1
  1  

  2           The  National Institute of Justice

  3         U.S. Department of Justice, Presents 

  4                            

  5              THE FIFTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

  6                  ON THE FUTURE OF DNA

  7                            

  8      Implications for the Criminal Justice System

  9                            

 10                    Co-Sponsored By
                   New York State Division 
 11              of Criminal Justice Services

 12                 New York State Police

 13            New York City Police Department

 14    Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists

 15                            
                   Marriott East Side Hotel
 16                   New York, New York
                       Stuyvesant Room
 17                  Monday, May 8, 2000
                          9:00 a.m.
 18  

 19  

 20  

 21  

 22  

 23  

 24  Reported by:
     JEAN VALERIE GAFA
 25  JOB NO. 104647



                                                               2
  1  

  2  A P P E A R A N C E S

  3  

  4  LISA FORMAN
     Deputy Director
  5  Investigative and Forensic Sciences Division
     Office of Science and Technology
  6  National Institute of Justice
     U.S. Department of Justice
  7  Washington, DC

  8  DAVID G. BOYD
     Deputy Director
  9  National Institute of Justice
     U.S. Department of Justice
 10  Washington, DC

 11  KATHERINE LAPP
     Commissioner
 12  New York State Division of 
     Criminal Justice Services
 13  Albany, New York

 14  THE HONORABLE GEORGE E. PATAKI
     Governor
 15  New York, New York

 16  HEATHER L. Cartwright
     Attorney Advisor to the Director
 17  Office for Victims of Crime
     Office of Justice Programs
 18  U.S. Department of Justice
     Washington, DC
 19  
     JACK BALLANTYNE
 20  Associate Professor
     Department of Chemistry
 21  University of Central Florida
     Orlando, Florida
 22  
     DAVID AND ANN SCOVILLE
 23  Canandaigua, New York

 24  DEBBIE SMITH
     Williamsburg, Virginia
 25  



                                                               3
  1  
     CHRISTOPHER ASPLEN
  2  Assistant U.S. Attorney
     District of Columbia
  3  Executive Director
     National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence
  4  U.S. Department of Justice
     Washington, DC
  5  
     ROBIN S. WILSON
  6  Executive Assistant
     National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence
  7  Office of Science and Technology
     National Institute of Justice
  8  U.S. Department of Justice
     Washington, DC
  9  
     HOWARD SAFIR
 10  Police Commissioner
     New York City Police Department
 11  New York, New York

 12  MARGARET BERGER
     Suzanne J. and Norman Miles Professor of Law
 13  Brooklyn Law School
     Brooklyn, New York
 14  
     MAUREEN E. CASEY
 15  Deputy Commissioner
     Policy and Planning
 16  New York City Police Department
     New York, New York
 17  
     DAVID COFFMAN
 18  Crime Laboratory Analyst Supervisor
     Florida Department of Law Enforcement
 19  Tallahassee, Florida

 20  NORMAN A. GAHN
     Assistant District Attorney
 21  Sexual Assault Unit
     Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office
 22  Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 23  REBECCA L. SPARKES
     Project Area Manager
 24  The Forensic Science Service
     Birmingham, England
 25  



                                                               4
  1  
     DAVID J. WERRETT
  2  Director of Service Delivery
     The Forensic Science Service
  3  Birmingham, England

  4  BOB GREENBERG
     Senior Vice President
  5  G&H International Services LLC
     Washington, DC
  6  
     MARK DALE
  7  Inspector
     New York State Police
  8  Forensic Investigation Center
     Albany, New York
  9  
     JANE SIEGEL GREENE
 10  Executive Director
     The Innocence Project
 11  Cardozo School of Law
     New York, New York
 12  
     TIM SCHELLBERG
 13  Governmental Affairs / Attorneys at Law
     Smith Alling Lane
 14  Tacoma, Washington

 15  

 16  

 17  

 18  

 19  

 20  

 21  

 22  

 23  

 24  

 25  



                                                               5
  1  
                 WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS
  2             MS. FORMAN: My name is Lisa Forman.  

  3       I'm the acting director of the Forensic 

  4       Sciences Division in the office of Science 

  5       and Technology at the National Institute of 

  6       Justice.  

  7             And I would like to take this very 

  8       first moment to welcome you and thank you 

  9       all for coming and introduce you not to me 

 10       but to the staff who are here to take care 

 11       of whatever concerns or issues you might 

 12       have.  

 13             I'd like to take a moment to introduce 

 14       the NIJ staff to you, Lisa Kaas,  Anjali 

 15       Swienton, John Paul Jones, and the 

 16       commission staff, Robin Wilson; and I'm also 

 17       commission staff too.  I wear a lot of hats.  

 18             And the people that just stood up are 

 19       here to help you in any way they can in the 

 20       next two days.  

 21             I'd like to also point your attention 

 22       to both Ms. Margaret Black and Alanna 

 23       LaFranchi, I think I just misstated her 

 24       name, from the Institute of Law and Justice 

 25       who are out there at the registration desk, 



                                                               6
  1  

  2       and they can also help you.  

  3             So please, you're our guests for the 

  4       next two days, and we hope we can attend to 

  5       any of the issues that might arise for you.  

  6             I'd like to take this moment to 

  7       introduce you to the director of our Office 

  8       Science and Technology and one of the 

  9       associate directors of the National 

 10       Institute of Justice, Dr. David Boyd, and 

 11       Dr. Boyd will be starting the welcoming 

 12       remarks. 

 13             DR. BOYD:  Well, welcome to the fifth, 

 14       and we think final, DNA conference that NIJ 

 15       will be sponsoring directly, although we 

 16       will not allow this kind of function to go 

 17       away.  We'll be sponsoring in other venues.  

 18             I'd like to start by thanking our the 

 19       co-sponsors, and there are a number of them, 

 20       New York State Division of Criminal Justice 

 21       Services, and you will hear shortly from 

 22       Katherine Lapp who is the director of that 

 23       organization, The New York State police, the 

 24       New York City Police Department, and the 

 25       Northeastern Association of Forensic 



                                                               7
  1  

  2       Scientists.  

  3             This conference, this fifth annual DNA 

  4       conference is going to use a problems and 

  5       solutions format in discussing the past, the 

  6       present, and we think far more importantly 

  7       the future of forensic DNA evidence.  

  8             We're going to hear from victims who 

  9       know the value of DNA and the National 

 10       Offender Databank, and we're going to look 

 11       at the current state of public crime labs in 

 12       this country as they struggle to keep pace 

 13       with increasing offender samples as well as 

 14       the demands of case work, and that, of 

 15       course, includes huge numbers of nonsuspect 

 16       cases.  

 17             But before I get into the body of my 

 18       remarks, I am known in the Department of 

 19       Justice.  Let me first make very clear, I am 

 20       not an attorney even though I am in the 

 21       Department of Justice.  

 22             As people have sometimes joked, the 

 23       doctor in my title is not from a juris 

 24       doctorate, it's from Ph.D., and we're proud 

 25       of that.  



                                                               8
  1  

  2             I also have to tell you, we're 

  3       outnumbered.  As you can imagine, coming 

  4       from an agency that likes to bill itself as 

  5       the world's largest law firm, there 

  6       sometimes is  some sensitivity about lawyer 

  7       jokes, and so I have agreed with my former 

  8       boss that In the future I would be more 

  9       careful about using fictional jokes about 

 10       attorneys.  

 11             Instead I would tell stories that 

 12       shows them as they really are, and for that 

 13       reason, I want to tell you a brief story.

 14       It will be paraphrased slightly which comes 

 15       from an actual court transcript.  

 16             It's about a medical examiner.  This 

 17       medical examiner, kind of a crusty old 

 18       character, a lot like Mark Dale, even though 

 19       mark is not an medical examiner.  

 20             And this medical examiner's being 

 21       cross-examined by a young attorney.  He 

 22       says, "Now, tell me, Doctor, you are the 

 23       doctor who first examined Mr. Ellen's body; 

 24       is that correct?

 25             "Yes, sir, it is."



                                                               9
  1  

  2             "Was he dead at the time?"

  3             "Well, no, he was sitting on the table 

  4       wondering why I was going to perform an 

  5       autopsy."  

  6             So the young lawyer says, "All right.  

  7       How did you know he was dead?"

  8             "Well, I was the doctor performing the 

  9       autopsy."

 10             "But were you certain he was dead?  

 11       Did you take his pulse?  Did you check his 

 12       heartbeat?"

 13             "No, I didn't."

 14             "Then how did you know he was dead?"

 15             And he said, "Well, for one thing his 

 16       brain was sitting in a jar on my desk."  

 17             "But is it possible that he could 

 18       still have been alive?"  

 19             At which point the medical examiner 

 20       sort of leaned back, looked at him for a 

 21       moment and said, "Well, I suppose it's 

 22       possible that he could be out there 

 23       practicing law somewhere."  

 24             (Laughter.)  

 25             Now, we all know what happens when the 



                                                              10
  1  

  2       DNA laboratories cannot keep up with the 

  3       requirements coming in from the field.  

  4             Every case in the field that involves 

  5       a crime, any crime, has all sorts of 

  6       emotional effects, and so everybody imagines 

  7       that's the most important crime, the most 

  8       important bit of evidence that needs to be 

  9       analyzed.  

 10             And that lack of capacity has created 

 11       many serious problems.  Many of you may have 

 12       seen Dr. Paul Ferrar on television  just in 

 13       the last few days because of a case where 

 14       someone had been released from custody 

 15       because a DNA sample had not been processed 

 16       and so went out, committed another rape and 

 17       murder.  And so the laboratory system in 

 18       Virginia was under severe attack.

 19             Now, there are thousands of such cases 

 20       in every laboratory, and they all seem very 

 21       high priority.  Which one is the highest 

 22       priority, however, tends to come clear only 

 23       after the fact when another crime is 

 24       committed.  

 25             And so we're going to explore as part 



                                                              11
  1  

  2       of this conference some potential areas 

  3       where we think solutions can be found.  

  4             We're going to look at things like new 

  5       legislation, in fact, we've been testifying 

  6       a great deal on that recently; new 

  7       technology; on analytical assistance for 

  8       private industry; and improved training and 

  9       educational opportunities for forensic DNA 

 10       scientists.  

 11             Now, as many of you know, the National 

 12       Institute of Justice over the past several 

 13       years has taken the leading role in the 

 14       development of DNA as a critical tool for 

 15       the criminal justice system.  

 16             We've done that through a wide variety 

 17       of programs, including a number of new 

 18       initiatives.  Now, we're proud of the fact 

 19       that since we first helped to bring DNA 

 20       technology to the United States back in the 

 21       1980s, after the British had established its 

 22       value, NIJ has been involved in funding in 

 23       whole or in part every new advance, every 

 24       significant advance in DNA identification 

 25       technology in the United States.  



                                                              12
  1  

  2             And the United States now, as a 

  3       consequence, leads in DNA identification 

  4       technologies.  And so, we started all the 

  5       way back our R&D program in 1987.  

  6             But you need to understand that at the 

  7       time we started it, this is pretty big for 

  8       us because we had an incredibly tiny budget, 

  9       and so from our perspective, we were 

 10       spending a huge amount on DNA R&D every 

 11       year, $300,000 per year.  

 12             Now, Defense spends about $37 billion 

 13       by itself, but we had what was then the, and 

 14       it's important to remember this kind of 

 15       scale, we had the largest DNA research and 

 16       development budget in the United States at 

 17       $300,000 a year.  

 18             Finally, in 1999, just last year, we 

 19       were able, and you need to understand it 

 20       takes us two to three years to win these 

 21       arguments with Congress, but we were finally 

 22       able to persuade Congress that there ought 

 23       to be a five-year DNA research and 

 24       development program.  

 25             And so, beginning last year, we have 



                                                              13
  1  

  2       now had $5 million, last year, $5 million 

  3       this year, and we should have $5 million in 

  4       each of the three subsequent years.

  5             So for the first time, there is 

  6       serious money for DNA R&D, and that's 

  7       important because it also means now we have 

  8       a little money for other than DNA, forensic  

  9       science R&D as well.

 10             NIJ, however, needs to ensure that 

 11       this program addresses the specific needs of 

 12       the laboratories in the field, of the public 

 13       forensic laboratories, and so for that 

 14       reason, we started this year for the first 

 15       time a DNA grantee's workshop.  

 16             And its goal since the very beginning 

 17       is to develop a dialogue between the 

 18       research and the laboratory communities to 

 19       ensure that we spend that $5 million in the 

 20       best possible way to produce the tools and 

 21       the capabilities that you and the 

 22       laboratories need.  

 23             The Forensic Laboratory Improvement 

 24       Program, of course, is the strongest and 

 25       oldest program that we've had now.  It goes 



                                                              14
  1  

  2       back to 1996.  It was authorized all the way 

  3       through fiscal year 2000.  Notice fiscal 

  4       year 2000, it ends.  

  5             It has not really been $15 million per 

  6       year.  It actually started very small.  In 

  7       fact, the second year I think it fell to 

  8       about $3 million, and then it hit 15 and 

  9       we've been largely able too argue that we 

 10       need most of the $15 million.  

 11             We have, as a consequence of that, 

 12       funded more than 130 separate laboratory 

 13       facilities to date, and that's as of fiscal 

 14       year 1999 with a total of $35 million.  

 15             And that means that instead of about 

 16       six DNA capable laboratories across the 

 17       United States, fully capable laboratories, 

 18       we now have better than a hundred, we'll 

 19       probably have more than a hundred and thirty 

 20       by the time all of the funding is in place 

 21       and then purchased all of the equipment and 

 22       taken all the training.  

 23             We've been able, as a consequence, to 

 24       support increased laboratory capacity, and 

 25       we've been able to do that by increasing  



                                                              15
  1  

  2       technical capabilities by funding both 

  3       equipment purchases and staff training.  

  4             But we were terribly concerned that 

  5       this was going to be the last year of what's 

  6       been a crucial program for laboratories.  

  7       And we didn't want it to go away, so 

  8       starting about three years ago, remember 

  9       that long lag time for federal budgets, we 

 10       started making the argument that it should 

 11       be replaced when it ends with a new program 

 12       called the Crime Laboratory Improvement 

 13       Program, which ought to get -- and we were 

 14       optimistic -- but ought to get, we thought, 

 15       $55 million a year.  

 16             We didn't get $55 million a year, 

 17       although the President's budget puts in a 

 18       huge amount of money, $55 million, which 

 19       includes more than just CLIP but a 

 20       significant chunk which is for CLIP for next 

 21       year.   

 22             Fortunately, Congress accepted the 

 23       argument, and so this year, for the first 

 24       time, we're now allowed to fund broad 

 25       forensic science applications for the 



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  1  

  2       forensic laboratories, not just DNA.  And we 

  3       anticipate that the CLIP program, the Crime 

  4       Laboratory Improvement Program, will now 

  5       exist for at least five years or so, and we 

  6       are continuing each year to request $55 

  7       million or a total of $275 million by the 

  8       end of the program.  

  9             Even that isn't enough, but it's 

 10       important to understand how much we were 

 11       getting even five years ago, and that 

 12       measure was largely zero.  So $55 million 

 13       would be a spectacular improvement.  

 14             Now, we intend with this to look at 

 15       everything, from fingerprints to trace 

 16       evidence.  We also want to improve 

 17       coordination and cross-jurisdictional 

 18       learning among forensic laboratories.  

 19             And because we hope it will continue 

 20       to operate for some years, part of what we 

 21       will be doing over the next few years as we 

 22       do these special workshops, the DNA 

 23       workshops with the DNA labs, is to do 

 24       forensic workshops every year with all the 

 25       laboratories to figure out how best to 



                                                              17
  1  

  2       coordinate these activities and to use this 

  3       community to figure out which DNA 

  4       investments do we really need to make.  

  5             Now, here's what it took to get the 

  6       money for the CODIS backlog.  We did this in 

  7       a remarkably short period of time.  We were 

  8       able to enlist the support of some very 

  9       strong players, Patricia Schroeder, who 

 10       strongly supported this activity and several 

 11       members of Congress, victims' groups and the 

 12       rest in the space of about 18 months, we 

 13       were able to convince Congress to 

 14       appropriate $15 million to help with CODIS 

 15       Backlog Reduction Program, and that's 

 16       beginning in fiscal year 2000. 

 17             Funds under this program are being 

 18       made available to state crime labs for 

 19       outsourcing to private laboratories the STR 

 20       analysis of previously collected offender 

 21       samples.  

 22             Now, let me make clear.  This program 

 23       funds offender samples, that is, for the 

 24       convicted offenders.  It is not for the 

 25       backlog of current crime evidence.  We think 



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  1  

  2       that's a shortfall, but we're working on 

  3       that.  

  4             Outsource samples are going to be 

  5       tested against the 13 core STR loci that are 

  6       part of the FBI's CODIS system, and we are 

  7       going to be encouraging getting that entered 

  8       into the database in a timely manner.  

  9             And the states also have to certify as 

 10       match for their grants, and they will attest 

 11       that they will test a percentage, and we're 

 12       just touching on this because we're trying 

 13       to make the point to Congress, a percentage 

 14       of nonsuspect case samples in-house for 

 15       CODIS entry.

 16             Now, that's not a particularly onerous 

 17       requirement.  We've said one percent, one 

 18       percent of the money that you get to do that 

 19       because we want to start that rolling.  

 20             Congress is now -- I testified about 

 21       two or three weeks ago, and it's very clear 

 22       that Congress is intensely interested in 

 23       also trying to find a way to fund the 

 24       elimination of nonsuspect case backlogs.  

 25             We plan to continue this program in 



                                                              19
  1  

  2       2001, and we may even have to do it in 2002 

  3       and we've indicated that's a possibility to 

  4       Congress.  They have not so far been turned 

  5       off.  

  6             It may last longer than just next 

  7       year, but that may also require that when 

  8       you are asked is $15 million a year and up, 

  9       I would never suggest to any of you that you 

 10       consider lobbying on our behalf, but you 

 11       have every right to make clear what you 

 12       think to be the case.  

 13             The National Commission on the Future 

 14       of DNA Evidence was chartered by the 

 15       Attorney General in 1997 at NIJ's 

 16       recommendation, and that was to help try to 

 17       put this on the map to try to help Congress 

 18       understand why it was critically important.  

 19             And it is intended to ensure the 

 20       greatest benefit to the criminal justice 

 21       system.  And it's already made a number of 

 22       recommendations to the Attorney General to 

 23       support DNA labs and to enhance their 

 24       capabilities and capacities, and its work 

 25       was crucial in winning the DNA backlog 



                                                              20
  1  

  2       funding.  

  3             In fact, on that table in the back, I 

  4       believe there are copies of the earliest DNA 

  5       Commission publications.  Many of the 

  6       Commission's recommendations, however, are 

  7       going to add to what I think those of you 

  8       from the labs will already consider a 

  9       staggering workload that the public forensic 

 10       laboratories currently face.  

 11             You've got CODIS offender samples to 

 12       put through.  We have a backlog there that 

 13       exceeds easily half a million samples, 

 14       probably will go to 7 or 800,000 samples 

 15       before we can even get the funding at work 

 16       helping to reduce it.  

 17             Post-conviction analysis under the 

 18       Leahy Bill, which is now going to require, 

 19       which proposes to require a great many 

 20       activities on the part of the states that 

 21       will burden the labs even further.

 22             Now, NIJ staff is trying to find ways 

 23       to reduce that burden as much as possible, 

 24       including trying to work, continue to work 

 25       for funding of outsourcing of offender 



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  1  

  2       samples, funding for post-conviction, and 

  3       that sort of thing.  

  4             But we also understand that whatever 

  5       it is we decide to do is going to have to be 

  6       designed in collaboration with the state and 

  7       local crime laboratories, so you should 

  8       expect us to be calling on you to 

  9       participate with us in working out what 

 10       those plans would be; and hope that you 

 11       would be helpful in doing that.  

 12             Finally, we planned this conference as 

 13       the final one in our annual series.  Our 

 14       newly created annual DNA Grantees' Workshop 

 15       is intended to pick up where this conference 

 16       leaves off in most areas, in others a number 

 17       of other opportunities exist in the forensic 

 18       community.

 19             And this is part of the reason we 

 20       don't think we need the annual DNA 

 21       conference anymore.  We now have the annual 

 22       Promega and FBI CODIS meetings. 

 23             And our intention in creating this 

 24       series was to win lots of attention, 

 25       publicly and in Congress, to support the DNA 



                                                              22
  1  

  2       activities.  We think we've done that, and 

  3       we think it's now time to turn our attention 

  4       to general forensic kinds of things for 

  5       these public activities.

  6             Now, as this will also be our final 

  7       chance to have the stage before this 

  8       audience, or at least we from NIJ, We'd like 

  9       to take the opportunity as well to honor 

 10       some of our colleagues that we feel have 

 11       made an invaluable contribution to the field 

 12       of DNA, science over the years, in fact.  

 13             I think there are a list of those in 

 14       your agenda right now, and so we're going to 

 15       be giving some special awards out tomorrow 

 16       at lunch to those people who have been 

 17       critical.  

 18             And so we want to thank you.  We want 

 19       to thank you for coming and helping us to 

 20       enjoy the next two days.  Now, before I 

 21       leave, I can't pass up an opportunity and my 

 22       last opportunity before the DNA conference 

 23       to tell you one more real story about the 

 24       way lawyers are.  

 25             Seems there was a young police officer 



                                                              23
  1  

  2       on the stand.  He was being cross-examined, 

  3       maybe, by the same young attorney.  Who 

  4       knows?  The attorney asks, "Tell me, 

  5       officer, how do do you know that the person 

  6       sitting at the defense table here is, in 

  7       fact, the subject?"  

  8             The detective says, "Because the 

  9       arresting officer pointed him out to me when 

 10       I arrived on the scene."  

 11             "And you believed him?"

 12             "Yes, sir." 

 13             "Do you believe all your fellow 

 14       officers?"

 15             "Yes, sir, with my life."

 16             "With your life. Well, tell me, 

 17       officer, do you have lockers at your 

 18       station?"

 19             "Yes, sir."

 20             "Do you have a locker there?"

 21             "Yes, sir."

 22             "Do you have a lock on your locker?"

 23             "Yes, sir."

 24             "Do you keep it locked?"

 25             "Yes, sir."



                                                              24
  1  

  2             "Yet you trust your fellow officers 

  3       with your life?"

  4             "Well, yes, sir. You see, our station 

  5       is co-located with the courthouse, and from 

  6       time to time defense attorneys have been 

  7       known to walk through the locker room."

  8             Now, it's my great pleasure now to 

  9       introduce our next speaker, Katherine Lapp, 

 10       who was appointed Governor Pataki as both 

 11       the Director of Criminal Justice and 

 12       Commissioner of the Division Criminal 

 13       Justice Services back in 1997.

 14             She came there from her tenure at the 

 15       appellate division of the New York State 

 16       Supreme Court where she had begun her work 

 17       in the republic criminal justice arena in 

 18       1983.  

