department of Justice, there are between 500,000 and 1 million convicts who should have had their DNA collected and analyzed, as is now required by law, but who have not yet been tested.

"Justice, in many instances, is waiting in evidence rooms and forensic laboratories across the country," Hatch said. "This crucial measure will provide our law enforcement and criminal justice officials with necessary and long-overdue tools."

The bill also authorizes another $500 million in grants to improve state crime labs, train law enforcement in the use of DNA evidence and promote DNA as a means to identify missing persons.

Locally, authorities say they don't have much of a problem with backlogged rape cases.

Salt Lake City police detective Kevin Joiner said sex crimes investigators in his department will usually get the DNA results from the State Crime Lab in three to five weeks.

"Which isn't bad at all," he said.

State Crime Lab Deputy Director Jay Henry concurred the average turnaround time for cases was about six weeks and noted there isn't a large backlog of active cases at the lab.

"We don't have stacks of boxes in the evidence room," he said.

However, advances in DNA technology, increased demands on the crime lab and payroll concerns threaten to change that.

Until three years ago, the crime lab accepted rape kits only in cases where police already had a suspect, Henry said. But advances in analyzing DNA evidence made it possible to analyze more data and cross-check it with a national DNA database.