PENNSYLVANIA Bills would broaden use of DNA

HARRISBURG (AP) -- Law enforcement officials would have much wider latitude to use DNA evidence in criminal investigations under a package of seven bills approved Wednesday by a legislative panel.
The measures approved by the House Judiciary Committee include legislation that would remove the statute of limitations for felony offenses and certain misdemeanor sex offenses in cases where DNA evidence can subsequently identify a suspect. Charges would have to be filed within a year of identifying the suspect.
"If law enforcement extracts DNA evidence from the scene of a crime that later, without a shadow of a doubt, places the perpetrator at the crime scene, then we should not sell short justice with an arbitrary [prosecution] time frame," said Rep. Dennis O'Brien, R-Philadelphia, the committee's chairman.
O'Brien was joined at a news conference by several Republican and Democratic committee members, as well as representatives of law enforcement and victims' advocacy groups who support the legislation.
The measures must be approved by the full House and Senate before becoming law. Another bill, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Maitland, R-Adams, would require all felons to submit DNA samples to a DNA database maintained by the state police, including those who were convicted before the measure took effect.
Pennsylvania currently requires felons convicted only of violent crimes to submit DNA samples, and expanding the requirement would increase the likelihood that investigators can capture repeat offenders, Maitland said.
"We've learned that criminals change their criminal patterns over the course of their criminal careers. What may begin as nonviolent offenses may turn into a career of violent offenses, and vice versa," he said.
Still other measures would enable authorities to collect DNA samples to identify missing persons and unidentified human remains, and allow them to obtain court orders to require suspects to provide samples.
"The wonderful thing about DNA evidence is that it cannot lie," said Butler County District Attorney Timothy F. McCune, president of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association.
O'Brien noted that Pennsylvania will need an infusion of about $4.2 million in state funding, as well as federal funding, to help clear a backlog of DNA samples that are awaiting analysis and expand collection efforts under the proposed legislation.
State police have a backlog of 20,000 prisoner DNA samples and 150 samples from active cases that need to be analyzed, spokesman Jack Lewis said.
ACLU's view
Larry Frankel, the legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in Pennsylvania, said his organization was concerned about broadening the use of DNA in criminal investigations.
"If you happen to be in a place where a burglary was committed the next day and you happened to leave a cigarette butt, you could find 20 years later you're being charged with a burglary," he said.