 19             As the criminal justice director, she 

 20       is Governor Pataki's chief advisor and 

 21       policy maker, and I tell you, she's 

 22       intensely interested in all the things we're 

 23       doing in this area.

 24             We were actually able to get her to 

 25       spend the better part of the day at the 



                                                              25
  1  

  2       Albany Crime Lab looking at some really wild 

  3       notions we have about forensic science where 

  4       we have underway some experiments to see 

  5       whether it's possible to take telemedicine, 

  6       which you've also heard of -- we also do 

  7       work outside the forensic arena -- and we 

  8       had done a great deal of work in 

  9       telemedicine in the prison system.  

 10             And so we then wanted to start a 

 11       teleforensics project.  And we'll do that 

 12       and I'll quote Mark Dale.  I don't think 

 13       there are any senior police people to get 

 14       even.  

 15             Anyway, Mark made the point that one 

 16       of the things we wanted to be able to do was 

 17       protect the crime scene by handling what he 

 18       called the "rank ego issues" to find a way 

 19       to keep them out of the crime scene but 

 20       still in charge so they could be satisfied.  

 21             And so he strongly supported this 

 22       approach.  Katherine came out, spent the 

 23       entire day with us looking at all of these 

 24       options.  So it's very clear that she's 

 25       intensely interested in the issues that are 



                                                              26
  1  

  2       here.  

  3             She manages more than a $2 billion 

  4       budget annually and it includes, of course, 

  5       the State Police, the Department of 

  6       Correctional Services, the Division of 

  7       Parole, Crime Victims' Boards, Division of 

  8       Probation and Correctional Alternatives, and 

  9       Division of Criminal Justice Services where 

 10       she serves as the commissioner.  

 11             And I'd like her to know that we do 

 12       technology work in all those areas.  So as 

 13       we invite you to other things, we hope 

 14       you'll also come.

 15             So it's my very great pleasure to 

 16       introduce to you Katherine Lapp

 17             (Applause.)

 18                        WELCOME TO NEW YORK

 19             MS. LAPP:  Thank you, David.  As I was 

 20       listening to his remarks, I was reflecting 

 21       on whether I should admit to being an 

 22       attorney.  

 23             One of the great compliments I 

 24       received about a year ago was someone in the 

 25       Governor's counsel to ask a legal question, 



                                                              27
  1  

  2       and she came back, he wasn't available, she 

  3       sat down.

  4             She said, "Well, let me ask you this 

  5       question since no one else is available."  

  6       She asked me the question.  I gave her back 

  7       a legal answer, and she said, "Where did you 

  8       learn all that?"  

  9             I said, "Well, I'm an attorney."  

 10             She said, "I've known you for three 

 11       years.  I never knew you were an attorney."  

 12             So I'm not sure if I should take it as 

 13       a compliment or actually a question about my 

 14       legal skills.  I'm not really sure.  

 15             But I want to thank you to New York.  

 16       New York has been at the forefront of DNA 

 17       issues, thanks to a lot of talented people, 

 18       not myself, but people before I came to this 

 19       state that have invested a lot of time, a 

 20       lot of resources, and a lot of talent in 

 21       making sure that New York State's databank 

 22       was one of the foremost in the country.  

 23             As you all of you know, DNA has 

 24       presented a great many possibilities to law 

 25       enforcement and the criminal justice system.  



                                                              28
  1  

  2       It has challenged all of us to think of ways 

  3       to make sure that it's used to its fullest 

  4       extent but also to look at a lot of legal 

  5       issues, what are the implications for the 

  6       entire system, not just for law enforcement.  

  7             Now, as I said, here in New York, we 

  8       made great strides in this regard, thanks to 

  9       the leadership at the state level with 

 10       Governor Pataki, but also at the local level 

 11       with Commissioner Howard Safir who's sitting 

 12       here in the audience. 

 13             He's been out in the forefront 

 14       nationally with the Governor making sure 

 15       that people understand on the federal, 

 16       state, and local levels throughout this 

 17       country that we need to invest time and 

 18       resources in DNA.  

 19             Now, our databank, which currently 

 20       holds about 8,300 STR 13-loci samples from 

 21       convicted offenders actually became 

 22       operational last August, and by March of 

 23       this year, we actually had our first hit in 

 24       a 21-year-old homicide in Westchester County  

 25       that really focussed the attention in this 



                                                              29
  1  

  2       state to the importance of making sure that 

  3       our databank is as large as possible and 

  4       that law enforcement throughout the state 

  5       understand its full potential.  

  6             Now, thanks to the leadership of our 

  7       Governor, our DNA law was recently expanded 

  8       in December of last year to cover 65 percent 

  9       of all convicted felons.  

 10             We essentially take samples now from 

 11       violent felony offenders and a myriad of 

 12       non-violent felony offenders, including drug 

 13       sellers and certain high level drug 

 14       possessors.  

 15             That, essentially, means that our 

 16       annual intake of samples grew from 3,000 a 

 17       year to over 30,000 a year, and just as 

 18       importantly, our new law had a retroactive 

 19       effect which covered roughly a hundred 

 20       thousand offenders in prison, on probation, 

 21       and parole; and it really challenged the 

 22       staff of the State Police and the Division 

 23       of Criminal Justice Services and a number of 

 24       other people to start targeting those 

 25       offenders making sure we had the DNA samples 



                                                              30
  1  

  2       before their sentences actually ran out.  

  3             And I can say that since December 1st, 

  4       we have managed to take 40000 DNA samples 

  5       from that retroactive pool, which is no 

  6       small feat when you consider how big the 

  7       state is and how many people that involved.  

  8             Now, in addition to populating our DNA 

  9       database and making sure that our law was as 

 10       expansive as possible, the Governor didn't 

 11       stop there.  

 12             He provided a million dollars to local 

 13       DNA laboratories in the state to make sure 

 14       that they had at least the beginnings of 

 15       resources to start doing analysis on 

 16       unsolved cases.  

 17             He also doubled the budget of the 

 18       State Police Lab to make sure that not only 

 19       they could handle the workload, the 30,000 

 20       annual samples coming in, but also to make 

 21       sure they had the personnel needed to start 

 22       targeting the unsolved cases.  

 23             At the state labs, in most states, the 

 24       State Police lab actually provides crime lab 

 25       services to many, many jurisdictions 



                                                              31
  1  

  2       throughout the state that may not have the 

  3       ability to access that kind of resources on 

  4       a local level.  

  5             He also provided upwards of $8 million 

  6       for a contract that we now have in place 

  7       with a private lab that will now be taking 

  8       the samples, those 40,000 samples I just 

  9       referenced, we will be shipping them to the 

 10       private lab.  

 11             They will do the analysis on those 

 12       convicted samples and we will download them, 

 13       and our projection is about 3,00 a month 

 14       will be analyzed and downloaded beginning 

 15       next month.  So we really anticipate that 

 16       within the next 12 to 18 months that we'll 

 17       have our databank pretty well populated.  

 18             He's also introduced legislation to 

 19       eliminate the five-year statute of 

 20       limitations for serious violent felonies, 

 21       and he's proposed legislation to require all 

 22       convicted offenders, including felons and 

 23       misdemeanors to provide samples to the 

 24       databank.  

 25             Now, as I said, we're fortunate in 



                                                              32
  1  

  2       New York to have a Governor that not only 

  3       understands the full potential of DNA, but 

  4       is willing to fight hard for the resources 

  5       and legal changes that are needed so that we 

  6       can maximize its full potential.  

  7             So without further ado I'd like to 

  8       introduce the Governor of the State of 

  9       New York, George E. Pataki. 

 10             (Applause.)  

 11                     CONFERENCE KEYNOTE

 12             MR. PATAKI:  Good morning.  It's nice 

 13       being with you this morning, and there's 

 14       nobody up front.  I don't know what 

 15       happened.  Katy, thank you for all that 

 16       you've done and your leadership, and I look 

 17       out and see Commissioner Safir. 

 18       Commissioner, thank you for the great job 

 19       that you have done.  

 20             It is, of course, a sad day in 

 21       New York today with the funeral of 

 22       Cardinal 0'Connor's funeral, and all

 23       New Yorkers' prayers and thoughts are with 

 24       him, but we all have no doubt he has earned 

 25       his position alongside God, the God he loved 



                                                              33
  1  

  2       so well and served so well.  

  3             Let me begin by welcoming all of you 

  4       here to New York.  Before I do anything, I 

  5       should inform all of you who haven't been 

  6       here in a while that the laws of this state 

  7       have been strengthened and changed 

  8       dramatically over the course of the past few 

  9       years.  

 10             Before you go home, each of you is 

 11       going to be required to leave a DNA sample 

 12       in the back.  (Laughter.) No, you're not 

 13       going to have to do that, but the laws have 

 14       been dramatically changed in New York State. 

 15             We have ended parole, first for repeat 

 16       violent felons, and then for all violent 

 17       felons.  We ended early-release and work- 

 18       release for violent felons.  We passed 

 19       Megan's Law.  We've raised minimum 

 20       standards, and the results are our streets 

 21       are as safe as they've been in a generation.  

 22             Our rate of crime is down over a 

 23       third.  Our rate of violent crime is down 

 24       almost 40 percent, and the rate of homicide 

 25       is down over 50 percent; and we are just 



                                                              34
  1  

  2       very encouraged that for each of the last 

  3       five years, we've seen -- and we just got 

  4       the statistics last week -- we've seen a 

  5       dramatic reduction in violent crime across 

  6       the state.  We're going to do everything in 

  7       our power to see that that continues.  

  8             And let me say that I'm honored to 

  9       talk to you about what is truly an exciting 

 10       and promising new era of law enforcement 

 11       where we can do more.  

 12              Here in New York, we're working 

 13       aggressively to harness DNA technology so we 

 14       can wage and win a high-tech war against 

 15       crime.  Soon after I took office five and a 

 16       half years ago, I signed a DNA law requiring 

 17       criminals convicted of 21 specific crimes, 

 18       violent and/or sexual offenses, to submit 

 19       DNA samples to the state.  

 20             Since then, we've expanded the law 

 21       dramatically.  Today, anyone convicted of a 

 22       violent felony, of a Class-A drug 

 23       possession, or grand larceny is required to 

 24       submit a sample to our databank.  

 25             This means that roughly 65 percent of 



                                                              35
  1  

  2       all felony offenders in New York will be 

  3       profiled in our databank.  That's 30,000 new 

  4       samples a year, ten times the previous 

  5       amount, and because our new law is 

  6       retroactive, there's a giant pool of about 

  7       100,000 samples that are being taken right 

  8       now from inmates, parolees and probationers.  

  9             Collecting these samples is a massive 

 10       undertaking to say the least, but it's a 

 11       crucial one.  And we've already collected 

 12       30,000 samples from offenders in that 

 13       retroactive pool in less than six months.  

 14             Of course, taking the samples is 

 15       useless unless they're properly analyzed and 

 16       entered into our databank.  That's why this 

 17       year we doubled the budget of our State 

 18       Police Crime Lab, which operates our 

 19       databank, and we provided funds to contract 

 20       with a private forensic laboratory to assist 

 21       in analyzing the samples.  

 22             Right now, we have 8,300 STR profiles 

 23       in our databank, which makes New York one of 

 24       the largest state repositories of 13-loci 

 25       STR samples in the country.  



                                                              36
  1  

  2             With the new resources and with our 

  3       aggressive plan to download over a hundred 

  4       thousand additional Samples in the next 12 

  5       to 15 months, we expect New York's databank 

  6       to be sitting alone on the top of the list 

  7       in the very near future.  

  8             And I cannot tell you how important 

  9       the retroactivity piece of this was when 

 10       fought with the legislature to get adopted.  

 11       Just this past March we had the first cold- 

 12       case match against our databank.  

 13             The suspect was in prison serving time 

 14       for an unrelated crime, and he would have 

 15       been out next May.  Under the retroactive 

 16       provisions, he was required to submit a DNA 

 17       sample in February.  We added it to our 

 18       databank, and less than a month later it was 

 19       matched to crime scene evidence in a murder 

 20       that occurred 21 years ago. 

 21             That murder took place just a half 

 22       hour north of here in suburban Westchester 

 23       County where a young woman was brutally 

 24       stabbed to death in her apartment.  I 

 25       recently met with the victim's mother, 



                                                              37
  1  

  2       sister, and her daughter who was less than 

  3       one-year-old at the time of the murder.  

  4             Obviously, nothing can replace the 

  5       sense of loss, but because of DNA, they 

  6       finally had a sense of closure and a sense 

  7       of justice after more than two decades of 

  8       uncertainty.  

  9             I can't tell you how relieved and 

 10       grateful they were that this vicious cold- 

 11       blooded killer was finally charged with that 

 12       murder and will be put in prison.  

 13             I just want to tell you one other 

 14       aspect of this case that points out how 

 15       important our ability to use this DNA 

 16       evidence to get those matches is.  

 17             That person would have been free next 

 18       May.  He had been convicted, not charged but 

 19       convicted of nine violent felonies since he 

 20       committed the murder.  He had been convicted 

 21       of eight misdemeanors since he had committed 

 22       that murder.  

 23             The police had kept the sheet with the 

 24       blood on it.  They had suspected that he was 

 25       murderer, but they didn't have the proof 



                                                              38
  1  

  2       until we had that DNA analysis.  But think 

  3       about it.  Convicted of 17 crimes, he would 

  4       have been out on the street again next May.

  5             How many crimes did he commit for 

  6       which he was not convicted?  That is why the 

  7       ability to have this match and to have this 

  8       DNA pool is so critical not just to that 

  9       family who finally has justice for the 

 10       person who killed their mother or sister, 

 11       but also for the people because of crimes 

 12       that will not be committed because this 

 13       person will not get out of jail next May.  

 14             DNA slammed the prison door closed on 

 15       a violent career predator solving a murder 

 16       and definitely saving the lives of future 

 17       victims.  

 18             This case points out the limitless 

 19       potential of DNA technology.  Think about 

 20       it.  Just two months ago, we solved a crime 

 21       that was committed when Jimmy Carter was 

 22       president.  With that in mind, it's clear 

 23       that our laws must change and evolve so that 

 24       we can properly utilize this new technology.

 25             First and foremost, we have to lift 



                                                              39
  1  

  2       the statute of limitations for certain 

  3       violent felonies, which in New York now is 

  4       five years.  There's no statute of 

  5       limitations on pain.  There's no statute of 

  6       limitations on suffering.  There should be 

  7       no statute of limitation on justice.  

  8             And that's why I proposed a bill that 

  9       would eliminate the statute of limitations 

 10       for rape, criminal assault, and all Class-B 

 11       felonies. the statute of limitations simply 

 12       doesn't make sense in today's world, 

 13       especially when we have a tool like DNA that 

 14       can shed truth on a crime that occurred 

 15       decades ago.  

 16             As we've been fighting to pass this 

 17       law, my friend, District Attorney, Robert 

 18       Morgenthal here in Manhattan County has 

 19       taken a creative step because we don't yet 

 20       have that law in place.  

 21             He was faced with the impending 

 22       expiration of the five-year statute of 

 23       limitations in a rape case.  Crime scene 

 24       evidence provided the perpetrator's complete 

 25       DNA profile, but the rapist is still out on 



                                                              40
  1  

  2       the loose.   Even more disturbing is that 

  3       that same profile has been linked to a 

  4       series of subsequent rapes here Manhattan.  

  5             Eventually, DNA is going to lead the 

  6       police to that rapist, but not necessarily 

  7       before the statute of limitations expires.  

  8       How tragic would that be when we know 

  9       someone is guilty of a series of rapes, and 

 10       yet he can hide behind that five-year 

 11       statute of limitations.  

 12             District Attorney Morgenthal used a 

 13       innovative and highly creative tool.  He 

 14       indicted that person using a John Doe 

 15       indictment, a unique legal approach using 

 16       the perpetrator's DNA profile in the 

 17       indictment.  That is a creative tool, but it 

 18       would be far better if we didn't have the 

 19       statute of limitations in the first place. 

 20             That indictment will ensure that no 

 21       matter when he is found, the perpetrator 

 22       will face justice instead of getting a free 

 23       ride because he managed to hide for five 

 24       years.  

 25             These are just a few of the many ways 



                                                              41
  1  

  2       that DNA technology has strengthened not 

  3       just our ability to track down criminals but 

  4       our criminal justice system as a whole, and 

  5       like I've said many times before, DNA isn't 

  6       just about getting the criminal, DNA is 

  7       about getting to the truth.  

  8             We've seen several cases where DNA has 

  9       been used to exonerate innocent people who 

 10       spent years in prison.  Others were 

 11       wrongfully charged only to be set free when 

 12       their DNA failed to match that left at the 

 13       crime scene.  

 14             Unfortunately, DNA technology was not 

 15       available in 1983 when a man named Vincent 

 16       Jenkins was convicted of raping a Buffalo 

 17       prison.  Jenkins spent 17 years in prison 

 18       until the courts ordered his release last 

 19       September.  DNA tests proved conclusively 

 20       that he was not the rapist.  

 21             According to Barry Scheck, co-director 

 22       of the Innocence Project here at Cardozo Law 

 23       School here in the city, Mr. Jenkins was the 

 24       61st inmate in the United States to be 

 25       exonerated by DNA evidence.  



                                                              42
  1  

  2             These cases remind us that DNA 

  3       evidence is the most powerful weapon we've 

  4       got in the fight for justice.  Our criminal 

  5       justice system is not perfect.  Human beings 

  6       can make mistakes, but DNA is conclusive and 

  7       indisputable.  

  8             When an innocent person goes to 

  9       prison, it is every bit as much a 

 10       miscarriage of justice as if a guilty person 

 11       goes free.  And, of course, when the wrong 

 12       person is convicted, it means the real 

 13       criminal is still out there on the streets 

 14       looking for another victim.  

 15             That's why we must continue to amend 

 16       our laws, policies, and procedures in a way 

 17       that allows us to harness the full potential 

 18       of DNA technology as a tool for finding the 

 19       criminal and finding the truth.  

 20             To assist in this critical endeavor, I 

 21       will introduce legislation to create a DNA 

 22       Review Committee that will operate under the 

 23       auspices of our state's Forensic Science 

 24       Commission.  The Commission, which is 

 25       chaired by my Director of Criminal Justice 



                                                              43
  1  

  2       Services, Katy Lapp, is comprised of law 

  3       enforcement officials, prosecutors, defense 

  4       and forensic science experts and is 

  5       currently responsible for accrediting DNA 

  6       labs in the state.  

  7             The DNA Review Committee will 

  8       dramatically expend the jurisdiction of the 

  9       Commission, giving it the additional 

 10       responsibility of reviewing cases where a 

 11       conviction was set aside because of DNA 

 12       evidence.  

 13             The Commission would have the 

 14       authority to examine all aspects of a case 

 15       and determine where mistakes were made. 

 16       Armed with this information, they will take 

 17       whatever action is necessary, such as 

 18       recommending changes in the law to prevent 

 19       those mistakes from occurring again.  

 20             The collective expertise of this body 

 21       will be instrumental in bringing about 

 22       reforms that will allow our criminal justice 

 23       system to keep pace with the revolutionary 

 24       impact of DNA technology.  It will also be 

 25       responsible for setting guidelines for DNA 



                                                              44
  1  

  2       crime scene collection, analysis and 

  3       evidence of storage procedures, all in an 

  4       effort to ensure DNA, when available, is 

  5       properly maintained.  

  6             We have a case now where a rapist's 

  7       DNA was obtained by a hospital here in 

  8       New York City, and the hospital, 

  9       unfortunately, discarded that evidence so 

 10       that that person was able to go free.  We 

 11       have to have guidelines and procedures to 

 12       make sure that evidence is held intact so 

 13       that it can be used when we finally catch 

 14       the criminal.  

 15             We all know that the proper collection 

 16       and storage of DNA evidence is critical to 

 17       the process and critical to the truth.  DNA 

 18       is a gift that law enforcement is obtaining 

 19       from science, and in New York, we will use 

 20       it to make our criminal justice system as 

 21       absolutely correct as humanly possible.  

 22             By intelligently expanding the use and 

 23       applications of DNA technology, I believe we 

 24       can fulfill an ideal that was eloquently 

 25       stated a long time ago by Benjamin Disraeli 



                                                              45
  1  

  2       who said that, quote, "Justice is truth in 

  3       action."  

  4             Another eloquent spokesman, 

  5       Samuel Johnson, said, quote, "The law is the 

  6       last result of human wisdom acting upon 

  7       human experience for the benefit of the 

  8       public."  

  9             DNA has made us much wiser in just a 

 10       few short years by enabling us to see our 

 11       mistakes and allowing us to learn from them.  

 12       I'm proud of New York's long tradition as a 

 13       leader in so many important movements 

 14       throughout history.  

 15             New Yorkers are a compassionate 

 16       people.  We've always fought for the truth 

 17       with compassion and with commitment, and  

 18       I'm grateful for those of you in this room 

 19       who have working so hard to make our streets 

 20       the safest they've been in a generation.  

 21             And I know I can rely on your support 

 22       in the future as we confront the great 

 23       challenges still ahead of us.  Together, I 

 24       know we can meet those challenges because we 

 25       have the talent, we have the will, and now, 



                                                              46
  1  

  2       importantly, we will have the DNA.  

  3             Thank you for your dedication, thank 

  4       you for what you've done, and thank you for  

  5       helping to make this a better state, a 

  6       better country. God bless you.

  7             (Applause.)

  8                      PANEL I:  VICTIMS

  9             MS. CARTWRIGHT:  Good morning, my name 

 10       is Heather Cartwright, and I work for the 

 11       Justice Department and I am an attorney.  

 12       I'm actually proud to say.  I am with the 

 13       Office for Victims of Crime.  We are a 

 14       component of the Justice Department that is 

 15       dedicated to promoting the interests of 

 16       crime victims.  

 17             Our agency is responsible for 

 18       administering the Crime Victims' Fund, which 

 19       provides money to the states through grants 

 20       to fund victim assistance and compensation 

 21       programs, and we are delighted to be here 

 22       today to assist you in obtaining a view of 

 23       the enormous impact of your work on crime 

 24       victims.  

 25             The panel that we have here today 



                                                              47
  1  

  2       consists of some crime victims and a 

  3       professor of chemistry and biology to give 

  4       you a view of the enormous human impact of 

  5       your work on people in the community.  

  6             This new technology of DNA is really 

  7       an amazing tool, and although it can never 

  8       make a crime not have happened or bring back 

  9       someone who's gone, it can do an enormous 

 10       amount to affect the lives of crime victims 

 11       and to help them to obtain justice.  

