CA- State widens DNA scanning in cold cases

Near-match a hint offender related to person in database

4-29-2008 California:

The California Department of Justice will help crime investigators identify new suspects in cold cases by scanning its DNA database for near-matches to crime-scene samples after an attempt to find an exact match fails.

A partial genetic match could suggest to police that the person they're looking for is a relative of a past lawbreaker whose genes are already in the system.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced the initiative this week at a meeting of state district attorneys, who have been clamoring for possible family leads to unknown offenders whose DNA was left at crime scenes. Until now, the state has released only exact matches between DNA evidence samples and individuals in its database of more than 1 million people.

The new program contains rules designed to protect genetic privacy, but civil rights organizations raised concerns that the enforcement tool would expose innocent family members to police surveillance and investigation.

Brown made the announcement the same day the U.S. Senate passed a genetic anti-discrimination act that would shield Americans from loss of medical insurance or job opportunities based on DNA tests that reveal their health risks. Genetic watchdogs say the same attention should be focused on the impact the expanding forensic use of DNA may have on privacy.

The sharing of partial DNA matches will provide only investigative leads, which will have to be buttressed by normal police evidence gathering before charges can be brought against a family member of the DNA donor in the database, Brown said.

The investigating agency would have to attest that all other avenues to solve the crime have been exhausted. The DNA near-matches could result in the arrest of a violent offender who might otherwise commit more crimes, the attorney general said.

"It's not (for) a parking ticket," Brown said. "We're talking about an unsolved murder or an unsolved rape where we have a technology to give us a lead to go further."

Policy discussion advocated
Tania Simoncelli, a science adviser for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, said the expansion of DNA as a crime-fighting tool should be the subject of a broad policy discussion of its effect on society. "This isn't a decision that should be made only by law enforcement," she said.

State and federal agencies have been broadening DNA collection policies to include not only the convicted but also people accused of crimes, Simoncelli has argued. In January, California will begin taking DNA samples from anyone arrested in a felony case.

To a growing extent, criminal databases permanently retain DNA from people never convicted, Simoncelli maintains. In addition, she says, experts are developing ways to predict the appearance of people based on their genes, and some law enforcement agencies have surreptitiously collected DNA samples from cigarette butts and used coffee cups.

Simoncelli said on Friday that DNA databases contain disproportionate numbers of minority members because they are a greater focus of law enforcement than whites. Releasing family DNA matches would expose those communities to even wider genetic surveillance, she said.

Under California's standard for a partial match between crime scene DNA and genetic profiles in the state database, only relations as close as parents and siblings would usually be identified, said Brown's spokesman Gareth Lacy.

However, such near-matches might point to more distant relations or even nonrelatives, said Sheldon Krimsky, a Tufts University professor who is writing a book on forensic use of DNA.

Brown's chief assistant, Dane Gillette, said familial DNA leads would not be released unless testing were conducted beyond the routine genetic profiles created for the state database. The additional tests would have to confirm a family relationship between the DNA donor from the database and the unknown offender, he said.

Beyond that, Gillette said, a mere partial DNA match would almost certainly not be enough to justify a search warrant for DNA samples from the donor's relations. However, he said, police might request voluntary samples from family members.

'DNA dragnet'
Michael Risher, an attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, said police might pressure relatives who have never been in trouble with the law to give DNA samples to clear themselves. Civil rights advocates call this approach a "DNA dragnet" that could undermine the constitutional shield against government searches of individuals without a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. The civil rights advocates say law enforcement agencies would be tempted to keep those samples for future genetic investigations.

Familial DNA searches can now cross state lines. The FBI, which collects data from all state DNA databases, allows states to share DNA partial matches with each other. California will accept requests from other states. Brown said he knows of no other state except Colorado that has a formal policy to release partial DNA matches.

At California's DNA forensics lab in Richmond, experts will also conduct customized DNA searches for family matches to specific genetic characteristics of unknown offenders in cases with "critical public safety implications."

Sharon Terry, president of the Genetic Alliance in Washington, D.C. , said the release of partial matches to law enforcement agencies "doesn't sound ethical at this point." The nonprofit supports the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which was passed by the Senate this week with strong backing from manufacturers of DNA-based diagnostic tests for health risks. Such companies fear their products will go unused if patients think the results would cost them a job or their medical insurance.

Terry said the relatives of criminal offenders have no equally powerful contingent to speak for them. "I think it's up to the rest of society to guard their interests," she said. ..more.. Bernadette Tansey at btansey@sfchronicle.com.