 12             Our first panelist this morning is 

 13       Mrs.  Debbie Smith.  Mrs.  Smith was a 

 14       stay-at-home mother in March of 1989 when 

 15       she became the victim of home invasion and 

 16       rape.  Mrs.  Smith has spoken widely on the 

 17       importance of DNA technology for solving 

 18       crimes, including appearances on the 

 19       60 Minutes TV show and on national TV in 

 20       Canada.  

 21             She also spoke at the Second 

 22       Commission for the Future of DNA Evidence 

 23       that was held in Chicago.  Mrs. Smith also 

 24       assists with training sexual assault nurse 

 25       examiners or SANES in Richmond, Virginia and 



                                                              48
  1  

  2       counsels rape victims in her hometown.  

  3       Would you please welcome Mrs.  Debbie Smith.  

  4       Thank you.

  5             MR. SMITH:  I am from Williamsburg, 

  6       Virginia, and we boast of our roller 

  7       coasters and things that we have at Busch 

  8       Gardens, but I can tell you we have nothing 

  9       on you as we drove from the airport in the 

 10       shuttle bus; and I kept looking for the 

 11       little height marker to see if I was tall 

 12       enough because I didn't think I was.  It was 

 13       quite a thrill, quite a different experience 

 14       for me.  

 15             9342-00 through 9342-05, numbers of 

 16       identification, human identification.  

 17       89-85-00-0234 written and spoken without any 

 18       particular face on the mind.  

 19             228153839VA654195, cold and impersonal 

 20       numbers of human identification but 

 21       revealing very personal information about 

 22       this faceless individual.  Never before had 

 23       there been so many ways to identify me, and 

 24       yet, I had never in my life felt so lost.  

 25             I resented being referred to as a 



                                                              49
  1  

  2       number because the numbers made it seem I 

  3       didn't exist as a real person.  They were 

  4       mechanical and unreal, but I didn't know at 

  5       that time that it would be numbers, it would 

  6       be matching numbers, that would breathe air 

  7       into my lungs and allow me to truly live 

  8       again.  

  9             There's no way for you to understand 

 10       that what you do in your laboratory and 

 11       offices, how it can mean the difference 

 12       between life and death without taking you 

 13       back to March 3, 1989.

 14             It's about one o'clock in the 

 15       afternoon on a Friday.  Outside it's cold 

 16       and gray with a light mist falling.  I'm in 

 17       my home in Williamsburg, Virginia in a nice 

 18       neighborhood of Williamsburg, Virginia, 

 19       which, by the way, happens to be one of the 

 20       safest towns in this country.

 21             My husband, who is a police 

 22       lieutenant, was upstairs asleep after having 

 23       been up over 30 hours.  I couldn't have been 

 24       any safer, most people would have thought, 

 25       but I had no way of knowing that in a matter 



                                                              50
  1  

  2       of moments, my life and the life of those 

  3       around me would be changed forever.  

  4             It was a typical day in the life of 

  5       any wife and mother.  I was cleaning house, 

  6       doing laundry, and preparing dessert for 

  7       friends, with friends at dinner that night.  

  8             In the of midst all this, I noticed 

  9       that my clothes dryer wasn't working 

 10       properly, so I went outside to check the 

 11       exhaust vent.  When I returned, I decided to 

 12       leave that back door unlocked, a door that 

 13       is usually always locked, but I knew I was 

 14       going to be returning right away with the 

 15       trash, and after all, I thought, what could 

 16       happen in just a few minutes, time for me to 

 17       go in, retrieve the trash and come back out.

 18             But before I could return, within 

 19       moments, a stranger entered that door and 

 20       nearly destroyed and definitely changed my 

 21       life forever.  This masked stranger forcibly 

 22       took me outside of my home to a wooded area 

 23       behind my house.  He blindfolded, robbed, 

 24       and repeatedly raped me.  

 25             This crime that took less than one 



                                                              51
  1  

  2       hour has deprived me of the innocent outlook 

  3       on life and of my freedom.  The sounds of 

  4       his voice rang through my ears like a 

  5       deafening clamor.  "Remember, I know where 

  6       you live, and I will come back if you tell 

  7       anyone."  

  8             But I did tell someone.  As soon as I 

  9       was allowed to return home, I ran upstairs 

 10       to where my husband was sleeping and woke 

 11       him with the words, "He got me, Rob. He got 

 12       me."  

 13             I begged him not to call the police.  

 14       I pleaded with him not to tell anyone 

 15       because I feared that this man would keep 

 16       his promise, that he would certainly come 

 17       back and kill me, but the police officer and 

 18       my husband knew that we couldn't allow this 

 19       crime to go unreported.  

 20             He convinced me of the importance of 

 21       going to the hospital and allowing the perp 

 22       to taken.  All I wanted to do was take a 

 23       shower.  I wanted to wash it all away.  

 24       After the hospital visit when we were 

 25       finally allowed to go home, I thought that 



                                                              52
  1  

  2       the worst was over.  I had survived this 

  3       terrible ordeal.  Surely, I could put it 

  4       behind me and I could go on.

  5             I didn't realize that the worst was 

  6       yet to come.  My favorite place in the 

  7       world, my home, seemed now nothing more than 

  8       cold stone and wood.  Everything seemed to 

  9       have a strange look about it.  Nothing 

 10       seemed to be familiar at all.  The one place 

 11       that I had always felt safe and comfortable 

 12       was now taunting me with horrible memories.  

 13             I would relive this nightmare day 

 14       after day.  Each day I would remember more 

 15       and more of the details as the shock began 

 16       to wear off.  I was beginning to realize it 

 17       was far from being over.  

 18             For the first time in my life, I 

 19       couldn't find any reason to want to live.  

 20       The love of my family and friends wasn't 

 21       enough anymore.  They couldn't erase the 

 22       memories, and they couldn't take away the 

 23       pain.  

 24             Even my faith in God seemed to be 

 25       failing me because I just couldn't 



                                                              53
  1  

  2       understand how a God who was supposed to 

  3       love me could have allowed this to happen.  

  4             There was no escaping the pain and 

  5       there was no escaping the fear.  Fear will 

  6       not be satisfied until it has taken over  

  7       your mind and body as a cancerous tumor.  It 

  8       will not be stopped until it has inhabited 

  9       every part of you.  

 10             It cripples you like arthritis making 

 11       every move unbearable until, finally, it's 

 12       just not worth the pain.  You become 

 13       paralyzed, feeling trapped and helpless.  

 14             It was always there.  It was there in 

 15       my waking hours as well as my dreams.  On 

 16       many occasions, my husband would be awakened 

 17       in the middle of the night with the blood 

 18       curdling screams from the nightmares.  It 

 19       was at this point that I began to realize 

 20       that I could not and I would not live this 

 21       way.  

 22             Death seemed to be the only 

 23       alternative for me.  It was the only answer 

 24       that would end this nightmare that had 

 25       become my life.  In death, there would 



                                                              54
  1  

  2       finally be peace and quiet.  I would no 

  3       longer have hear his voice in my ear, I'd no 

  4       longer have to feel his arm around my neck, 

  5       and I would no longer have to see his face 

  6       before my eyes.  My mind would finally be at 

  7       rest.  

  8             But I knew that I couldn't risk 

  9       surviving.  My death would have to be fast 

 10       and it would need to be final.  I decided 

 11       that a gun would be the answer.  Over and 

 12       over again, I planned this suicide in my 

 13       head, but there was one problem that had no 

 14       solution, and that was my husband and my two 

 15       children.  

 16             I worried who would find me.  Would 

 17       they live in guilt feeling that they had 

 18       somehow failed me?  What would this do to 

 19       them?  I couldn't bear the thought that they 

 20       would have to endure the same kind of pain 

 21       that I was feeling, and I thank God that my 

 22       love for them was stronger than my need to 

 23       rid myself of this constant torment.  

 24             I finally grabbed onto that thread, 

 25       and it did become my reason to live, but one 



                                                              55
  1  

  2       of the most frequent comments I heard after 

  3       I was raped was, "At least you're alive."  

  4             But I can tell you standing here still 

  5       today that I was alive physically, but 

  6       inside I had died.  This intruder never laid 

  7       a physical hand on anyone else in my family, 

  8       but when he left, he left each one of us 

  9       victims.  

 10             He touched emotions in us that we had 

 11       never known.  Suddenly, there was rage in 

 12       the eyes of my son.  My daughter was afraid 

 13       to go from the porch to the driveway after 

 14       dark.  And each of us, especially my 

 15       husband, felt the awful guilt, the awful 

 16       pain of guilt.  

 17             He felt as if he could protect the 

 18       whole city but was unable to protect his own 

 19       wife in his own home.  Our son was 

 20       conscience stricken because the attacker had 

 21       used the baseball bat that he had neglected 

 22       to put away.  

 23             I felt responsible because, after all, 

 24       I had left the door unlocked for those brief 

 25       but life-changing moments.  Our home which 



                                                              56
  1  

  2       had always been filled with love and 

  3       laughter had now become a house full of 

  4       bitterness, anger, fear, and guilt.  

  5             But my family weren't the only victims 

  6       that day.  Every person that touched my life 

  7       or my family's life was to feel the effect 

  8       of this crime.  They no longer felt safe in 

  9       their comfortable little town of 

 10       Williamsburg.  They, too, felt invaded and 

 11       vulnerable.

 12             I could see the pain in their eyes 

 13       because I was a constant reminder that rape 

 14       can truly happen to anyone and anywhere.  

 15       They would guard their words so they 

 16       wouldn't say anything that would upset me.  

 17             They were angry for me, and yet they 

 18       felt absolutely helpless because there was 

 19       nothing that they could do.  I often, in 

 20       fact, found myself comforting them.  Our 

 21       minds and bodies ached because we wanted 

 22       understanding, and yet we couldn't find any.  

 23             I waited daily to hear the news that 

 24       they had found this man that had changed our 

 25       lives so drastically, and I can tell you 



                                                              57
  1  

  2       that those days turned into weeks, the weeks 

  3       into months, and those months turned into 

  4       years.  

  5             And I lived in constant fear of his 

  6       return, hearing his words over and over in 

  7       my head, "I know where you live and I will 

  8       return and I will kill you."  The 

  9       Williamsburg Police Department followed 

 10       every lead and every clue only to come up 

 11       empty-handed.  

 12             Even my own mind began to doubt 

 13       myself.  Had it really happened, or was it 

 14       just some terrible nightmare?  Do they 

 15       believe me, or are they doubting me as I was 

 16       doubting myself?  

 17             But in my heart, I knew that it wasn't 

 18       a terrible nightmare, something that was 

 19       going to fade with time.  I knew that it was 

 20       a nightmare that I was going to have to live 

 21       forever, and I began to realize that the 

 22       quality of life that I had once enjoyed was 

 23       now gone forever.  

 24             I craved peace of mind and I did 

 25       everything I could to try to attain it.  An 



                                                              58
  1  

  2       alarm system was installed in our home, 

  3       including panic buttons, as well as one I 

  4       could wear around my neck.  The privacy 

  5       fence was put around our yard.  At one 

  6       point, I even took to carrying a gun.  My 

  7       kids used to call me "the pistol packing 

  8       mama."  

  9             But I had to do away with that because 

 10       it tends to make salesclerks a little 

 11       nervous when you have to move a .38 out of 

 12       the way to get your checkbook.  But my 

 13       biggest fear was that I was going to hurt 

 14       some innocent person all because they got up 

 15       too close behind me.  

 16             There just didn't seem to be any way 

 17       that I could attain this peace and rest that 

 18       my mind and my body craved for so long.  I 

 19       began to wonder how I was ever going to 

 20       truly live again.  I would suffer daily with 

 21       the memory of a man who was in my life for 

 22       such a short span of time, and he may never 

 23       had to have to pay for this crime; but I 

 24       would have to pay for it forever.  

 25             I can tell you that it is only by the 



                                                              59
  1  

  2       grace of God that I am here today because 

  3       for six and a half years, I simply existed,  

  4       trying to go on and live as normal. 

  5       VA122015Y, more numbers, 91-17682, but these 

  6       numbers, I can tell you bring with them a 

  7       life-giving force and renewed hope.  

  8             As George Lee sat at his computer in 

  9       the Virginia Division of Forensic Science on 

 10       July 24th, 1995, on probably what seemed to 

 11       be to him just another day in the lab, he 

 12       had no way of knowing what effect his work 

 13       that day was going to have on my life and 

 14       those around me.  

 15             On this day, Mr. Lee entered a 

 16       prisoner's blood sample into the computer, 

 17       and it automatically began its cross-check 

 18       against previously entered samples.  To his 

 19       joy and surprise, he received a cold hit, 

 20       something that was fairly rare at that time.  

 21             Two days later, this information was 

 22       passed on to the Williamsburg Police 

 23       Department where the case was being 

 24       investigated.  They, in turn, passed the 

 25       information on to the shift supervisor 



                                                              60
  1  

  2       working that day, who just happened to be my 

  3       husband.  

  4             On that day, July 26, 1995, my husband 

  5       walked into our living room, and he handed 

  6       me a composite that he had carried with him 

  7       ever since the incident and told me that I 

  8       could throw it away because we weren't going 

  9       to need it anymore.  

 10             Not only had they identified my 

 11       rapist, but he was already in prison and had 

 12       been there for since six months after he had 

 13       attacked me.  But for the first time in six  

 14       and a half years, I could feel myself 

 15       breathe.  

 16             I finally felt validated.  There was a 

 17       real name and a real person to go with my 

 18       nightmare.  Everyone would know that I was 

 19       telling the truth, that it was real.  

 20       Finally, I could quit looking over my 

 21       shoulder.  No longer did I have to drive 

 22       around in circles just hoping that somebody, 

 23       that one of my neighbors would come by, 

 24       would drive by so I could get the courage to 

 25       get out of car to go into my home if no one 



                                                              61
  1  

  2       else was home.  

  3             Unfamiliar noises no left me panic 

  4       stricken.  I no longer had to scan the faces 

  5       in the crowd to see if he was following me.  

  6       Suicide was no longer a consideration.  And 

  7       finally, my husband is grateful that I don't 

  8       wake him up too often in the middle of the 

  9       night with the ear piercing screams.  

 10             Within myself, the healing had begun, 

 11       and peace had come at last.  Because of the  

 12       effort in this field of DNA, this man is off 

 13       the street for good.  The jury gave Norman 

 14       Jimmerson two life sentences plus 25 years 

 15       with no chance of parole.  

 16             I stand here before you today as an 

 17       example of what DNA is truly all about. 

 18       Because of the miracle of DNA, I did not 

 19       miss my childrens' graduation from college, 

 20       and I will be present to see my husband walk 

 21       our daughter down the aisle in November.  

 22       And I am here today with you on my 28th 

 23       wedding anniversary because of the important 

 24       effect that DNA has had in my life.  

 25             On behalf of myself and other victims 



                                                              62
  1  

  2       and their families, I want to extend my 

  3       heartfelt thanks to those of you who work in 

  4       this field.  I am not a public speaker by 

  5       nature, and it takes every ounce of courage 

  6       that I can muster just to be here.

  7             But I can tell you that I count it 

  8       both a privilege and an honor to be a small 

  9       part in the furtherance of this cause.  Any 

 10       time a great tool such as this is available 

 11       yet not used, I think that our society 

 12       commits a crime against its members.  

 13             We must use the crime solving 

 14       capabilities of DNA to the fullest, and I 

 15       pray that each of you will continue with 

 16       this in mind.  Thank you.

 17             (Applause.)

 18             MS. CARTWRIGHT:  Thank you.  Next, I 

 19       would like to introduce you to David and Ann 

 20       Scoville.  Mr. Scoville is a retired teacher 

 21       and Mrs.  Scoville is retired from the Girl 

 22       Scouts.  On October 21st, 1991, their 

 23       28-year-old daughter, Patricia, was raped 

 24       and murdered in Stowe, Vermont.  

 25             The Scovilles have worked extensively 



                                                              63
  1  

  2       to encourage the passage of DNA legislation 

  3       and other sexual assault reform legislation 

  4       in Vermont, Rhode Island, and New York 

  5       state.  Please welcome David and Ann 

  6       Scoville.

  7             (Applause.)

  8             MR. SCOVILLE:  We, too, are honored to 

  9       share a story with you here today, even 

 10       though I'm sure that too many that are all 

 11       too familiar to all of you right now.  

 12             On October 21st, 1991, at Moss Bend 

 13       Falls on a popular hiking trail in Stowe, 

 14       Vermont, our 28-year-old daughter, Patricia 

 15       Ann Scoville, was raped and murdered.  That 

 16       she was murdered in Vermont, a small New 

 17       England state, a state which is reputedly 

 18       one of the safest states in the country, has 

 19       always seemed unbelievable to us, for Patty 

 20       had spent the year after graduating from 

 21       high school in Denmark as a rotary exchange 

 22       student.  

 23             She had spent a semester of her 

 24       undergraduate years at Cornell in Denmark at 

 25       the University of Copenhagen.  She had 



                                                              64
  1  

  2       traveled in Russia.  She had worked five 

  3       years in Boston.  But she left Boston and 

  4       moved to Stowe seeking its quiet beauty.

  5       And we, as her parents, were pleased because 

  6       in our minds, she would be safer there than 

  7       in the big city.  

  8             Three weeks after she arrived in 

  9       Vermont, she was raped, she was murdered, 

 10       she was left in a shallow grave.  She wasn't 

 11       found until eighty days later.  

 12             Having only rented a room when she 

 13       first moved to Stowe, Patty had put many of 

 14       her possessions and furnishings in a storage 

 15       locker.  We are told that she spent some 

 16       time around noon at the locker sorting 

 17       through some of her belongings.  

 18             At 1:39 in the afternoon, she made a 

 19       transaction at her bank in the Village of 

 20       Stowe.  The day was a brisk, but fall sunny 

 21       day.  It assumed that she then rode her bike 

 22       the approximately five miles to Moss Bend 

 23       Falls where her bike was found two days 

 24       later.  

 25             We continually relive that horrible 



                                                              65
  1  

  2       week between October 21st and the 29th.  You 

  3       don't need to hear it all, the massive 

  4       search; the arrival of Patty's brothers and 

  5       aunts and uncles to join in the search; the 

  6       not knowing and the fears associated with 

  7       not knowing; the winding down of the futile 

  8       search, since the only real clue was her 

  9       bike found leaning against the tree at the 

 10       base of the falls. 

 11             Early Tuesday morning, October 29th, 

 12       1991, the cadets from North University were 

 13       enlisted to make a final search of the 

 14       immediate area.  The body of our daughter, 

 15       Patricia Ann, was found in a shallow grave 

 16       approximately 75 yards from the falls.  

 17       Although she was fully clothed, her autopsy 

 18       revealed she had been raped and murdered, 

 19       her death due to asphyxia.  

 20             As of today, May 8th in the year 2000, 

 21       Patty's rapist and murderer has not yet been 

 22       identified nor is it known if Patty's rapist 

 23       and murderer has committed other violent 

 24       crimes nor is it known if Patty's rapist and 

 25       murderer, if he has committed other violent 



                                                              66
  1  

  2       crimes, has ever been caught, has ever been 

  3       convicted or, more importantly, has been 

  4       removed from being able to ever commit other 

  5       violent crimes.  

  6             We have gained a profound respect for 

  7       the many investigators in Vermont and 

  8       elsewhere who methodically eliminated 

  9       possible suspects.  The fact that DNA 

 10       evidence was found at the crime scene gave 

 11       us a strange sort of solace at first, for we 

 12       were told, and we believed, that DNA 

 13       evidence would help to find and convict that 

 14       killer.  

 15             But we were to learn that there were 

 16       very limited investigative uses at that 

 17       time.  I, of course, immediately wanted DNA 

 18       samples taken from every male within a 

 19       thousand miles of Stowe, but we soon learned  

 20       phrases like "probably cause," "reasonable 

 21       grounds," "fourth amendment rights."  

 22             Indeed, eight and a half years later, 

 23       there is presently a case pending before the 

 24       Vermont Supreme Court resulting from an 

 25       attempt to block a lower court's 



                                                              67
  1  

  2       non-testimonial order for a suspect to 

  3       provide a DNA sample.  On the brighter side, 

  4       however, some 70 individuals have been 

  5       eliminated as suspects over the past eight 

  6       and a half years.  

  7             You can imagine, we became very 

  8       excited when the DNA Identification Act of 

  9       1994 authorized the FBI to establish 

 10       national standards for forensic DNA testing 

 11       and to create CODIS.  The change from DNA 

 12       evidence being just a tool for convicting 

 13       criminals to its becoming a tool for 

 14       identification was definitely in our favor.  

 15             We naively figured at that time that 

 16       it would probably take six months or so to 

 17       activate a national database.  Slowly, we 

 18       learned the necessity of lobbying and 

 19       testifying in both Vermont and Rhode Island, 

 20       the last two states to pass DNA legislation  

 21       in 1998.  

 22             Here, again, we naively figured that 

 23       once legislation was passed, it would 

 24       probably take a couple of months before 

 25       CODIS was fully operational.  Then we 



                                                              68
  1  

  2       learned and began to take into account the 

  3       differences in the legislation, and we 

  4       became involved by writing more letters and 

  5       testifying and lobbying in our own state of 

  6       New York, of which we're very proud, in an 

  7       effort to expand the DNA database to include 

  8       more than just the 11 percent of convicted 

  9       felons designated in the original law.  

 10             Admittedly, we have gained a 

 11       tremendous respect for our legislators and 

 12       our elected officials, but we also have had 

 13       to accept the bitter frustration over a 

 14       political system that seemingly often plays 

 15       games with crime victims and crime 

 16       investigations and criminal justice.  

 17             We don't need to suggest to you the 

 18       innumerable possible scenarios in Patty's 

 19       case.  You already know that most of them 

 20       include a rapist/murderer who has committed 

 21       his violence more than once.  In our minds, 

 22       CODIS was, has been, and still is a 

 23       no-brainer.  CODIS is the next logical 

 24       extension in the investigation of Patty's 

 25       rape and murder, looking at the next logical 



                                                              69
  1  

  2       group of suspects:  Convicted sexual and 

  3       violent criminals, felons, many of whom are 

  4       repeat offenders in all states.  

  5             Now that there are 25 states and the 

  6       FBI hooked into the CODIS network, we 

  7       naively, but now with tongue in cheek, still 

  8       hold to our six-month expectation of a fully 

  9       operational CODIS.  Needless to say, we 

 10       appreciate all of your efforts that you do 

 11       daily, and we continue to offer to do 

 12       whatever we can to expedite the process.  

 13             Please, don't hesitate to think about 

 14       us, of us, and call on us.  We find it very 

 15       gratifying and exciting whenever we talk 

 16       with any of you who are connected with DNA 

 17       or CODIS.  Your passion and excitement in 

 18       what you are doing is contagious and gives 

 19       us hope.  

 20             As Patricia Scoville's parents, we 

 21       cannot rest easy until her rapist and 

 22       murderer is identified and prevented from 

 23       raping and murdering other women.  We 

 24       believe we deserve to know what happened to 

 25       her that day and by whom.  We also believe 



                                                              70
  1  

  2       that eventually DNA will identify Patty's 

  3       killer, and that DNA will prevent other 

  4       parents from ever experiencing what we 

  5       continue to experience.  

  6             We are convinced that CODIS, in the 

  7       long run, will save time, energy, grief and 

  8       money on the part of the law enforcement 

  9       investigators, agencies, and families.  The 

 10       very bottom line for us is that we look 

 11       forward to the day when DNA will quickly 

 12       match suspects and crime scenes thereby  

 13       preventing further violent assaults.  

 14             We cannot help but believe that had 

 15       today's technology and today's legislation 

 16       been available and had a national CODIS 

 17       network been operational in 1991, that 

 18       Patricia Scoville just might still be alive 

 19       today.  

 20             Because Patty can't be with us to 

 21       speak on her own behalf, Ann would like to 

 22       share with you a little more about Patty and 

 23       how our lives have changed.

 24             

 25             MRS. SCOVILLE:  Good morning, 



                                                              71
  1  

  2       everyone.  Whenever I see the picture up in 

  3       front of a group like this, it reminds me 

  4       that that very picture is next to my bed, 

  5       and it's it is last thing that I see before 

  6       I go to sleep at night and the first thing 

  7       that I see when I wake up in the morning.  

  8             That was one of the therapies that I 

  9       used for myself early on during the 

 10       investigation and as the years have gone by. 

 11             Whenever we're asked to share our 

 12       story, I find myself reliving those days in 

 13       October that somehow have turned into weeks, 

 14       months, and years; those days that changed 

 15       our lives forever, those days when the 

 16       unthinkable happened to our daughter, to us, 

 17       to our family and our friends, those days 

 18       when Patty Scoville was murdered, raped and 

 19       missing, and finally found under a pile of 

 20       pine boughs eight days later.  

 21             We parents expect our children to 

 22       outlive us, not the other way around.  

 23       Murder is something that you see on the 

 24       eleven o'clock news, something that happens 

 25       to other people, not to us, not to our 



                                                              72
  1  

  2       family, and not in Vermont, the very place 

  3       people move to live a less hurried, less 

  4       stressful and a safer life.  

  5             Even now, it seems like a bad dream.  

  6       Even now, there are times when we still 

  7       shake our heads in disbelief.  We will never 

  8       get over this devastating loss, though we 

  9       are slowly and painfully learning to live 

 10       with it.  

 11             I remember thinking at the time and 

 12       for quite a while, I don't know how I'm 

 13       going to live without her in my life.  Yet, 

 14       here I am today propelled partly by the 

 15       shock and unfairness of violent crime and 

 16       its impact on victims, partly because there 

 17       is a need to keep telling our story, for 

 18       that is how we heal, and perhaps to help 

 19       others, but also, because Patty cannot speak 

 20       for herself.  Therefore, I feel we must.  

 21             I, too, thank you for the the 

 22       opportunity to let me share with you for a 

 23       few minutes just who it is and what we have 

 24       lost and to put a specific and personal face 

 25       to one senseless and random violent crime.  



                                                              73
  1  

  2             Born on June 3rd, 1963, Patty was, is, 

  3       the oldest of our three children and our 

  4       only daughter, and I want you to know that 

  5       every time somebody asks me, how many 

  6       children do you have, I still stumble over 

  7       that.  Do I still have three children, or do 

  8       I now have two?  

  9             She was also the oldest -- she was the 

 10       oldest of our three children, but she was 

 11       also the oldest of my parents 16 

 12       grandchildren.  From the time that she was 

 13       born, she was a delight to have around.  She 

 14       had great big dark brown eyes and tiny 

 15       little feet that clicked when she walked, 

 16       and that was cause for a lot of teasing 

 17       among our family and her friends.  She had a 

 18       wonderful sense of humor and a laugh to go 

 19       with it.  

 20             In all of her 28 and a half years, she 

 21       gave us so many occasions to be so proud, 

 22       from being recognized in high school for her 

 23       musical and leadership abilities to being a 

 24       rotary exchange student to her semester 

 25       abroad and her travels always making the 



                                                              74
  1  

  2       most of life's opportunities and helping us 

  3       to see the world as a little bit smaller.  

  4             She loved being part of a big family, 

  5       family gatherings, and getting together with 

  6       friends.  She had a sense of enthusiasm and 

  7       fun that was catching and a way of caring 

  8       and encouraging that was thoughtful and 

  9       supportive.  

 10             It mattered not whether you were a 

 11       much younger cousin, her brother, her 

 12       friend, her ill grandfather, or her parent, 

 13       she had a way of connecting that just made 

 14       us feel really special.  

 15             She was a person who stood up for what 

 16       she believed.  She was conscientious and 

 17       committed to her work.  She was willing to 

 18       get involved and work for change rather than 

 19       just complain, and she wasn't afraid to 

 20       confront a problem nor hesitant to give her 

 21       support and her love.  

 22             To me, not only was she my first born 

 23       and only daughter, she was my friend and my 

 24       mentor as well.  We would laugh about how 

 25       she would help drag me into the 21st 



                                                              75
  1  

  2       century, whether it was about the latest 

  3       fashion or the computer or some other 

  4       electronic device that Mom could not deal 

  5       with.  

  6             We were both Cornelians whose class 

  7       reunion would fall the same year, so we 

  8       theorized that no matter where we were or 

  9       what we were doing in life, we could count 

 10       on meeting at least every five years in a 

 11       setting that we both loved.  

 12             Now those occasions serve as another 

 13       reminder of our loss.  When the company she 

 14       worked for was bought by another and she was 

 15       about to lose her job, I watched and 

 16       listened with pride as she used her free 

 17       time, not only to look for a job, but also 

 18       to volunteer for the Boston School System 

 19       and the Paulis Center there, how she went 

 20       about considering a "life change," as she 

 21       called it, to move to Vermont.  And I 

 22       marvelled at her attitude as using it as a 

 23       positive attitude for change in her life, 

 24       and it gave me a better way to look at my 

 25       own contemplated job move.  



                                                              76
  1  

  2             When our first grandchild was born, 

  3       she happened to be home, and she was very 

  4       excited.  She used to say that marriage and 

  5       children were part of her life plan, and she 

  6       looked forward to a day when that would 

  7       happen, as we did.  

  8             Whenever I needed encouragement, a 

  9       good listener, advice, or a lighter moment, 

 10       I knew she was only a phone call away. 

 11             Needless to say, when Patty died, a 

 12       part of me died with her.  My life, our 

 13       lives, are forever changed.  There will be 

 14       no wedding, no grandchildren.  There are no 

 15       more phone conversations or letters or her 

 16       great cards.  There are no more reunions or 

 17       visits.  Her voice, her laugh, her fun 

 18       loving enthusiasm, her sense of humor, her 

 19       support, her caring and love, we experience 

 20       only in our memories.  But, of course, that 

 21       is not ever the same.  

 22             We have lost a part of us that can 

 23       never be replaced.  Not a day goes by that I 

 24       don't think of her and miss her.  It is said 

 25       that when your parents die, you lose a part 



                                                              77
  1  

  2       of your past, but when your child dies, you 

  3       lose a part of your future; and indeed, you 

  4       do. 

  5             When the death is by murder, we, her 

  6       family, are all victims as well, left with 

  7       recurring images and bad dreams of violent 

  8       and unthinkable death scenes, left wondering 

  9       why and how this could happen, left 

 10       wondering if she knew what was happening, 

 11       and left with the agonizing questions that 

 12       never seem to go away.  Was she terrified?  

 13       Did she suffer?  Did she remember that we 

 14       loved her?  Who could have done this to her, 

 15       to us, and why?  Is it someone who killed 

 16       before October 21st, 1991, or since, and 

 17       will this person ever be caught?  And I'm 

 18       here to tell you those questions don't ever, 

 19       ever go away.  

 20             Certainly, as time goes by and Patty's 

 21       murder remains unsolved, it is sometimes 

 22       difficult to remain hopeful.  Yet, just as 

 23       certainly, it seems that the more time that 

 24       goes by, the greater the possibility that 

 25       DNA evidence will play a major role in 



                                                              78
  1  

  2       solving her murder.  

  3             As we become familiar with the DNA 

  4       technology, its collection, its uses, and 

  5       limitations, we have gained a renewed 

  6       respect for the detail and diligence 

  7       necessary to solve crimes, and for those of 

  8       you who work in this field, we look forward 

  9       to the day when every state is connected to 

 10       one database so that the search for her 

 11       killer or any killer or violent offender can 

 12       extend from one end of this country to 

 13       another in a matter of minutes instead of 

 14       years.  

 15             In the name of Patty Scoville and all 

 16       victims of violent crime, we appreciate your 

 17       efforts in working towards this important 

 18       the goal. Thank you.

 19             (Applause.)

 20             MS. CARTWRIGHT:  Thank you.  Our final 

 21       panelist is Jack Ballantyne, an associate 

 22       professor in the Department of Chemistry in 

 23       the University of Central Florida.  

 24       Professor Ballantyne, prior to entering 

 25       academia, was an operational forensic 



                                                              79
  1  

  2       biochemist for 18 years working in the 

  3       United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and the 

  4       United States.  

  5             His most recent full time operational 

  6       appointment was as the supervisor of the 

  7       Biological Sciences Section of the Suffolk 

  8       County Crime Lab, Long Island, New York.  

  9             Professor Ballantyne also participated 

 10       in the DNA identification of victims of the 

 11       TWA, Flight 800 disaster.  Dr. Ballantyne 

 12       received a Bachelor of Science from the 

 13       University of Glasgow, Scotland and a 

 14       Masters of Science in Forensic Science from 

 15       the University of Strathclyde, Scotland and 

 16       an Ph.D. in Genetics from the State 

 17       University of New York at Stony Brook. 

 18       Please welcome Dr. Ballantyne.

 19             (Applause.)

 20             DR. BALLANTYNE:  Good morning, ladies 

 21       and gentlemen.  I should like to thank the 

 22       organizers of the National Institute of 

 23       Justice for inviting me to participate in 

 24       this fifth annual, and I now understand, 

 25       last annual conference on the future of DNA.  



                                                              80
  1  

  2       It is an honor and a pleasure but also a 

  3       profoundly humbling experience for me to 

  4       share the forum with victims of crime.  

  5             The subject of my talk this morning 

  6       is, "How can DNA research and development 

  7       enhance victims' rights?"  At least, that 

  8       was the topic of the talk I was asked to 

  9       speak on.  It is not a particularly easy 

 10       subject, but it's one that we should 

 11       address.  

 12             For some time now, I have personally 

 13       felt that crime victims are not universally 

 14       and equitably given a fair deal when it 

 15       comes to the provision of forensic services.  

 16       I hope this morning to explain some of the 

 17       reasons why this is the case and also to 

 18       suggest ways in which we may in the future 

 19       be able to deliver forensic services to all 

 20       victims.  

 21             I'm also going to break with tradition 

 22       as well this morning as a scientist.  I 

 23       think I'm only going to use one audiovisual, 

 24       one overhead, I don't have a Powerpoint 

 25       presentation and I have one overhead and 



                                                              81
  1  

  2       that's it.  However, I've got a long speech.  

  3       You get one or the other.  You can't have 

  4       both.

  5             During the commission of violent 

  6       crime, biological material is often 

  7       transferred from one individual to another 

  8       individual, or from individual to the crime 

  9       scene.  With today's DNA technology, we're 

 10       able, to all intents and purposes, ascertain 

 11       the donor of a blood, semen or saliva stain, 

 12       provided the laboratory has the wherewithal 

 13       and desire to examine the evidence and the 

 14       reference sample from the contributor has 

 15       also been analyzed.  

 16             We are now able to solve some cases by 

 17       comparing probative samples against 

 18       appropriate databases to generate so-called  

 19       case-to-case or case-to-offender hits.  We 

 20       have also spent a considerable period of 

 21       time developing not only sensitive and 

 22       discriminating methods, but also quality 

 23       support system for these methods.  

 24             Quality system management for DNA is 

 25       now more or less standardized, thanks to the 



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  1  

  2       development of industry-defined consensus 

  3       standards and supporting legislation.  

  4             However, we have concentrated on one 

  5       aspect of quality, trying to ensure error- 

  6       free analysis.  That's what we've done up to  

  7       now, to the extent that is even possible.  

  8       We have, up to now, neglected two other 

  9       areas of quality, namely, the provision of 

 10       timely results and the completeness and 

 11       thoroughness of analysis.  

 12             For the most part, we have 

 13       concentrated on analyzing those cases which 

 14       have a developed suspect and are awaiting 

 15       adjudication as opposed to those cases for 

 16       which there is no obvious suspect.  

 17       Unfortunately, despite the unprecedented 

 18       ability of DNA to provide meaningful 

 19       investigative information to law enforcement 

 20       for those non-suspect cases, we have sadly 

 21       neglected this sub-set of cases with obvious 

 22       peril to victims and potential victims.  

 23             So I'd like you to consider the 

 24       following scenario which is not uncommon 

 25       throughout the United States. A woman is 



                                                              83
  1  

  2       awakened by an unknown masked intruder who 

  3       sexually abuses her and rapes her.  She is 

  4       ruthlessly victimized.  She then reports the 

  5       rape to the police, after which she submits 

  6       to a traumatic sexual assault examination in 

  7       which she provides intimate biological 

  8       samples and clothing items, including 

  9       vaginal, anal, oral swabbings, and her 

 10       underwear.  To some degree, she's victimized 

 11       a second time.  

 12             Then the rape kit, so-called rape kit 

 13       and clothing is submitted to the local crime 

 14       lab where it sits unanalyzed in perpetuity.  

 15       In my opinion, the victim has just been 

 16       victimized a third time.  

 17             Since we're often dealing with 

 18       recidivists, the non-analysis of this case 

 19       has increased the chance that the 

 20       perpetrator may go on to victimize one or 

 21       more individuals.  There are quite simply 

 22       too many cases that are languishing on 

 23       shelves in crime labs, or even worse, which 

 24       have been returned to the submitting agency 

 25       unanalyzed to face an uncertain and 



                                                              84
  1  

  2       sometimes unknown fate.  

  3             There are many victims in this society 

  4       for which meaningful information could be 

  5       obtained if we could examine the case and 

  6       obtain the genetic information from 

  7       transferred evidence, and we, as a group, 

  8       we, as forensic scientists, should not rest 

  9       until every victim has equal access to 

 10       genetic testing.  

 11             By victim, I mean victims, homicide 

 12       victims, rape and sexual assault victims, 

 13       assault and robbery victims, motor vehicle 

 14       hit-and-run victims, mass disaster victims, 

 15       victims falsely accused of crime.  I should 

 16       like to paraphrase, I think, Dr. Tom Caskey 

 17       in that "Every victim deserves a genetic 

 18       diagnosis."  

 19             So what are our reasons for our 

 20       inability to deliver universal forensic 

 21       services to all victims?  It is due to a 

 22       combination of factors, including 

 23       insufficient resource allocation to crime 

 24       labs, Sometimes inefficient and supervisory 

 25       practices within the labs themselves, and 



                                                              85
  1  

  2       technological limitations.  

  3             My purpose today is to address the 

  4       potential technological innovations that may 

  5       impact universal accessibility to genetic 

  6       testing, but I don't want us to lose sight 

  7       of the fact that other important 

  8       socioeconomic factors are at play.  In other 

  9       words, as the Governor said or another 

 10       speaker said, we need to lobby for more 

 11       resources to be placed into this field.  

 12             So in terms of technological solutions 

 13       to try, the goal being to try and get every 

 14       victim a genetic diagnosis when needed, 

 15       there are basically three known mutually 

 16       exclusive areas of technological 

 17       advancement, in my opinion, which would be 

 18       expected to dramatically enhance our ability  

 19       to provide timely investigative information 

 20       to law enforcement.  

 21             Of course, all of what I'm going to 

 22       discuss is predicated upon the assumption 

 23       that it's critical to populate the existing 

 24       databases of forensic casework samples and 

 25       convicted offenders, or even suspect 



                                                              86
  1  

  2       wherever possible, as completely and in as 

  3       timely manner as possible.  

  4             Most of the useful investigative 

  5       information is expected to result from 

  6       interrogation of such databases.  That's 

  7       become clear from our previous speakers 

  8       also.  Basically, the technological advances 

  9       envisioned would make genetic profiling 

 10       faster and perhaps cheaper -- faster is the 

 11       key -- or would be able to provide analysts 

 12       with data on samples which are currently 

 13       intractable to routine analysis.  

 14             And the three areas that I'd like to 

 15       just quickly, briefly mention, first of all, 

 16       miniaturization; secondly, automation; and 

 17       thirdly, non-standard analytical methods.  I 

 18       shall discuss these in more detail, but 

 19       before doing so, it is useful to look at the 

 20       progress of evidence from the crime scene 

 21       until it is actually analyzed and reported 

 22       in the lab.  

 23             This diagram is meant to represent 

 24       what actually happens in forensic cases.  We 

 25       have a crime scene at the top.  A crime 



                                                              87
  1  

  2       takes place.  Items are recovered from that 

  3       crime scene and sent to the laboratory.  

  4       Also, for every crime scene, you have a 

  5       victim and you have a perpetrator.  

  6             Victim samples are also sent to the 

  7       laboratory, and we also have, if we're 

  8       lucky, a suspect, a developed suspect.  

  9       Suspect items are also sent to the 

 10       laboratory.  What happens is the lab stores 

 11       these samples, storage, and if you're lucky 

 12       examination for probative evidence takes 

 13       place, actual examination.  

 14             Sometimes the evidence is not crystal 

 15       clear as to where the evidence is, what type 

 16       of evidence we're looking for.  We have to 

 17       look for the evidence.  So we examine for 

 18       probative evidence, and then if we obtain 

 19       so-called probative evidence, we may then 

 20       move on to DNA analysis and reporting.

 21             The arrows are meant to represent the 

 22       quantity of evidence.  The crime scene has a 

 23       large amount of evidence that's normally 

 24       received in a lab.  Victim's sample is quite 

 25       a large amount of material.  Suspect's 



                                                              88
  1  

  2       sample is typically less, all of it stored, 

  3       and much less is subsequently examined; and 

  4       much less is then analyzed and reported.  

  5             The rate limiting step in this process 

  6       is often not this last DNA analysis and 

  7       reporting.  Often the rate limiting step is  

  8       the examination stage.  After the storage, 

  9       when the evidence goes into the lab, it has 

 10       to examined.  That is a rate limiting step 

 11       for most of the process.  It isn't actually, 

 12       in many instances, the DNA analysis and 

 13       reporting. So that's a problem we have to 

 14       try and address.  

 15             One thing also, since I'd like to milk 

 16       my one overhead, the crime scene, is not a 

 17       laboratory environment.  So even if we 

 18       develop devices that can take to the crime 

 19       scene, we have to be careful because the 

 20       crime scene is not a lab.  I'll discuss that 

 21       in a few seconds.  So let me just, first of 

 22       all, discuss these in detail: 

 23       miniaturization, automation and new 

 24       techniques or new non-standard methods.

 25             Miniaturization, the ability to 



                                                              89
  1  

  2       manufacture integrated miniature 

  3       lab-on-a-chip or analytical devices will 

  4       impact both crime scene and lab analysis, 

  5       and there are two kinds of these so-called 

  6       biochips under development.  

  7             The first are microfabricated fluidic 

  8       devices -- these are truly lab-on-a-chip, 

  9       and the second are things called 

 10       microarrays.  The first one allows for the 

 11       extraction, amplification, separation, 

 12       genotyping and data analysis of a particular 

 13       sample; it truly is a lab-on-a-chip. 

 14       Impressive strides have been made in this 

 15       area and are mainly based on so-called 

 16       electrokinetic transport principles.  Much 

 17       of the laboratory analysis, in fact, has 

 18       been transferred to these chips, in 

 19       principle.  

 20             The second type of device, not to be 

 21       confused with the first, is typically an 

 22       array of oligonucleotides, sometimes called 

 23       oligonucleotides, which is used to used to 

 24       genotype a sample once the DNA's already 

 25       extracted and amplified.  Both of these are 



                                                              90
  1  

  2       currently under development.  

  3             It is envisioned that such 

  4       lab-on-a-chip devices could be developed 

  5       into point of use devices, similar to point 

  6       of care devices in the medical profession, 

  7       that could be used, for example, at the 

  8       crime scene.  

  9             All the necessary reaction components 

 10       except the sample could be incorporated into 

 11       the device at manufacture thus allowing 

 12       novices to use the chip at the scene.  

 13       Conceivably, one could sample a stain at the 

 14       scene, obtain a profile, and wirelessly 

 15       interrogate a national database for 

 16       potential hits.

 17             So one could go to the scene and 

 18       obtain instantaneous genetic information, in 

 19       theory.  Miniaturization is also expected to 

 20       facilitate analysis within the lab itself -- 

 21       that was the crime scene -- within the lab 

 22       itself by making the analysis faster and 

 23       cheaper and susceptible to automation.  

 24             It is envisioned that multiple chips 

 25       for different assays will be usable in a 



                                                              91
  1  

  2       so-called plug-and-play system similar to 

  3       those used in modern day video games which 

  4       would have common controllers.  

  5             There has been some discussion about 

  6       the relevance or desirability of such point 

  7       of use devices at the crime scene, as I 

  8       alluded to earlier.  I don't think forensic 

  9       scientists should fret about losing their 

 10       jobs over this one because that's what 

 11       they're worried about.  

 12             As I said before, crime scenes are not 

 13       lab environments.  Evidence is often found 

 14       in cramped, badly lit, inaccessible areas; 

 15       and the use of such devices may be 

 16       impractical.  

 17             We also don't want to miss important 

 18       stains, and conducting our analysis at the 

 19       scene may have this unintended result.  

 20       Sometimes you can't see the stains, the 

 21       important stains, at the crime scene because 

 22       it's not the ideal environment, sometimes 

 23       you can.  

 24             Secondly, most of the probative 

 25       evidence doesn't come from the crime scene 



                                                              92
  1  

  2       any way.  Most of the probative evidence, 

  3       arguably, is actually found on the 

  4       perpetrator or the victim or on the clothing 

  5       thereof of the victim or the perpetrator or 

  6       items belonging to the victim or 

  7       perpetrator, hence these victim samples and 

  8       suspect samples.  

  9             A large amount of probative evidence 

 10       really actually comes from that source other 

 11       than the crime scene.  So if you only 

 12       concentrate on the crime scene, we can't 

 13       only concentrate on the crime scene.  We 

 14       have to look at these other areas where 

 15       probative evidence is routinely recovered.  

 16       That's the first thing, miniaturization.

 17             Second area that will have an impact 

 18       on our ability to provide faster information 

 19       is automation, and, of course, they're not 

 20       mutually exclusive.  Automation, of course, 

 21       is required to enhance productivity and make 

 22       the analysis faster and cheaper, and 

 23       automation of the DNA analytical process 

 24       itself, that is the last part there, is 

 25       progressing well; and great strides have 



                                                              93
  1  

  2       been made and some are expected very soon, 

  3       some important announcements, particularly 

  4       in the field of mass spectometry and 

  5       automated DNA sequencing platforms, the 

  6       ability to automate the DNA analysis part.

  7       But as I said, that is not the rate limiting 

  8       step anyway, but that will certainly help 

  9       us.  

 10             However, there are other labor 

 11       intensive areas that would benefit from 

 12       automation.  These would include a method 

 13       for the differential extraction of stains in 

 14       which spermatozoa are often found in the 

 15       background of non-male cells.  That would 

 16       help in some way, but, of course, that could  

 17       be classified as part of the DNA analysis 

 18       program.  

 19             One area that may be useful is the 

 20       time-consuming search for spermatozoa that 

 21       typically involves a microscopical 

 22       examination of a stain extract.  The 

 23       combination of an automated 

 24       precisely-controlled microscope stage, video 

 25       capture and appropriate AI or neural network 



                                                              94
  1  

  2       software would remove this type of 

  3       examination as a rate limiting step in the 

  4       processing of rape kit evidence. 

  5             But it just may simply be that some of 

  6       these front-end aspects are not suitable for 

  7       automation, and for those of you who really 

  8       need to look forward to more efficient use 

  9       of people within the laboratory environment 

 10       itself in terms of work practices and 

 11       ability to process evidence at a reasonably 

 12       fast rate.  

 13             The third thing I wanted to talk 

 14       about, I've talked about miniaturization and 

 15       automation, are some non-standard analytical 

 16       methods, for example, intractable samples, 

 17       what I call intractable samples.  

 18             A number of potentially probative 

 19       samples are simply not unable to be analyzed 

 20       with the present technology.  One subclass 

 21       of such samples include those in which the 

 22       DNA's damaged or degraded in one way or the 

 23       other.  

 24             Research is needed to develop 

 25       microscale assays to ascertain the nature of 



                                                              95
  1  

  2       the DNA damage and attempt to repair the 

  3       damage in vitro using cocktailsof 

  4       appropriate DNA repair enzymes.  So we want 

  5       to be able to take samples where we'd like 

  6       to get results, and, because of damage to 

  7       DNA, we want to repair that and get results 

  8       where previously we couldn't.  

  9             Often difficult specimens samples are 

 10       susceptible to mitochondrial DNA but not 

 11       nuclear DNA analysis.  The problem is that 

 12       some mitochondrial haplotypes are relatively 

 13       common in the population, and therefore, the 

 14       probativeness of that evidence is somewhat 

 15       reduced in some instances.

 16             We need to investigate methods to 

 17       interrogate other regions of the 

 18       mitochondrial DNA genome which may exhibit 

 19       polymorphism in an attempt to discriminating 

 20       potential of the system. So that's one area 

 21       that could be of use.  

 22             Another area, low copy number of 

 23       single-cell analysis.  There's a well known 

 24       statement in forensic science, "Every 

 25       contact leaves a trace,"  which, in theory, 



                                                              96
  1  

  2       means that every single person that has come 

  3       into this room has left a trace of their 

  4       presence here.  If we apply that to the 

  5       biological side, each of may have left a 

  6       small number of cells at the crime scene, 

  7       which is here.  

  8             The question is, can we analyze that 

  9       material, and if so, can we deal with he 

 10       obvious problems that can occur when one 

 11       does this.  We, in the forensic science 

 12       community, have deliberately reduced our 

 13       sensitivity of our analysis so we don't pick 

 14       up such low levels of material.  

 15             However, if it's done in a proper 

 16       environment by properly trained and 

 17       competent people, perhaps there is a place 

 18       for so-called low copy of single-cell 

 19       analysis.  Potential methods for such 

 20       methods have been published, for example, 

 21       whole genome analysis or increasing the 

 22       cycle number or micromanipulation, actual 

 23       micromanipulation of the cells.  

 24             Another area that may be of interest 

 25       are so-called phenotypic characteristics, 



                                                              97
  1  

  2       and this occurs when a database search -- 

  3       say we have CODIS up and running, everything 

  4       is up and running.  We've managed to get to 

  5       a situation where everyone who needs to be 

  6       is on that database, and we have removed all 

  7       our backlogs.  We now have a fully 

  8       operational system.  It's still positive 

  9       that you'd have a negative.  You'd have a 

 10       stain left by the perpetrator, and we'd have 

 11       a negative search on a database search.  

 12             It may be possible to detect sets of 

 13       phenotype determining genes in biological 

 14       stains, and this could provide novel 

 15       meaningful investigative information about 

 16       the phenotypic characteristics of the stain 

 17       donor.  Much like an eyewitness 

 18       identification, this would be a scientific 

 19       eyewitness identification.  

 20             Such phenotypic characteristics 

 21       include obvious physical traits such as the 

 22       race, the sex, the height, the body stature, 

 23       eye and hair color, and facial features.  

 24       Other potential interesting traits that 

 25       would be somewhat dependant upon gene 



                                                              98
  1  

  2       expression include, down the road, some 

  3       behavioral traits such as harm avoidance; 

  4       susceptibility to alcoholism, that's 

  5       controversial; mental illnesses; and 

  6       willingness to take risks.  

  7             Although, it is recognized that gene 

  8       expression is confounded by environment, 

  9       nevertheless basic knowledge of and recent 

 10       and prospective advances in quantitative 

 11       genetics provide cautious optimism for the 

 12       potential of the success of the approach 

 13       proposed.  So it may be possible, from a 

 14       stain, to gain some information about the 

 15       individual independent from a search on a 

 16       database if the database is negative.  

 17             Another area of interest where 

 18       research and development could help would be 

 19       Y-chromosome markers.  There are several 

 20       reasons whereby the development and 

 21       consolidation of additional Y-chromosome 

 22       polymorphisms would be a useful addition to 

 23       the forensic scientist's armamentarium.

 24             Probably, the most important is the 

 25       identification of the male component in a 



                                                              99
  1  

  2       male/female specimen in which the female 

  3       fraction is present in overwhelming 

  4       quantities.  These are cases often where you 

  5       have a -- often involves young children or a 

  6       young female is molested and sexually 

  7       assaulted by a male where the male deposits 

  8       a very small number of cells, say buccal 

  9       cells from the oral cavity, in the genital 

 10       area of the female.  

 11             Under these circumstances, you can't 

 12       normally detect that trace quantity of male 

 13       cells.  However, if you were to use 

 14       Y-chromosome markers, and some places are 

 15       beginning to do so.  The Chief Medical 

 16       Examiner here in New York City, to my 

 17       knowledge, they are the only lab in the 

 18       country reporting Y-chromosome markers.  

 19       But we need to look for additional 

 20       Y-chromosome markers, and start to use that 

 21       technology in these cases which require it.  

 22             The last theory of technology I just 

 23       briefly want to describe, I couldn't help 

 24       myself because everybody's talking about it, 

 25       are SNPs, single nucleotide polymorphisms.  



                                                             100
  1  

  2              We need to conduct research into 

  3       suitable batteries of SNP markers for 

  4       forensic use since automatic genotyping of 

  5       these will be facile.  The reason we want to 

  6       look at SNPs is because we can automate the 

  7       analysis.  The problem with SNPs is that we 

  8       already have a technology that exists today, 

  9       and we want a bit of stability.  

 10             Our STR, 13-CODIS STR-loci are very 

 11       useful, and we want to be able to use them 

 12       to get the criminals off the street, so to 

 13       speak.  However, we still need to conduct 

 14       research into these other additional markers 

 15       because of the ability to readily automate 

 16       the analysis.  However, before SNPs could 

 17       take over, they would have to be proven to 

 18       be faster, better, cheaper, etc.  

 19             The problem with SNPs is we need to 

 20       develop ways in which to deal with the 

 21       analysis and interpretation of SNPs and body 

 22       fluid mixtures.  Of course, Y-chromosome 

 23       SNPs may be a good place to start for method 

 24       development since, for the geneticists in 

 25       the audience, heterozygotes don't exist and 



                                                             101
  1  

  2       mixture and interpretation is often not an 

  3       issue.

  4             So there are areas, I just wanted to 

  5       give you a snippet of what types of 

  6       technologies exist that may help us achieve 

  7       the goal of making the analysis, delivering 

  8       the services to those who need these 

  9       services.  

 10             So at the moment then, in conclusion,  

 11       we do have a significant problem in trying 

 12       to deliver forensic services to all crime 

 13       victims.  However, there are a number of 

 14       technological initiatives that we, as 

 15       laboratorians, can take which in combination 

 16       with lobbying for additional resources and 

 17       improving our internal work practices 

 18       through enlightened management supervision 

 19       may actually make a difference.  

 20             I stated previously, we should not 

 21       rest until every victim who not only has a 

 22       right and expectation to equal access to 

 23       genetic testing, but also actually gets it.  

 24       Thank you.

 25             (Applause.) 



                                                             102
  1  

  2             MS. CARTWRIGHT:  Thank you for your 

  3       attention to this victims' panel.  I guess I 

  4       want to close in just asking you to keep in 

  5       mind through this conference and as you go 

  6       about your work, the enormous difference  

  7       that your work makes to the individual 

  8       victims' lives, the huge difference that the 

  9       DNA match made to Mrs.  Debbie Smith, and 

 10       the huge impact that a DNA match could make 

 11       to the Scovilles in the murder of their 

 12       daughter.  

 13             Thank you for your attention, and 

 14       enjoy the rest of the conference. 

 15             (Break.) 

 16               PANEL II:  REPORT FROM THE NATIONAL 

 17          COMMISSION ON THE FUTURE OF DNA EVIDENCE

 18             MR. ASPLEN:  Welcome back after the 

 19       break.  My name is Christopher Asplen.  I'm 

 20       an assistant United States attorney in the 

 21       District of Columbia currently detailed as 

 22       the Executive Director of the National 

 23       Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence.  

 24             In keeping with the theme, however, I 

 25       am also an attorney.  In reference to David, 



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  1  

  2       however, I happen to be the attorney in the 

  3       office right next to David's office.  So you 

  4       can well imagine the amount of abuse that 

  5       gets handed right across the hallway into my 

  6       office.  

  7             But it's a great place to work, NIJ. 

  8       One of the great things about being the 

  9       Director of the Commission and being 

 10       detailed to that position is when I want to 

 11       be an insider and part of NIJ, I can talk 

 12       like an insider, and when I want to be an 

 13       outsider, I can talk like an outsider.  

 14             And so I'll talk like an outsider for 

 15       a minute.  NIJ has really done some 

 16       tremendous, tremendous work in this area, 

 17       and particularly, in the Office of Science 

 18       and Technology, and I'll explain a little 

 19       bit more about the Commission for those of 

 20       you who aren't aware of it.  

 21             But a lot of times, for those of you 

 22       who have heard about the Commission, have 

 23       read our materials, have seen some of the 

 24       work we've done, a lot of times we get asked 

 25       the question, how does the Commission do all 



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  1  

  2       the work that it does with only three staff 

  3       people?  And it's actually two and a half 

  4       staff people only because Dr. Forman has a 

  5       whole other responsibility not anything 

  6       related to the Commission.

  7             And the secret is not in how many 

  8       people you have, but who you have, and with 

  9       the Commission having Robin Wilson and 

 10       Dr. Forman on it, on the staff, they do 

 11       incredible work, they do a tremendous amount 

 12       of work; and the Commission would not be as 

 13       successful as it's been without their 

 14       dedication to it and without the support of 

 15       NIJ and OST.  

 16             So let me also give credit to the 

 17       State of New York.  I often know when 

 18       Commissioner Safir, for example, has spoken 

 19       on the arrestee issue because 15 minutes 

 20       later my phone rings because someone in the 

 21       press is calling asking whether or not the 

 22       Commission has spoken to that particular 

 23       issue or whether or not they're going to 

 24       take that issue up.  

 25             When New York went to the extended 



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  1  

  2       felonies and included offenses in the CODIS 

  3       database as it did, they came to the 

  4       Commission asking, "What's the state of the 

  5       nation in this regard?"  

  6             "Isn't it true that New York is on the 

  7       cutting edge of this?"

  8             "Isn't it true that New York is on the 

  9       cutting edge of reducing their backlog?"  

 10             "Isn't it true that New York is on the 

 11       cutting edge in terms of attempting to 

 12       outsource the rape kits, their attempt to 

 13       eliminate statutes of limitations?"  

 14             Yes, it's true.  Yes, it's true.  Yes, 

 15       it's true.  New York is on the cutting edge 

 16       of those matters, and so I commend New York, 

 17       both on a state level, and on a local level, 

 18       New York City, in the fine work that you're 

 19       doing; and you not only provide a phenomenal 

 20       service to the state but also to the nation 

 21       in terms of providing an example of the 

 22       power of the technology and what we can do 

 23       with it when we're dedicated to really 

 24       integrating the technology into the criminal 

 25       justice system and really applying it.  



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  1  

  2             The Commission was created at the 

  3       request of Attorney General Reno a number of 

  4       years ago and was really in response to some 

  5       post-conviction cases she had read about, 

  6       those instances in which DNA had been used 

  7       to exonerate individuals previously wrongly 

  8       convicted; again, a scenario in which 

  9       New York is a leader as one of the two 

 10       states up until recently who had specific 

 11       legislation on that issue.  

 12             However, once the Commission was 

 13       created or actually in the creation process, 

 14       it was determined that the Commission's goal 

 15       should be to maximize the value of DNA in 

 16       the criminal justice system, which meant 

 17       going far beyond its application to the 

 18       post-conviction process but really coming to 

 19       grips with the actual application and 

 20       integration of the technology into the 

 21       system.  

 22             And what we really quickly realized 

 23       was that it was about application, almost 

 24       more so than, often times, about the 

 25       technology itself, that regardless of what 



                                                             107
  1  

  2       our technological ability was or will be, if 

  3       we're not putting it into the hands of law 

  4       enforcement, if we're not empowering the 

  5       laboratories to do the testing, the greatest 

  6       bells and whistles in the world aren't going 

  7       to do us much good.  They're not going to 

  8       save many people's lives.  

  9             So we really began to focus on some of 

 10       those application issues.  The Commission 

 11       was broken up into five different working 

 12       groups.  We have a crime scene working group 

 13       which is specifically oriented towards law 

 14       enforcement and the identification, 

 15       preservation, and collection of DNA 

 16       evidence.  

 17             We also created a post-conviction 

 18       working group which, obviously, was about 

 19       the post-conviction matters as was the 

 20       genesis of the Commission.  

 21             A third working group was legal issues 

 22       working group which was created to deal with 

 23       those other non-post-conviction issues, but 

 24       issues such as arrestee testing, sample 

 25       retention, and things like that.  



                                                             108
  1  

  2             Fourth working group was laboratory 

  3       funding.  Again, it all comes down to money, 

  4       ultimately, and what do we need financially 

  5       and how are we going to empower our 

  6       laboratories to do the work.  

  7             And then finally, we have a research 

  8       and development working group which will 

  9       give us a picture of what the technology 

 10       will be five,ten years down the line and 

 11       which will speak to the value of the current 

 12       investment in STRs and what potential 

 13       changes there are on the horizon for issues 

 14       like crime scene analysis, chip technology, 

 15       et cetera.  

 16             So those are the five general areas 

 17       we've looked into.  We've made a number of 

 18       recommendations already, and we'll be 

 19       wrapping up our work by the end of the year. 

 20             Today, what I'd like to do is talk 

 21       about the crime scene investigation working 

 22       group first, and then I'm going to, in the 

 23       context of that, turn it over to Robin 

 24       Wilson, who has done a yeoman's job on 

 25       bringing one particular program to fruition 



                                                             109
  1  

  2       which I think will be very valuable.  

  3             The crime scene working group, as I 

  4       said, is oriented towards law enforcement, 

  5       and what we did is we realized that there a 

  6       was quite lack of educational materials and 

  7       training for law enforcement in the 

  8       identification, preservation and collection 

  9       of DNA evidence.  

 10             One of the first things we decided to 

 11       do was to create a training tool, which 

 12       turned out to be a simple little pamphlet 

 13       which you've probably all seen by now, 

 14       especially if you work in a police 

 15       department, that very simply explains DNA 

 16       but more importantly explains where you may 

 17       find DNA where you might not have otherwise 

 18       thought to look before reading the pamphlet. 

 19             Actually, less important than the 

 20       information in the pamphlet itself, perhaps, 

 21       was the decision and commitment by NIJ and 

 22       the Attorney General to pass one of these 

 23       out, or to send one of these out to every 

 24       law enforcement officer in the entire 

 25       country.  



                                                             110
  1  

  2             We printed a million copies of it.  We 

  3       proactively sent out over 700,000 copies to 

  4       every agency, every individual police 

  5       officer in the country, and now we're on our 

  6       second reprinting and we're printing an 

  7       extra 500,000 copies.  

  8             And, perhaps most importantly, we were 

  9       just informed of our first example where 

 10       this has been responsible for solving a 

 11       crime.  There was a case in Austin, Texas 

 12       not too long ago in which an elderly woman 

 13       was raped and murdered by an individual who 

 14       not only wore a condom but also wore rubber 

 15       gloves.  

 16             Well, because the police officer 

 17       investigating the crime saw in our pamphlet 

 18       that you can test ligatures for DNA, he 

 19       collected the ligature for that.  Now, 

 20       obviously, they collect the ligature anyway 

 21       as having an evidentiary value but wouldn't 

 22       necessarily have tested the ligature.  

 23             In this particular case they did.  

 24       Apparently, what happened was, in the 

 25       context of or in the course of strangling 



                                                             111
  1  

  2       the woman, the individual, I guess, had to 

  3       use one hand to hold the victim down, the 

  4       other hand to hold one end of the ligature, 

  5       leaving his mouth to bite down on the 

  6       ligature tightening it, and that's how they 

  7       got the DNA.  

  8             It also turned out that the 

  9       perpetrator was a serial perpetrator having 

 10       other rapes and homicides in his past.  A 

 11       wonderful result, and, again, it's just the 

 12       first one that we've been informed of.  

 13             We're also in the process of producing 

 14       a publication which will education law 

 15       enforcement officers about how to use DNA 

 16       and the database in solving old cold cases, 

 17       if you will.  Again, an instance where 

 18       New York is leader as evidenced by the first 

 19       case that you saw, the 21-year-old case.  

 20             As we know, there are a tremendous 

 21       number of cases that sit on the bedposts of 

 22       officers that they've never quite gotten out 

 23       of their mind that they know someday they 

 24       will solve.  Well, we obviously have a 

 25       technology now which will take us a lot 



                                                             112
  1  

  2       further into those cases and which will 

  3       enable us to solve a lot more cases that 

  4       previously were thought to be unsolvable.  

  5             But with that discussion of the crime 

  6       scene working group, let me turn it over to 

  7       the Executive Assistant for the Commission, 

  8       Robin Wilson, who graduated with a BS degree 

  9       from Virginia Tech.  After graduating from 

 10       college, she worked on Capital Hill for a 

 11       while with a representative from Florida but 

 12       fortunately, was convinced to come to the 

 13       Commission as Executive Director, and it's 

 14       fair to say that it was one of the better 

 15       decisions that the Commission has made in 

 16       its tenure.  

 17             She has been tremendous asset to the 

 18       Commission and has made a wonderful 

 19       contribution, and this product that you're 

 20       about to see would not be at this stage and 

 21       would not be completed when it's going to be 

 22       without her work.  So with that, Robin, I'll 

 23       turn it over to you.  

 24             MS. WILSON:  Good morning.  I'm 

 25       excited to be here to tell you about the 



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  1  

  2       training program that the Crime Scene 

  3       Investigation Working Group is developing.  

  4             We expect it to be finished in July, 

  5       the first module, the first of two modules 

  6       will be finished sometime in July.  Our 

  7       Commission meeting is on the 9th and 10th in 

  8       Washington DC, and we expect the actual 

  9       final product of Module One, which is the 

 10       beginning level program for first responding 

 11       and officers who have a limited knowledge of 

 12       DNA evidence.  We expect that to be finished 

 13       in July.

 14             Module Two is a more advanced level 

 15       training and that will be finished sometime 

 16       before the fall.  That will be for crime 

 17       scene technicians, evidence technicians and 

 18       the like.

 19             We expect that the training program is 

 20       going to be in a CD ROM interactive program 

 21       where the officer can either use it on his 

 22       own laptop or in the department with CD ROM 

 23       capabilities, or it can be used in a roll 

 24       call or academy-type setting.  

 25             It has testing component so they can 



                                                             114
  1  

  2       test their knowledge and what they've 

  3       learned throughout the program.  It's being 

  4       developed through an existing grant that NIJ 

  5       has with the Eastern Kentucky University, 

  6       and as I said, they're using video 

  7       technology and stitched videos so we 

  8       actually set mock crime scenes with actors 

  9       that have fake blood and all of that.  So it 

 10       looks real, and the student can navigate 

 11       through a crime scene and click on items 

 12       that might yield DNA evidence.

 13             And their actions, whether they put on 

 14       gloves when they go into a crime scene, will 

 15       be able to be monitored by the program.  So 

 16       we can say was it contaminated, they didn't 

 17       put on their gloves.

 18             The phone will ring.  It will have 

 19       components that will challenge the student.  

 20       The phone will ring, if the student goes and 

 21       picks up the phone without gloves, if they 

 22       talk on the phone to call their back up or 

 23       whatever they need, those types of things.  

 24       So it's a really interactive program that 

 25       we're really excited about.  



                                                             115
  1  

  2             We're going to produce enough copies 

  3       so every department in the United States 

  4       will have both modules, and also enough for 

  5       training academies and universities that 

  6       work with departments because we know 

  7       there's lots of rural departments who don't 

  8       necessarily have the computers and the 

  9       technology to be able to operate CD ROMs and 

 10       that sort of thing.   

 11             So we're hoping to get a wide enough 

 12       dissemination that will really help.  It is 

 13       portable, and we think that's a really 

 14       valuable component that it's portable so 

 15       someone can use it at home if they want to.  

 16             We're hoping that, hopefully, we'll be 

 17       able to put it up on the internet.  So if 

 18       someone can go to a site and actually go 

 19       through the training on an internet site.

 20       So, of course, that's all, hopefully, by the 

 21       end of year, that will be possible.  

 22             I have a prototype here that I'm going 

 23       to show you, and, again, it's just a 

 24       prototype, but it kind of shows you some of 

 25       the bells an whistles that are going to 



                                                             116
  1  

  2       used, give you an idea of what it's going to 

  3       look like.  

  4             Again, this is just a prototype and 

  5       the one that we've actually developed is a 

  6       lot more technical.  The beginning level, 

  7       obviously, we tried to make it very easy 

  8       just like the pamphlet is.  

  9             It's sort of modeled after that, so  

 10       it's easy to learn, kind of fun.  We wanted 

 11       to make it fun for the officer and 

 12       interesting.  So I'll go ahead and 

 13       demonstrate that for you. 

 14             (Demonstration in progress.)    

 15             So that just gives you an idea of sort 

 16       of what we're trying to develop.  Again, it 

 17       is a prototype and we've tweaked the 

 18       language, and we've changed some of the 

 19       things that we need to change, that sort of 

 20       thing.  

 21             We're working very hard.  We've got a 

 22       lot of good people on working group that are 

 23       helping us, and it's going to be a really 

 24       good product; and we've gotten a lot of 

 25       calls.  New York has called and they have 



                                                             117
  1  

  2       let us know that they want to be first on 

  3       the list.  So feel free to come and ask us 

  4       any questions.  It's going to available 

  5       through NCJRS the way the other publications 

  6       are, and you can always, of course, look on 

  7       our website, www.nijojp.uscoj.gov/nij/dna.

  8             (Applause.)

  9             MR. ASPLEN:  If any of you have ever 

 10       been involved in the development of 

 11       something like that, the applause is well 

 12       deserved in terms of, it is the single most 

 13       tedious thing the Commission has done. 

 14             Every potential click is a storyboard 

 15       sheet that you have to go through, and  

 16       there's about two hours worth of material on 

 17       that CD ROM that we've had to go through, 

 18       and it's been gone through with quite a 

 19       panel of experts.  

 20             The working group has experts from all 

 21       over the country on it, and they've been 

 22       working very hard, but, again, no one has 

 23       worked harder than Robin on getting that 

 24       out.  

 25             At this point in time, I'd like to 



                                                             118
  1  

  2       turn it over to Dr. Forman who will talk 

  3       about the CODIS program and some other 

  4       issues.  The value of having Dr. Forman, the 

  5       value of having someone with her 

  6       credentials, more importantly, having her 

  7       personally on the Commission staff is 

  8       probably incalculable in terms of her vision 

  9       of where to take some of these things, the 

 10       ability when an issue comes up as to whether 

 11       Commission should address it or how they 

 12       should address it from a technology 

 13       standpoint, her wisdom and vision in terms 

 14       of getting the Commission to get their arms 

 15       around certain issues has really been 

 16       fantastic.  

 17             And I think that the Commission has 

 18       been extremely well served by her dedication 

 19       to the project and by her expertise, and so 

 20       with that, Dr. Forman. 

 21             DR. FORMAN:  That's very kind, Chris.  

 22       I only hope I can live up to the technology 

 23       end of it by turning my computer on.  

 24             As Chris has discussed already and 

 25       David has mentioned, the Attorney General 



                                                             119
  1  

  2       addressed the first meeting of the 

  3       Commission by employing the Commission to 

  4       provide her with recommendations as soon as 

  5       they had formulated the recommendations and 

  6       not wait until the end of their two- or 

  7       four-year term to present her with a lengthy 

  8       report with many recommendations buried into 

  9       it.  

 10             One of the very first recommendations 

 11       that she did receive from the Commission 

 12       after post-conviction recommendations was 

 13       the Commission's recommendation that the 

 14       estimated 750,000 convicted offender samples 

 15       that were stored but unanalyzed in our 

 16       nation's public DNA laboratories be 

 17       immediately processed and entered into the 

 18       CODIS database.  

 19             As this slide shows, there were three 

 20       particular areas that the Commission 

 21       addressed thanks to the work of the working 

 22       group, the Laboratory Funding Working Group 

 23       that provided the background and research 

 24       for the Commission on this and was chaired 

 25       by Dr. Paul Ferrara.  



                                                             120
  1  

  2             The three limitations that they 

  3       identified for the Attorney General just 

  4       really less than about ten months ago, were 

  5       the current backlog of untested convicted 

  6       offender database samples, the lack of 

  7       appropriate prioritization of database 

  8       sample collection and testing, and the 

  9       limited use of DNA in non-suspect cases.  

 10             And these were all areas that the 

 11       Commission encouraged the Attorney General 

 12       to support the reduction of the samples 

 13       through the use of additional funding.  

 14             Well, it was actually as David and 

 15       Chris both mentioned, the high profile  

 16       nature of the Commission's discussion, that 

 17       attracted sufficient attention, that it's 

 18       importance was recognized in the most recent 

 19       appropriation process.  

 20             And in December, although our fiscal 

 21       year begins in October, it was actually 

 22       really December by the time we really knew 

 23       what our budget was going to be, the 

 24       Appropriations Committee had awarded $15 

 25       million, had allocated $15 million for the 



                                                             121
  1  

  2       reduction of the CODIS backlog this year.  

  3             So we received this appropriation and 

  4       identified that we would be able to support 

  5       the reduction of the CODIS backlog samples 

  6       by awarding to each state that had a 

  7       sufficient number of backlog samples as of 

  8       March 31st, 2000, a price that the 

  9       Laboratory Funding Group identified as about 

 10       $50 a sample to reduce the number of backlog 

 11       samples that each state had in their 

 12       freezers at that point in time.  

 13             We also learned that when we received 

 14       this funding, because we would have a very 

 15       short turnaround for this particular funding 

 16       phase, we had from December until October to 

 17       get this whole program implemented, we 

 18       identified that, as David mentioned, there 

 19       is a possibility of renewal of an additional 

 20       $15 million for the FY 2001 budget.  

 21             And as David mentioned, if this 

 22       program is successful -- and how do you 

 23       determine success in this program?  By the 

 24       number of hits that we get across the 

 25       country which can be translated into the 



                                                             122
  1  

  2       number of lives that we're able to save 

  3       through this program -- there is a 

  4       possibility of still additional funding to 

  5       wrap up loose ends in fiscal year 2003. 

  6             David outlined the program very 

  7       briefly in his opening remarks.  I'd like to 

  8       put a little more flesh on those bones.  

  9       This is how we're going to implement the 

 10       program this year; the states are going to 

 11       be required to outsource, use the moneys 

 12       that they are provided from the federal 

 13       government to outsource to high throughput 

 14       vendors their convicted offender samples 

 15       that they have collected as of March 31st, 

 16       2000.  

 17             That was a main recommendation of the 

 18       commission who recognized that public 

 19       laboratories do not have the facilities or 

 20       the capacity and, in fact, were never meant 

 21       to be high throughput laboratories for 

 22       massive numbers of database samples, but 

 23       instead to focus laboratories on the job 

 24       that they were really created to do and that 

 25       is the sensitive, customized work that 



                                                             123
  1  

  2       actual casework requires.  

  3             The solicitation that is put out to 

  4       the laboratories requires that the state's 

  5       vendors meet a 30-day turnaround time, that 

  6       the state's vendors be ASCLD accredited or  

  7       NSFTC certified, that the state's vendors 

  8       use all 13-CODIS STRs.  

  9             We also have a time limitation on the 

 10       states themselves.  They must have their 

 11       RFPs awarded, their requests for proposals 

 12       awarded within 120 days of receiving 

 13       funding, receiving federal funding.  And 

 14       this is an extraordinarily fast time.  I 

 15       know it doesn't sound like is a fast time, 

 16       but for this particular bureaucratic beast, 

 17       this is a very fast turnaround time.  

 18             The states must also be willing to 

 19       perform up to ten percent quality assurance 

 20       on the samples that they are outsourcing.  

 21       They may use federal funds to complete this 

 22       quality assurance mandate.  They may use  

 23       either in-house to support their own quality 

 24       assurance work, or they may also outsource 

 25       to their original laboratory or to an 



                                                             124
  1  

  2       additional vendor, if they wish, this 

  3       quality assurance function. 

  4             Now, because the funds, the awards, 

  5       are going to each of the states instead of 

  6       being able to do high-volume throughput, 

  7       instead of being able to do large economies 

  8       of scales by first identifying vendors, but 

  9       each state will be required to perform their 

 10       own RFP and make their own deals with their 

 11       own outsource vendors, we had to make a cut- 

 12       off.  

 13             Our $50 a sample is an extremely 

 14       generous estimate if you have a large number 

 15       of samples, but if you have fewer than a 

 16       thousand samples to offer to a vendor, we 

 17       were concerned that we would have 

 18       laboratories who would not be able to meet 

 19       the $50 sample estimate that we were able to 

 20       provide for them.  

 21             So laboratories, states, had to have 

 22       at least a thousand backlog samples as of 

 23       March 31st, 2000.  We also set a match 

 24       requirement on the states.  We want to 

 25       encourage the states to do the work that 



                                                             125
  1  

  2       they do very well, again, that's the 

  3       customized case work that goes to each 

  4       analyst.  

  5             However, we know that each state has a 

  6       phenomenal number of cases that are 

  7       requiring their attention, and we know that 

  8       the phone rings off the hook and the 

  9       prosecutors want their case now and that 

 10       many, many, rape kits sit untested.  

 11             In fact, the Commission was able to 

 12       commission itself a report, an estimate, 

 13       done by the Police Executive Research Forum 

 14       in which they estimated, and we believe this 

 15       is a low estimate, that there are about 

 16       180,000 untested rape kits in this country 

 17       because the laboratories simply don't have 

 18       the capacity to do the ongoing casework and 

 19       the casework for which no suspect is known.  

 20             So as a requirement, we are requiring 

 21       the states who are applying for federal 

 22       funding for CODIS analysis of their backlog 

 23       samples be willing to perform in their own 

 24       laboratories, in-house, not outsourced, one 

 25       percent unsuspect, no-suspect cases, of the 



                                                             126
  1  

  2       amount of samples that they are awarded 

  3       funds to outsource.  

  4             Now, let me say that again because I 

  5       said it really badly.  Of the number of 

  6       convicted offender samples the states are 

  7       being funded to outsource, they must, in 

  8       their own laboratories, provide one percent 

  9       of no-suspect caseworks to provide forensic 

 10       cases against which they can compare their 

 11       convicted offender samples. 

 12             The solicitation also requires that 

 13       they expedite their uploads at the state 

 14       level into the national database so that by 

 15       the end of this funding period, we will have 

 16       an actually populated database. Now, this 

 17       solicitation was crafted with the help of 

 18       many people, and I'd like to acknowledge 

 19       especially the people in the FSS unit of the 

 20       FBI, the Forensic Science Services unit of 

 21       the FBI, including Barry Brown; Steve 

 22       Miscoda; Dawn Herkenham, who was loaned to 

 23       us through them; and John Behan and Lucy 

 24       Marsinka, who all worked very hard on the 

 25       solicitation.  I'd especially like to 



                                                             127
  1  

  2       acknowledge the work of our own new 

  3       employee, John Paul Jones, who also worked 

  4       extremely hard on the solicitation so that 

  5       we could create a solicitation that was 

  6       responsive to the needs of the laboratory 

  7       while at the same time would help to 

  8       populate CODIS. 

  9             Now, I should say that as of this 

 10       particular moment in time, there are 280,000 

 11       samples, convicted offender profiles, in the 

 12       CODIS database.  Unfortunately, those 

 13       280,000 samples are all analyzed using the 

 14       older technology that is fading from use in 

 15       casework.  So we have a lot of apples in the 

 16       convicted offender database, but they are 

 17       being compared to oranges, and that's going 

 18       to make for a very bad fruit salad, I guess. 

 19             So at this point we have about 20,000 

 20       samples in the CODIS database that includes 

 21       all 13-convicted offender samples.  This is 

 22       what we're expecting from the work that John 

 23       Paul has done, the surveys that John Paul 

 24       has done, at the close of the solicitation, 

 25       the funding of solicitation which closes on 



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  1  

  2       the 15th of this month.  

  3             We expect that there will be about 200 

  4       to 250,000 samples that will be funded, and 

  5       this list identifies that there are several 

  6       states who will be applying simply for 1,000 

  7       to 10,000 samples analysis, including New 

  8       Mexico, Illinois, Alaska, Florida, New 

  9       Jersey and Minnesota.  

 10             There are states who will be applying 

 11       for 10 to 20,000 sample analysis, including 

 12       Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina.  

 13       There are states who will be applying for 

 14       more than 20000 samples to be analyzed, 

 15       including our partners for this conference, 

 16       the State of New York, Virginia, California, 

 17       and Texas.  

 18             What is limiting these states 

 19       applications for the number of samples that 

 20       they're willing to have analyzed is the 

 21       exactly the capacity issue of the one 

 22       percent match.  States are rightly, will not 

 23       commit to more non-suspect casework than 

 24       they can actually perform.  So that's part 

 25       of the reduction of the number of samples 



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  1  

  2       that we are going to see in this particular 

  3       funding round. 

  4             There are a number of states who will 

  5       not be applying this round at all, and these 

  6       states are listed on the other side of the 

  7       slide.  Several of these states, Vermont, 

  8       Nevada, New Hampshire, Delaware, Wyoming, 

  9       and Idaho, had fewer than 1,000 samples 

 10       collected as of March 31st, 2000, and that 

 11       is, even though they have convicted offender 

 12       laws on their statutes, they have not yet 

 13       begun to collect the samples.  

 14             There are some states who simply have 

 15       no backlogs.  There are some states who had 

 16       state dollars already appropriated, and they 

 17       have generously decided that they will use 

 18       those funds that are committed in that way 

 19       already, leaving more funding for other 

 20       states who do not have such good fortune in 

 21       their own state legislatures.  And there are 

 22       other states who will not be applying this 

 23       year.

 24               We feel that it's critical to get 

 25       these samples analyzed as quickly as 



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  1  

  2       possible from the states who are applying so 

  3       we can go back and say that we have 

  4       generated a sufficient number of hits, that 

  5       the program is clearly working, that we need 

  6       to have the additional funding so that 

  7       states that were unable to compete in this 

  8       particular solicitation will be able to 

  9       compete next year in a  similar 

 10       solicitation. 

 11             So as I said, the solicitation closes 

 12       next week.  If our predictions hold true, 

 13       I've done a little math for you on the side, 

 14       if we do get 250,000 convicted offender 

 15       samples analyzed, that means that we will 

 16       get 2,500 no-suspect cases analyzed at the 

 17       same time.  

 18             Then given some very conservative 

 19       estimates that we have via the states, and 

 20       we have really dummied our expectations 

 21       down, we should have at least 250 cold hits 

 22       from these data.  Those 250 cold hits 

 23       transfer into closure for the victims that 

 24       we heard this morning and for their 

 25       families. They translate into real cases 



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  1  

  2       that are now prevented, and unfortunately, 

  3       also will translate into the identification 

  4       of cases that could have been prevented if 

  5       we had only started this earlier.

  6             But we are starting now, and we are 

  7       dedicated to making this program work as 

  8       best as we can, as fast as we can.  So the 

  9       reason she's up there is it ain't over till 

 10       the fat lady sings, and this time next year 

 11       at our DNA Grantees' meeting, I plan on 

 12       putting on a hat and belting it all out.  

 13             Let me give you one quick brief update 

 14       on one other working group the Commission is 

 15       waiting to here from, and it is an update 

 16       from the Research and Development Working 

 17       Group.  Here you see the names of the people 

 18       who are on this particular working group.  

 19       Commissioner Jim Crowe is the chair of the 

 20       group, and he is aided and abetted by many, 

 21       many, able-bodied, wonderful thinkers.  

 22             The Research and Development Working 

 23       Group report is destined to be the very last 

 24       report that the Commissioner receives, and 

 25       it is not because these people are in any 



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  2       way tardy, but it is because this group is 

  3       dedicating itself to providing the 

  4       Commission with the most up-to-date 

  5       information about the state of research and 

  6       technology for forensic DNA use.  

  7             And there have been many, many 

  8       discussions by this group about many topic 

  9       areas, and I guess, most of you can see that 

 10       one of the prime topic areas has been 

 11       statistical, given the nature of many of the 

 12       people who are on this particular working 

 13       group, but they've also considered how the 

 14       technology will impact on the forensic use 

 15       of DNA.  

 16             And I think that I won't go into a lot 

 17       of details.  We don't have very much more 

 18       time.  I would urge you to look at the DNA 

 19       Commission's website, especially for its 

 20       last meeting when Chairman Crowe outlined 

 21       some of the issues, and there was testimony 

 22       about some of the issues in this particular 

 23       working group's draft of their report.  It 

 24       is reprinted verbatim on our website, which 

 25       is all of those letters that we said before 



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  1  

  2       and just call us and we'll send you the 

  3       information or e-mail us and we'll send you 

  4       the information.  

  5             But the bottom line for this 

  6       particular working group is this:  

  7       Technology is going forward.  The 

  8       technologies that we are using now are very 

  9       strong and appropriate for forensic 

 10       application, and there will be other 

 11       technologies that will be equally 

 12       appropriate and useful for forensics.  

 13             What will make the bigger difference 

 14       in the next two, five, and ten years, which 

 15       is the time frames that this particular 

 16       working group is projecting for, is not what 

 17       the technology will do, but really how the 

 18       technology fits in the puzzle with all of 

 19       these other pieces.  

 20             So I urge you to look at the website 

 21       and flesh this out for a little bit more for 

 22       yourselves, and the actual report will be 

 23       given to the Commission really, really soon, 

 24       really soon.  I think probably a very close 

 25       to final draft will be given to the 



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  1  

  2       Commission on the July meeting on July 9th 

  3       and 10th in Washington D.C., and we would 

  4       urge as many of you as are able to attend 

  5       that meeting as well.  They're all open to 

  6       the public.  Thank you. 

  7             MR. ASPLEN:  I may have spoken a 

  8       little too soon when I was talking about the 

  9       angst that one goes through in developing a 

 10       CD ROM because if there is something that it 

 11       can be compared to, it is developing a 

 12       solicitation like the one Lisa has been 

 13       directing for the CODIS backlog monies.  

 14             In the federal bureaucratic process, 

 15       it is quite a task, especially when you try 

 16       to do things differently than they've been 

 17       done before and you try to do it creatively 

 18       in a way that most benefits the community, 

 19       gets things done most quickly.  

 20             It's taken a lot of innovation, it's 

 21       taken a lot of patience, but what it hasn't 

 22       taken is a lot of time, and that's because 

 23       this solicitation has from the beginning 

 24       been approached, I won't say unique, but a 

 25       very tangible sense of mission and a very 



                                                             135
  1  

  2       tangible sense of understanding that quite 

  3       literally every single day matters; and it's 

  4       been approached in a way that recognizes the 

  5       concerns that the Smiths and the Scovilles 

  6       talked about this morning so that we can get 

  7       this money out there absolutely as quickly 

  8       as possible so that we can solve cases as 

  9       soon as possible.  And that is due to the 

 10       leadership of Dr. Forman is developing that.  

 11             So let me finish up our remarks by 

 12       referencing a couple of other matters that 

 13       the Commission has addressed that you may 

 14       have read about, heard about, may need some 

 15       clarification, perhaps.  One, is the issue 

 16       of post-conviction testing and current 

 17       pending federal legislation which would 

 18       create a federal right to post-conviction 

 19       testing.  

 20             Senator Leahy from Vermont has 

 21       introduced legislation which would provide a 

 22       federal right to post-conviction testing in 

 23       certain circumstances.  The first purpose 

 24       listed under the purpose section of the 

 25       legislation is that it substantially 



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  1  

  2       implement the recommendations of the 

  3       National Commission.  

  4             There is a great debate going on right 

  5       now, not on the floor of the Senate, but in 

  6       those areas such as the Department and other 

  7       arenas, a great debate regarding the 

  8       standard that should be set for 

  9       post-conviction analysis and the extent to 

 10       which standards -- we need to be sure that 

 11       if a standard is created, that it not open 

 12       certain the flood gates but at the same time 

 13       that we let cases come to light that should 

 14       come to light.  

 15             Again, it has only been introduced in 

 16       the Senate so far, and they have not had 

 17       hearings on the matter.  However, if you 

 18       choose to give me a call periodically, I'd 

 19       be happy to update you as that matter moves 

 20       along.  

 21             Also, there is pending legislation 

 22       introduced by three separate 

 23       representatives, one of which, 

 24       Representative Gilman, from here in New 

 25       York, the other Representative Weiner, also 



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  1  

  2       from New York, which would provide 

  3       significant money for backlog reduction, 

  4       both convicted offender sample and for 

  5       forensic index sample.  

  6             And that legislation is pending as 

  7       David mentioned, he testified regarding that 

  8       legislation earlier, actually about a month 

  9       ago.  So those are some issues to watch out 

 10       for on the national level.  

 11             Two other issues that I would address 

 12       briefly, one is the arrestee issue and the 

 13       Commission's comments to the Attorney 

 14       General on taking DNA samples from 

 15       arrestees.  

 16             In discussing that matter, and once 

 17       again, New York, in terms of driving that 

 18       discussion has been a leader, the Commission 

 19       made a recommendation to the Attorney 

 20       General that essentially said that at this 

 21       stage of the game, we should first eliminate 

 22       the convicted offender backlog; second, that 

 23       we should allocate appropriate resources to 

 24       forensic sample testing; and third, in the 

 25       event that individual jurisdictions decide 



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  1  

  2       to do arrestee testing, then a very strong 

  3       argument should be made to the legislature 

  4       that it should not be an unfunded mandate, 

  5       that we should not simply replace one 

  6       backlog for another, essentially, 

  7       recognizing that we are still in the 

  8       beginning stages of DNA database work; and 

  9       we need to get over some of those hurdles 

 10       first.  But it did not say that there should 

 11       be a policy against arrestee testing.  

 12             The other issue that the Commission 

 13       has addressed that has been a matter of 

 14       concern to the individual states, has been 

 15       the recommendation regarding sample 

 16       retention and whether or not convicted 

 17       offender database samples should be retained 

 18       or not.  

 19             The recommendation in that regard was, 

 20       again, a recognition of the relative early 

 21       stages that we are in in the United States 

 22       in terms of DNA databases, and the 

 23       recommendation was that we should retain 

 24       samples at this juncture and looked about 

 25       five years out and said that within the next 



                                                             139
  1  

  2       five years the issue should be re-examined 

  3       again, formally.  

  4             Now, we should always continue to 

  5       analyze the privacy issues that are attached 

  6       to something like database retention.  

  7       However, it should be looked at formally in 

  8       the next five years.  In the interim, 

  9       though, two things should be accomplished.  

 10             Number one, for those states that do 

 11       not have currently penalties for misuse of 

 12       database information such as particular 

 13       database samples, those states should pass 

 14       legislation in that regard; and secondly, 

 15       for those states which do not have very 

 16       clear requirements or legislation regarding 

 17       the research uses that can be put towards 

 18       DNA database samples, should be clarified.  

 19             We go from extremes such as can be 

 20       used for database validation to can be used 

 21       for any humanitarian purpose, and the 

 22       Commission felt like, again, given the very 

 23       early stages we're in, that we should be 

 24       very clear in the limitations that should be 

 25       placed on database sample uses.  



                                                             140
  1  

  2             So with that, I will open it up to 

  3       questions in the recognition that any time 

  4       that any of us has gone out and spoken about 

  5       the Commission's work, it has always been an 

  6       opportunity for us to take your comments and 

  7       questions back to the Commission.  

  8             So with that, I will entertain any 

  9       questions anyone might have.  Dr. Lederberg.

 10             SPEAKER:  It may seem a little odd 

 11       coming from me.  Let me just first say I 

 12       think this entire process, the  assessment, 

 13       the evaluation is exemplary for this time in 

 14       history.  

 15             Technology is assessment is sure to 

 16       bring in ethical, legal, and social 

 17       implications of new technology that we have 

 18       an example of.  

 19             My question is, with the Commission 

 20       over, you said in five years there will be a 

 21       re-examination of the particular issue, has 

 22       there been any thought given to the ongoing 

 23       process?  

 24             Are there going to be changes 

 25       happening every year in the legal framework, 



                                                             141
  1  

  2       technological background, and I take the 

  3       opportunity on some lower levels of 

  4       involvement, public participation, and so on 

  5       is really going to be necessary to ensure 

  6       public confidence.  Where do you stand on 

  7       it?  

  8             MR. ASPLEN:  There has been a good bit 

  9       of discussion on that exact issue.  With the 

 10       determination of the Commission, there will 

 11       be somewhat of a vacuum created, I think, in 

 12       two regards, number one, in specific 

 13       recommendations that go to  United States 

 14       Department of Justice, but also, as you 

 15       mentioned, in terms of a broad-based group 

 16       looking at these kinds of important policy 

 17       issues and technology integration issues 

 18       that incorporate input from all different 

 19       realms, from all aspects of the system.  

 20             This Commission does intend to 

 21       terminate at the end of the year since it is 

 22       this Attorney General's commission.  It will 

 23       be left to the next Attorney General as to 

 24       whether or not that Attorney General would 

 25       like to create something similar to it or 



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  1  

  2       something that would attempt to accomplish 

  3       the same goals in gathering that kind of 

  4       input.  

  5             Yes, we're in discussions of that 

  6       right now.  What recommendations can we make 

  7       for the future in finding an entity that 

  8       would prove effective in that regard?  

  9             Perhaps, one of the best examples of 

 10       that particular issue was the arrestee 

 11       issue.  When it began to be discussed often 

 12       times on TV at night and Larry King and 

 13       things like that, I think the Commission 

 14       provided an excellent forum for the 

 15       discussion on a national level that allowed 

 16       us to look at some of the broader policy 

 17       issues and I think allowed us to really 

 18       grapple with that issue from a national 

 19       perspective.  

 20             So, yes, we recognize that that would 

 21       be an issue, and we're in discussions about 

 22       what recommendations to make to fill that 

 23       void.

 24             SPEAKER:  I had a quick question about 

 25       the outside vendors.  How much is known 



                                                             143
  1  

  2       about these vendors and which states and the 

  3       quality of their work and so on and so 

  4       forth? 

  5             MR. ASPLEN:  You mean for the CODIS 

  6       solicitation? 

  7             SPEAKER:  Yes. 

  8             DR. FORMAN:  The solicitation has a 

  9       number of requirements for the vendors 

 10       themselves.  Two of the main requirements 

 11       are that the vendors be ASCLD accredited or 

 12       NFST certified.  

 13             So, in that way, there are certain 

 14       quality control, quality assurance  

 15       standards that those vendors must meet, or 

 16       they wouldn't be able to attain either the 

 17       accreditation or certification.

 18             SPEAKER:  How many vendors are there 

 19       out there that need certification? 

 20             DR. FORMAN:  There are several.  There 

 21       aren't hoards, but there are several.

 22             MR. ASPLEN:  An absolutely true story. 

 23       I got a phone call about eight months ago, 

 24       sounded like a relatively young guy who was 

 25       calling and saying he just got out of 



                                                             144
  1  

  2       school, and a friend of his and he were 

  3       going to start a laboratory and asked if I 

  4       could send him any information on this DNA 

  5       testing stuff and  Whether or not I thought 

  6       there would be money for databasing, and I 

  7       said, Well, here's a number of resources to 

  8       go to," and mentioned ASCLD and things like 

  9       that.  He said "Well, how do you spell 

 10       that?"  That's not a good sign.

 11             SPEAKER:  Are there any funding offers 

 12       for states that fall between the cracks, the 

 13       states that you mentioned here?  I come from 

 14       a small state, population-wise.  We don't 

 15       have a thousand backlog Samples, but we do 

 16       have the capability to analyze the samples 

 17       that we have.  

 18             I wonder if there is a program going, 

 19       maybe funding to do that?  

 20             DR. FORMAN:  The answer for this 

 21       year's solicitation, no, you will fall 

 22       between the cracks.  However, we are working 

 23       on the appropriations language so that we 

 24       will have more flexibility so that states 

 25       can form consortiums with other states, so 



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  1  

  2       that states can, perhaps, at certain levels, 

  3       do their own convicted offender testing 

  4       in-house if that's appropriate to their 

  5       particular system.  

  6             This year is our kick-off year.  We 

  7       had to streamline the system in order to get 

  8       it going, but next year, we hope that we 

  9       will have more flexibility given the 

 10       appropriations language that we've asked 

 11       for.

 12             SPEAKER:  Is there any, are you 

 13       addressing any legislation issues regarding 

 14       collection from juvenile offenders? 

 15             MR. ASPLEN:  The question is whether 

 16       or not we've considered any legislation 

 17       regarding the inclusion of juvenile 

 18       offenders, et cetera, and we really haven't 

 19       done that.  

 20             The Commission, generally, has stayed 

 21       away from issues that they consider to be 

 22       kind of state specific, if you will, in 

 23       terms of individual state decisions that are 

 24       going to decided kind of on their own 

 25       individually.    The Commission hasn't 



                                                             146
  1  

  2       addressed those matters, believing that 

  3       they're state decisions.  

  4             It is lunchtime.  Let me close by 

  5       saying I can count probably 20 people in 

  6       this room who have played incredibly 

  7       important roles in the Commission's 

  8       progress.  I won't mention them because 

  9       there are too many and not enough time.  

 10             But we thank you all and continue to 

 11       thank you in the future, and if there's 

 12       anything we can do for your individual 

 13       states, for New York, in terms of 

 14       information that we can provide, please, do 

 15       not hesitate to call us.  

 16             And, again, we thank you for your 

 17       leadership and your participation in our 

 18       process.  Enjoy lunch.

 19             (Applause.)  

 20                        WORKING LUNCH

 21               KEYNOTE SPEAKER:  HOWARD SAFIR

 22             DR. BOYD:  We're going to do this 

 23       luncheon just a little differently than in 

 24       the past.  We're going invite the speaker up 

 25       first.  The reason we'll do that is he has a 



                                                             147
  1  

  2       commitment.  He also will be attending a 

  3       funeral, and he has to leave here shortly in 

  4       order to do that.  

  5             It's a great pleasure that we have so 

  6       important a figure in the use of DNA and the 

  7       law enforcement context to speak with us 

  8       today.  What's interesting is we have here 

  9       someone who has been both federal and a 

 10       local official, having started his career 

 11       back in 1965 in what was then called the 

 12       Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which, of 

 13       course, is now called the Drug Enforcement 

 14       Administration, DEA.  

 15             In 1977, he was appointed Assistant 

 16       Director of the DEA, and he became Chief of 

 17       the Witness Security Division of the U.S. 

 18       Marshal Service and subsequently was 

 19       appointed Assistant Director of Operations 

 20       for the U.S. Marshal Service, a position he 

 21       held until retirement in 1990.  So there is 

 22       life after retirement for federal officials.  

 23             He directed a wide variety of complex 

 24       international and domestic investigations, 

 25       and he was twice awarded the Presidential 



                                                             148
  1  

  2       Meritorious Executive Award.  He rejoined 

  3       government in 1994 when Mayor Giuliani asked 

  4       him to serve as the City's 29th Fire 

  5       Commissioner.  

  6             That makes him a very special law 

  7       enforcement official because as we're 

  8       working hard to try to bring what we call 

  9       the first responder community together, it 

 10       is both interesting and, I think, 

 11       particularly gratifying that we now have a 

 12       senior official who has been in both roles 

 13       that have to work so closely together.  

 14             During his tenure at the Fire 

 15       Department, he was responsible for technical 

 16       innovations, a manager of improvement that 

 17       resulted in a $20 million reduction in 

 18       overtime, the streamlined command structure, 

 19       and improved training and equipment and 

 20       firefighter certification process.  

 21             He serves on a number of committees 

 22       for the International Association of Chiefs 

 23       of Police.  He's been a delegate to 

 24       Interpol, and he's been on a number of other 

 25       senior advisory boards.  



                                                             149
  1  

  2             On April the 15th, 1996 he was 

  3       appointed the 39th police commissioner for 

  4       the City of New York, and so it's with very 

  5       great pleasure that I introduce Commissioner 

  6       Howard Safir. 

  7             (Applause.)

  8             COMMISSIONER SAFIR:  Thank you. Good 

  9       afternoon and welcome to the Big Apple.  

 10       It's great to have everybody here, and it's 

 11       great to talk about DNA.  

 12             I'm very pleased to have the 

 13       opportunity to speak to you and offer my 

 14       thoughts concerning DNA and its importance 

 15       to law enforcement.  I also want to talk to 

 16       you about some of what we've had achieved in 

 17       New York over the last year, and 

 18       particularly since last February when I had 

 19       the opportunity to speak before the National 

 20       Commission on the Future of DNA.  

 21             In addition, I want to take this 

 22       opportunity to reemphasize my ultimate goal, 

 23       and this is important, which is that in the 

 24       not too distant future, we will throughout 

 25       the entire country take DNA samples 



                                                             150
  1  

  2       systematically at the time of the arrest.  

  3       Let me repeat that, at the time of arrest.  

  4             Still, I'm very pleased with the 

  5       progress we have made over the last year, 

  6       and as you will see, in New York we are 

  7       moving forward very rapidly.  When I spoke 

  8       last February to the National Commission, 

  9       the law in New York allowed us to take DNA 

 10       samples from only eight percent of convicted 

 11       felons, and these, as you can guess, were 

 12       only the most serious offenders who were 

 13       convicted of crimes such as murder and 

 14       sexual assault.  

 15             At the same time, the New York State 

 16       Police, keeper of the state convicted 

 17       offender database were not yet analyzing the 

 18       samples even from this limited pool of 

 19       offenders.  

 20             The New York City Medical Examiner, 

 21       who maintains our local databank, was not 

 22       linked into the state system, and, of 

 23       course, at the time the state was not part 

 24       of the national CODIS system.  At the NYPD, 

 25       we had 16,000 rape kits in storage that had 



                                                             151
  1  

  2       never been analyzed, and there was no clear 

  3       plan on how to proceed.  

  4             Well, in the last year, a great deal 

  5       has changed.  First, the Governor and the 

  6       state legislature has moved forward and 

  7       expanded the law to require 65 percent of 

  8       convicted felons be included in our state 

  9       databank.  Among the additional crimes 

 10       included are weapons offenses, robbery, and 

 11       the higher levels of narcotic violations.  

 12             I was also very pleased that we were 

 13       able to add burglary to the included 

 14       offenses since we know from the work Paul 

 15       Ferrara in Virginia and David Coffman in 

 16       Florida this addition will help us identify 

 17       many sex offenders.  

 18             I'm also happy to report that more 

 19       recently, the Governor called for more 

 20       expansion of the databank to include all 

 21       convicted offenders, and this is certainly a 

 22       statute that I support fully.  

 23             In August of 1999, the New York State 

 24       lab went online with CODIS, and subsequent 

 25       to that, our own medical examiner here in 



                                                             152
  1  

  2       New York City went online with the state lab 

  3       and is uploading files to them.  

  4             This has already brought success with 

  5       the first match occurring only a week ago 

  6       with one suspect being matched to three 

  7       rapes that occurred within our subway 

  8       system.  

  9             To date, New York State has loaded 

 10       over 8,000 profiles into the database and 

 11       has put into place a comprehensive program 

 12       to ensure that samples are taken from 

 13       appropriate offenders, including those on 

 14       parole and probation.  We estimate that 

 15       there will be over 30,000 samples collected 

 16       every year.  

 17             Among those involved in the collection 

 18       process are correctional staff, physicians' 

 19       assistants and private contractors.  Also, 

 20       as of January 1st of last year, we changed 

 21       New York City's policy.  Every, and I 

 22       repeat, ever sexual assault kit in New York 

 23       City is now being processed by our medical 

 24       examiner.  

 25             We have also increased the number of 



                                                             153
  1  

  2       submissions from other violent crimes and 

  3       will be starting a pilot program in two of 

  4       our Bronx precincts to process burglaries 

  5       for DNA evidence.  

  6             At the same time, we recognize the 

  7       importance of dealing with our backlog of 

  8       rape kits and are proceeding to hire outside 

  9       contractors to process these rape kits.  In 

 10       fact, some of you in this room, I believe, 

 11       have been on the contracts.

 12             While it would be inappropriate for me 

 13       to comment more extensively on this topic, 

 14       it is quite clear to me that the private 

 15       sector has a major role to play in the 

 16       addressing of this country's backlog and 

 17       working with law enforcement agencies in 

 18       continuing to process their DNA profiles in 

 19       evidence.  

 20             Because of all of our efforts, the 

 21       workload of our medical examiner has 

 22       significantly increased, and this year in 

 23       his "State of the City" in January, 

 24       Mayor Giuliani announced our intent to 

 25       create a major state-of-the-art DNA lab here 



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  1  

  2       in New York City at a cost of probably more 

  3       than $100 million.  

  4             Now, obviously, the lab we have is 

  5       doing excellent work.  In fact, I believe 

  6       it's doing more case work than any other 

  7       government lab in the country.  Still, we 

  8       believe that continuing developments of 

  9       High-sensitivity testing or low-copy number, 

 10       as it is called, our case load of crime 

 11       scene evidence may increase from about 3,000 

 12       cases annually to almost 100,000 in the next 

 13       five years.  

 14             So it's very important that we extend 

 15       our capabilities and do it as soon as 

 16       possible.  Now, as I've indicated in the 

 17       past, I would like to see the laws expended 

 18       to allow us to take samples from offenders 

 19       at the time of arrest, and specifically for 

 20       fingerprintable offenses.  

 21             I believe we should take these samples 

 22       using buccal swabs.  As all of you know, 

 23       this is exactly what they do in England, and 

 24       it is what I believe we should be doing 

 25       here.  The Governor mentioned this morning 



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  1  

  2       somebody who committed 17 crimes.  Well, if 

  3       the proposal that I'm suggesting was in 

  4       place, he would have committed one and would 

  5       have been arrested the first time based on a 

  6       DNA match.  

  7             So, naturally, I also believe that if 

  8       we take it at the time of arrest, if the 

  9       person is acquitted or not prosecuted, the 

 10       profile should be removed from the database 

 11       and the samples destroyed.  Just to give you 

 12       a sense of the impact of such a policy, this 

 13       slide shows how many suspect matches the 

 14       Forensic Science Service had when I spoke to 

 15       the National Commission about a year ago, 

 16       and it also shows the number of matches as 

 17       of last week.  

 18             What an incredible increase to go from 

 19       36,000 to over 70,000 in a year.  We have to 

 20       keep in mind that England is about one fifth 

 21       the size of the United States.  Were they 

 22       our size and at that same rate, they would 

 23       have had 350,000 matches since 1995.  

 24             That's the kind of success we're 

 25       capable of having, and we have to move 



                                                             156
  1  

  2       forward to obtain the funding, training, and 

  3       facilities to achieve this.  Now, people 

  4       often ask me, do I believe that it's 

  5       necessary to take DNA at the time of arrest.  

  6       Do I leave that?  Well I really believe it.  

  7             It isn't enough to wait until the 

  8       people are convicted.  I think it's quite 

  9       clear that we need to take samples at the 

 10       time of arrest, and I want to explain the 

 11       reasons why.   

 12             First, we have to realize that 

 13       comparing a DNA profile, as all of you know, 

 14       is in many ways similar to comparing 

 15       fingerprints, and this is something we do at 

 16       the time of arrest, not at the time 

 17       conviction.  

 18             We take fingerprints at the time of 

 19       arrest and check for warrants and then we 

 20       compare them to fingerprints taken at 

 21       burglaries and other crimes.  We certainly 

 22       don't wait until a person is convicted or 

 23       acquitted six months or a year later to see 

 24       if he's wanted for other crimes.

 25             Second, people are often not convicted 



                                                             157
  1  

  2       of the specific crime they actually commit.  

  3       There are a number of reasons for this, 

  4       including the need to plea bargain cases to 

  5       keep the criminal justice system moving 

  6       efficiently.  

  7             However, this leads to situations 

  8       where the police have apprehended someone 

  9       for an offense that is clearly included in 

 10       the DNA databank statute of the individual 

 11       state, but because the person accepts a plea 

 12       bargain for a lesser offense, their DNA will 

 13       not be placed in the databank.  By taking 

 14       DNA at the time of arrest, we avoid this 

 15       problem.  

 16             There are also some people who 

 17       suggested that we should only have convicted 

 18       felons in our databank because only those  

 19       who commit the most serious of crimes should 

 20       warrant this degree of government intrusion.  

 21             Now, since I favor the use of buccal 

 22       swabs to take DNA samples, the degree of 

 23       intrusion is, in fact, minimal, and as many 

 24       of you know, as technology develops, it's 

 25       even going to be less intrusive than just 



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  1  

  2       taking saliva.  

  3             Equally, as all of you know well, the 

  4       DNA profiles being placed in our databanks 

  5       do not reveal genetic predisposition.  So I 

  6       reject the argument that law enforcement 

  7       databanks will lead to some type of 

  8       Orwellian state.  

  9             In fact, if we need to fear anything, 

 10       it's the relationship between the medical 

 11       establishment and insurance companies who 

 12       regularly share confidential information at 

 13       the moment.  

 14             In addition, our experience in law 

 15       enforcement supports the concept of taking 

 16       DNA at the time of arrest even for low-level 

 17       offenders.  We know here in New York City, 

 18       and we've had a 55 percent reduction in 

 19       major crime since 1993, and we've done that 

 20       by addressing small offences which supports 

 21       our understanding that offenders who commit 

 22       small crimes are also offenders who commit 

 23       major crimes.  

 24             You'll notice on the slide a rather 

 25       Dangerous weapon, certainly not anything any 



                                                             159
  1  

  2       of us would like to contend with.  This 

  3       weapon was seized two weeks ago by one of 

  4       transit officers when he stopped a man for 

  5       jumping the turnstile in the subway system.  

  6             I don't think we should have to wait 

  7       until we catch him with a gun like this 

  8       before we take a DNA sample from him.  We 

  9       should take the sample for his first 

 10       fingerprintable offense, which, by the way, 

 11       includes not paying a subway fare, so that 

 12       when we recover a gun like this at a 

 13       homicide, we can swab it and know instantly 

 14       who was carrying it.  

 15             A final point concerning taking DNA at 

 16       the time of arrest.  Consider how many 

 17       investigative hours we would save by 

 18       reducing investigation time on other crimes.  

 19             All over this country, people are 

 20       sitting in jail awaiting trial.  Some, 

 21       undoubtedly, have committed rapes and other 

 22       crimes for which DNA profiles are sitting 

 23       somewhere in the CODIS system at the local, 

 24       state, or national level, but instead of us 

 25       being quickly able to make these matches, we 



                                                             160
  1  

  2       have to wait for the person to go to trial 

  3       on the current offense; hopefully, be found 

  4       guilty of an offense that happens to be 

  5       covered by the state's DNA statute; and then 

  6       hope that the state is actually taking the 

  7       required samples, which we know many states 

  8       are not.  

  9             Meanwhile, investigators are working 

 10       day and night on other cases that the same 

 11       person may have been involved and following 

 12       up false leads that go nowhere.  By taking 

 13       samples at the time of arrest, we could free 

 14       up the investigative time and allow for 

 15       other investigations to proceed.  

 16             More importantly, we could give peace 

 17       of mind to victims who would know that their 

 18       attackers had been caught.  It's also quite 

 19       probable that by implementing universal DNA 

 20       testing of those arrested and the crime 

 21       scene work that would have to accompany it, 

 22       we would identify many innocent people who 

 23       may have been falsely identified or 

 24       convicted.  

 25             Now, some may raise the obvious 



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  1  

  2       concern, won't it be expensive?  The simple 

  3       answer is, initially, it will be, but the 

  4       expense will be well worth it.  In the U.S., 

  5       we make about 15 million arrests a year.  

  6             Let's assume, for argument's sake, 

  7       that we plan to take DNA in 12 million of 

  8       these cases.  At $30 a sample, and I think 

  9       with the economies of scale, the cost may 

 10       even be less expensive, it would cost us 

 11       about $360 million for the first year.  

 12             I would expect the cost to decrease 

 13       each subsequent year as we devise methods, 

 14       probably using fingerprint checks, to avoid 

 15       taking samples from people whose DNA profile 

 16       is already permanently in the databank.

 17             At the same time I think we should 

 18       dedicate an equal or greater amount of 

 19       funding to allow for casework.  So let us 

 20       assume we're working towards a goal of about 

 21       a $750 million.  This sounds like an 

 22       incredible amount of money, but let's think 

 23       about it for a minute.  

 24             Nationally, the direct and 

 25       intergovernmental criminal justice 



                                                             162
  1  

  2       expenditure cost is about $120 billion a 

  3       year.  My own department, for example, has a 

  4       budget of $3.2 million.  An increase of $750 

  5       million dollars would equal six tenths of 

  6       one percent increase in criminal justice 

  7       expenditures, and it seems to me that this 

  8       is an expenditure we can afford and must 

  9       afford.  

 10             Another way to think about it is, for 

 11       those who feel the cost is prohibitive, is 

 12       in terms of the cost of other major 

 13       government projects.  The 1997 Cassini 

 14       spacecraft cost $3.3 billion.  The three 

 15       most recent spacecrafts, all launched in 

 16       1999, and part of the better, safer, cheaper 

 17       NASA program cost in total $785 million.  

 18             Now, my point is not taking anything 

 19       away from NASA, but I believe a 

 20       comprehensive program that will place 

 21       murderers, rapists, and other criminals 

 22       behind bars warrants at least equal funding;  

 23       and I think the federal government has a 

 24       large role to play in providing that 

 25       funding.  



                                                             163
  1  

  2             I'm not claiming that $750 million is 

  3       the ideal number, but, certainly, it is that 

  4       magnitude of scale to which we should be 

  5       looking.  In fairness, we are headed in that 

  6       direction.  Although, I would like us to 

  7       move even more quickly, there are a number 

  8       of bills in Congress that will provide us 

  9       with as much as $60 million in the next two 

 10       years to address convicted offender backlog 

 11       and casework.

 12             This funding, if approved, will 

 13       certainly help us make an impact on our 

 14       backlogs.  As we gain more federal funding, 

 15       there are certain elements we need to look 

 16       for in terms of how it will be spent.  

 17             First, and most obviously, the funding 

 18       must be made available to address the 

 19       convicted offender backlog and to address 

 20       casework.  

 21             Second, we must be able to use it for 

 22       training and facility, creation and 

 23       development.  

 24             Third, the funding must be available 

 25       for use in public and private partnerships.  



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  1  

  2             Fourth, we need to be able to ensure 

  3       that the standards established by the DNA 

  4       advisory board are adhered to.  

  5             And last, there has to flexibility in 

  6       how the funding is to used.  The funding has 

  7       to allocated in ways that different 

  8       jurisdictions can use it consistent with 

  9       their own needs.  

 10             Now, I realize what I've laid out 

 11       today is an ambitious agenda.  It will 

 12       challenge the capacity of existing resources 

 13       to the point of demanding the creation and 

 14       massive expansion of laboratories.  

 15             I think we, in government, have to 

 16       support this expansion and work with private 

 17       and public labs and even academic 

 18       institutions to ensure that state-of-the-art 

 19       laboratories and training programs are in 

 20       place to ensure accredited laboratories and 

 21       well-trained personnel are available.  

 22             At the same time, we in law 

 23       enforcement have an incredible strategic 

 24       challenge before us.  We have to provide a 

 25       bottom-up, top-down comprehensive training 



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  1  

  2       program that teaches every officer about the 

  3       sensitivity of DNA evidence and how to 

  4       preserve crime scenes and prevent evidence 

  5       contamination.  

  6             Certainly, I appreciate the efforts of 

  7       the National Institute of Justice in 

  8       publishing the pamphlet, "What Every Law 

  9       Enforcement Officer Should Know About DNA 

 10       Evidence."  

 11             At the same time, we have to teach our 

 12       crime scene officers the best methods for 

 13       DNA collection and how to judiciously choose 

 14       where and when to gather evidence.  In fact, 

 15       I'm sending my crime scene officers to 

 16       England to study the best methods used 

 17       there. 

 18             We have a great challenge before us, 

 19       but it's also an incredibly exciting 

 20       challenge.  I want to thank all of you in 

 21       this room for the great work that you are 

 22       doing.  

 23             My job, and, fortunately, "This is a 

 24       bully pulpit," as Teddy Roosevelt said, 

 25       "When I speak sometimes the press listens."  



                                                             166
  1  

  2       And as Commissioner, I intend to fight to 

  3       get all of you more resource and greater 

  4       funding and to keep needling the federal 

  5       government until they step up to the plate 

  6       and meet what I believe is their 

  7       responsibility to provide funding to state 

  8       and local government to do, first, the 

  9       backlog and then to expand to suspect DNA.  

 10             I want to leave you with a picture on 

 11       a screen of a man in a HAZMAT or space suit, 

 12       but all of us know and that's what I believe 

 13       in my heart is that's the way criminals will 

 14       have to dress in the future if we use DNA 

 15       effectively.  Thank you very much.  

 16             PANEL III:  MODEL SOLUTIONS

 17             DR. BERGER:  Even though it's a few 

 18       minutes early, I think I'm going to take the 

 19       prerogative of being the moderator and 

 20       starting the program because we have such an 

 21       array of interesting people to tell you 

 22       about model solutions, and they don't have 

 23       enough time to tell you all that they would 

 24       like.  So let's just start. 

 25             I'm also not going to take very much 



                                                             167
  1  

  2       time doing introductions.  I see that there 

  3       are little bios of everyone in the back of 

  4       the program, so I'm just going to mention 

  5       the current affiliation of each of the 

  6       speakers, tell you the order in which 

  7       they're speaking, hope that they will manage 

  8       to keep their remarks fairly short so that 

  9       we will have an opportunity for some 

 10       questions from the audience.  

 11             Our first speaker will be David 

 12       Coffman, currently supervising the State of 

 13       Florida's DNA investigative service database 

 14       and who is the Florida representative to the 

 15       CODIS subcommittee.  

 16             Our next speaker will be Maureen Casey 

 17       who is the Deputy Commissioner for Policy 

 18       and Planning for the New York City Police 

 19       Department.  

 20             Then we will hear from Norman Gahn, 

 21       who is currently a Milwaukee County 

 22       Assistant D.A. assigned to the Sexual 

 23       Assault Unit and who is also a member of the 

 24       National Commission on the Future of DNA 

 25       Evidence.  



                                                             168
  1  

  2             Finally, we are very fortunate, 

  3       indeed, to have a duo who has joined us from 

  4       Great Britain.  We will be hearing both from 

  5       Rebecca Sparkes and from David Werrett, both 

  6       of whom are working together with the DNA 

  7       Services and who will tell us about the 

  8       English experience that we keep hearing 

  9       about at times. 

 10             And so, I would simply like to turn 

 11       the program over to David Coffman.  Thank 

 12       you.

 13             MR. COFFMAN:  I want to thank NIJ for 

 14       inviting me to speak at this conference.  I 

 15       must admit that I did not plan to come up 

 16       here because we just had a major database 

 17       expansion in Florida, and I was informed 

 18       that I was on the agenda.

 19             And after hearing Debbie Smith and 

 20       Scoville's presentations this morning, I'm 

 21       extremely glad.  I think, as forensic 

 22       scientists, we need our batteries charged 

 23       like that to know what we're doing is really 

 24       doing some good rather that just looking at 

 25       the tremendous workload we all have.  So I'm 



                                                             169
  1  

  2       very pleased to be here and thanks to Lisa 

  3       and NIJ for inviting me.  

  4             I want to give you a quick rundown 

  5       before I get into my major presentation of 

  6       just where we are with our database in 

  7       Florida.  

  8             We started taking samples in 1989 and 

  9       we started collecting for a very limited 

 10       number of crimes, initially, and we've had 

 11       three revisions since that time.  

 12             So far we've collected 65,000 

 13       convicted offenders, and every one of those 

 14       felons does have a DNA profile in CODIS.  

 15       However, we just began re-analysis of all 

 16       our samples because they were all in RFLP 

 17       technology, and we're happy to say that 

 18       we've put the missing piece of the puzzle to 

 19       our automation efforts in place, and it was 

 20       an instrument that has been developed by PE, 

 21       the 3700. 

 22             And April was our first full month of 

 23       operation, and in one month's time with a 

 24       staff of four, we completed 4,200 samples 

 25       with all 13 loci.  So we now have 21,000 



                                                             170
  1  

  2       samples with all 13 loci of those 65 up in 

  3       CODIS at the national index, and we're 

  4       adding about 5 to 6,000 in-house and 

  5       utilizing a private vendor.  

  6             So our hope is this is by, this is 

  7       what I told my bosses any way and it's my 

  8       hope, that by the end of this year, by 

  9       December, we'll have all 65,000 of these 

 10       samples analyzed.  

 11             We've had 225 hits or matches to our 

 12       database and this has aided in over 340 

 13       investigations.  The reason that number is 

 14       different is we recently had a match between 

 15       Washington DC and Jacksonville, Florida, and 

 16       that one association or that one hit 

 17       basically helped resolve 11 sexual assaults 

 18       between those two cities. So that's why that 

 19       number is higher.  

 20             It is important to note that even 

 21       though we've been building our database 

 22       since 1991, that's when we began analysis, 

 23       half of these hits occurred in the last 24 

 24       months.  So it shows that as you build your 

 25       database, that's when the success starts 



                                                             171
  1  

  2       happening.  And also, we collect these 

  3       samples as they go into prison, so they have 

  4       to get out before they commit other crimes.  

  5       So that's why, like I said, 50 percent of 

  6       our matches have been in the last two years.  

  7             We've also been happy to have the 

  8       statute of limitations removed from sexual 

  9       assault in Florida.  That occurred in 1997.  

 10       There are some restrictions, the major 

 11       restriction to that is that the victim must 

 12       report the crime within 72 hours, and if 

 13       they do that, then the statute of 

 14       limitations is unlimited.  

 15             A lot of reasons for this.  I think 

 16       the thing that drove it over the edge in the 

 17       legislature is, that year that this was 

 18       being heard, we had solved four sexual 

 19       assaults and there wasn't a thing we could 

 20       do about it.  

 21             We knew who the person was, but the 

 22       statute of limitations had run out, and one 

 23       of them, as a matter of fact, had run out 

 24       about two weeks prior to us making the 

 25       match.  So we think this is what helped 



                                                             172
  1  

  2       drive this legislation.  It had been in the 

  3       session the year before.  It had not passed, 

  4       but the next year, it passed very easily, as 

  5       a matter of fact.  

  6             Also, this year we were successful in 

  7       getting the addition of burglary as a 

  8       qualifying offense for our database.  As 

  9       New York, New York and Florida, we keep in 

 10       contact with each other.  We learn from each 

 11       other, and I appreciate that relationship, 

 12       but our legislation is retroactive as well.  

 13             We only have 16,000 convictions for 

 14       burglary in Florida a year, but we're going 

 15       to be receiving close to 50,000 samples in 

 16       the next 12 months from the addition of 

 17       burglary because it's a retroactive offense.  

 18             I think our database is well on its 

 19       way.  I think databases, if we can get the 

 20       funds to work the samples, and I should 

 21       mention that our ability to get those 

 22       samples re-analyzed by the end of this 

 23       calendar year is in part due to the NIJ's 

 24       $15 million grant that we really hope to 

 25       get.  



                                                             173
  1  

  2             So, the second part of the equation 

  3       is, we have the databases, we've shown they 

  4       worked, but as Police Commissioner Safir 

  5       pointed out, that is not all there is to 

  6       this.  You can have everybody in this 

  7       country tested, and if you're not analyzing 

  8       those cases that need DNA testing, it's not 

  9       going to do a bit of good.  

 10             So here's the second part of the 

 11       equation:  We need to work more cases that 

 12       do not have suspects.  We need to work -- 

 13       more non-violent cases need to be examined, 

 14       for instance, burglary.  

 15             I don't know if the people from 

 16       Great Britain are going to discuss this, but 

 17       they've used the proximity of burglary 

 18       crimes to help solve sexual assaults in that 

 19       area. So I think it's important that we work 

 20       every case that requires DNA testing, not 

 21       just sexual assault and homicide.  

 22             We need to have additional personnel.  

 23       This country's forensic community has been 

 24       woefully understaffed for years, and we 

 25       always used the excuse that if you didn't 



                                                             174
  1  

  2       have a suspect, there's nothing we could do 

  3       with the case anyway.  You had to have a 

  4       suspect to compare the evidence.  

  5             Well, that's no longer an excuse.  We 

  6       have DNA databases.  We have NIBIN, which is 

  7       the firearms database.  We have AFIS.  

  8       That's not an excuse anymore.  These cases 

  9       need to be submitted to our laboratories so 

 10       they can be worked, and our laboratories 

 11       need the personnel to do it.  

 12             We need additional funding, which NIJ 

 13       and the United States Government is helping 

 14       us to get that, and we need additional 

 15       space.  

 16             Now, on the funding and space issue, I 

 17       just wanted to point out that our program 

 18       would not be where it is today if it was not 

 19       for federal funding of some sort.  I'm happy 

 20       to say that this is the first legislative 

 21       change we had this session where we now have 

 22       a permanent budget in our state, just 

 23       general revenue, so I don't have to keep 

 24       looking for grants in the future after this 

 25       year. It's great to have that.  It's not 



                                                             175
  1  

  2       always going to be grants and donations.  We 

  3       now have a permanent place in our 

  4       legislature, but it took ten years of, I 

  5       think pretty good success to do that.  So  

  6       we're very happy to have that.  

  7             In Florida, as well as across the 

  8       country, there's a 67 percent recidivism 

  9       rate amongst violent offenders, and really, 

 10       we're seeing it across all offenses really, 

 11       but violent offenses is the study that we 

 12       have.  

 13             There are eight to twelve sexual 

 14       assaults on average per offender.  Now, 

 15       that's average, so there's some with many 

 16       more, there's some with less.  The eleven 

 17       sexual assaults I mentioned between 

 18       Washington DC and Jacksonville occurred in a 

 19       ten-month period of time.  So there's some 

 20       out there with a lot, lot more.  

 21             In Florida, we have 13,224 forcible 

 22       sexual assaults a year.  That's what's 

 23       reported.  Our crime lab system, which 

 24       includes the state system and our local and 

 25       city crime labs in our state, only worked 



                                                             176
  1  

  2       3,755 serology submissions, and I consider 

  3       our state very aggressive in the cases that 

  4       we work.  

  5             Now, I've called investigators, and 

  6       not every case in which there is a reported 

  7       sexual assault is there viable evidence to 

  8       be turned in.  Some of them are, they report 

  9       them six months after they occurred, so 

 10       there is no evidence, but, a conservative 

 11       estimate:  I called over 20 law enforcement 

 12       agencies in our state and asked them, how 

 13       many cases are you not submitting to us that 

 14       it would be nice to have DNA results on, and 

 15       the range from 20 percent that they're not 

 16       submitting to as high as 80 percent in some 

 17       areas.  

 18             So we're estimating there's about 40 

 19       percent of the cases we are not receiving. 

 20       And when asked why, I said, "look, we sent 

 21       out letters.  The State of Florida FDLE sent 

 22       out letters saying, 'please, submit your 

 23       sexual assault kits to the crime lab.  We're 

 24       staffed. We have a faster procedure now.  We 

 25       can get these things analyzed.'"  



                                                             177
  1  

  2             But investigators know that if they 

  3       have a case that they're trying to go to 

  4       court in a few months s or a high-profile 

  5       case, they know if they send every case they 

  6       have, that that's going to get lost, or 

  7       that's what they're afraid of.  

  8             So we really need to get the personnel 

  9       and the buildings in place to handle the 

 10       crime rate.  We've always set our budgets 

 11       and always set our personnel requirements 

 12       based on what we received last year or what 

 13       went to trial.  

 14             We need to set our priorities on what 

 15       is the crime rate in your area and build a 

 16       facility to handle it, and that way, you'll 

 17       solve this problem. Many sexual assault 

 18       cases are not received, as I mentioned, by 

 19       the laboratory.  

 20             We can't keep our current casework 

 21       acceptance analysis policy, We can't keep 

 22       that the same.  One possibility is we can 

 23       work with local law enforcement to identify 

 24       sexual assault cases that are not being 

 25       submitted. 



                                                             178
  1  

  2             Limit the analysis on these cases 

  3       initially to only the sexual assault kit, 

  4       for example, the liquid blood sample that's 

  5       the standard or the swabs that are taken in 

  6       a sexual assault kit.  

  7             What this will do is, there's 

  8       arguments out there that, I don't want the 

  9       case unless I get all the evidence in the 

 10       case.  Well, I've got news for you.  Looking 

 11       at the sexual assault kit is better than not 

 12       look at the case at all.  So I say submit 

 13       the sexual assault kit.

 14             When you limit the type of material, 

 15       like, for instance, as I mentioned, we have 

 16       automated our DNA database.  We need to now 

 17       move to automating our casework examinations 

 18       in some way.  If you limit the type of 

 19       sample you receive, if it's a liquid/blood 

 20       sample or it's a cotton swab, you've limited 

 21       the types of samples you get, and possibly 

 22       you can streamline and potentially automate 

 23       this procedure.  

 24             Search the DNA profiles against the 

 25       database to aid in the investigation, and if 



                                                             179
  1  

  2       no semen is identified, the contributor may 

  3       want to submit the remaining of the evidence 

  4       and follow the current case accepting 

  5       policies, keeping in mind -- well, I'll go 

  6       into that a little later.

  7             We're going to identify 200 to 500 

  8       sexual assault cases, probably in one of our 

  9       counties.  We found out a county we've had 

 10       the most hits with, and, in fact, in one 

 11       month-period of time, we solved two serial 

 12       rapes, they told me they had 600 cases they 

 13       hadn't submitted to our lab.  I'm just at a 

 14       loss.  I don't know how to make it any 

 15       clearer that we'll take them.

 16             The analysis of these cases could be 

 17       performed using existing funds, and existing 

 18       crime laboratory resources in each region 

 19       could perform this pilot.  We thought also 

 20       of utilizing the DNA database or the 

 21       caseworking staff for the initial pilot, and 

 22       then roll out to the regions when the 

 23       manpower for the new caseload is addressed.  

 24             Now, there's pros and cons in using 

 25       each of these entities, the database or the 



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  1  

  2       caseworking.  The pros for using the 

  3       caseworking lab is there's less training 

  4       required for the crime lab analyst.  They're 

  5       already doing casework-type samples, so 

  6       they're fully trained.  

  7             We'll provide the crime laboratory 

  8       analysts valuable experience in the 

  9       interpretations of mixtures using STR.  

 10       Training is a big issue right now.  We have 

 11       lab people coming out of STR training, and 

 12       they need experience with some fairly 

 13       reasonable samples to make these calls, and  

 14       a swab from a rape kit would be good.  Once 

 15       they'd been validated and trained, They 

 16       could use these swabs to get results and 

 17       help hone their skills as a caseworking 

 18       analyst in interpreting mixtures.

 19             The cons are, our crime labs already 

 20       have our current case commitment and court 

 21       requirements.  They can't just stop and do 

 22       this because they're constantly going to 

 23       court for the case that they were given last 

 24       week that's going to court next week. And 

 25       also, they do have their existing case load 



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  1  

  2       to maintain. So those are the cons.  

  3             The pros on the database side is that 

  4       database is familiar with streamlining and 

  5       automating techniques.  I've got to tell 

  6       you, the DNA technology is not the tough 

  7       part of working in a forensic lab or doing 

  8       molecular biology.  The toughest part of 

  9       working in a crime lab today is getting 

 10       people to step outside of the box that 

 11       they're used to being in and realizing 

 12       there's other ways to get something else 

 13       done.  

 14             The database does not have court 

 15       commitments or rush cases to focus on, so we 

 16       could get to the pilot quickly before any of 

 17       those case started going to trial.  

 18             Now, the cons are most database staff 

 19       would have to require extensive training to 

 20       be casework qualified.  Now, our database 

 21       has two or three that are already is 

 22       casework qualified, but that's just, in 

 23       general, the cons.

 24             And database would only want to be 

 25       involved in the pilot, therefore, we'd still 



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  1  

  2       need to implement in the casework lab 

  3       statewide.  

  4             The case work section at the same site 

  5       at the DNA database, they volunteered to 

  6       work on this project.  The reason we did it 

  7       at the database site is because we had the 

  8       automation capabilities there, so if we 

  9       started developing ideas, we're there to 

 10       help see if we can implement some automated 

 11       technique for casework analysis.  

 12             A memorandum of understanding has been 

 13       drafted by our attorneys, and I've 

 14       identified the law enforcement agencies that 

 15       have signed that.  Basically, what this is 

 16       saying is, if you get a negative result on 

 17       this sexual assault kit back, it does not 

 18       mean the case is closed.  There could still 

 19       be other evidence that you haven't submitted 

 20       to us, but for the purposes of this pilot, 

 21       we only want to look at the sexual assault 

 22       kit for right now.  

 23             We're going to do 250 sexual assault 

 24       kits during the current fiscal year, and it 

 25       does have the full support of our FDLE 



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  1  

  2       Administration.  Now, I'll tell you, as I 

  3       said we had the problems out in the field, 

  4       this is the idea.  

  5             It was put on hold in September or 

  6       October because the staff of six DNA 

  7       analysts in Tallahassee was reduced to three 

  8       in a matter of three weeks due to 

  9       repopulation of the earth and taking better 

 10       jobs elsewhere where the pay is better.  So  

 11       they cannot possibly undertake this now.  

 12       Even though we are all geared up, now 

 13       they're in the process of re-training their 

 14       people.

 15             So we fell victim to our own problem 

 16       of keeping qualified people on hand, but 

 17       they are committed to getting this done as 

 18       soon as the whole staff is back and trained.  

 19             Benefits to this approach.  There's 

 20       work up front, definitely, but as can be 

 21       said in our state this year, it's taken ten 

 22       years, but success breeds support; and for 

 23       the first time we now have funding that I 

 24       don't have the worry about from year to 

 25       year.  We have funding to do the job that we 



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  1  

  2       need to do.

  3             So being able to examine more sexual 

  4       assault cases is going to help apprehend 

  5       sexual offenders earlier in their careers 

  6       and preventing the future of sexual 

  7       assaults, and also using the results of this 

  8       pilot, if positive, we can obtain more 

  9       physical space, more crime laboratory staff, 

 10       and also special agents to focus on violent 

 11       crime in our state.  

 12             So we feel like if these results show 

 13       the power and hit over the head of people 

 14       out there that are  holding onto these rape 

 15       kits, we can accomplish a lot, much of what 

 16       Commissioner Safir said earlier.  And that's 

 17       all I have. Thank you.

 18             (Applause.)

 19             MS. CASEY:  I, too, welcome you to the 

 20       Big Apple.  It is a pleasure for me to be 

 21       here today.  It's a tough act to follow 

 22       Commissioner Safir in his luncheon address, 

 23       but I can tell you that he means every word 

 24       that he says in terms of his commitment to 

 25       this issue and to you.



                                                             185
  1  

  2             And the one thing, I've been working 

  3       on this issue for probably ten years.  I 

  4       started up at the Division Criminal Justice 

  5       Services.  Since the Commissioner took this 

  6       on as a priority on his agenda, I've seen 

  7       more progress in the last two years than I 

  8       have in the last eight.  

  9             And he means everything that he says 

 10       and he also appreciates the fact that we 

 11       have to look at the whole system.  We can do 

 12       all we want to at the front end of the 

 13       system, but if we don't advocate for 

 14       training and laboratory space for the 

 15       scientists that are out there, all the 

 16       collection that we do is not going to mean 

 17       anything.  

 18             The topic of this panel is model 

 19       solutions, and Commissioner Safir challenged 

 20       me last year in learning about what could be 

 21       done in our department without legislative 

 22       change.  

 23             Obviously, his proposal to take DNA 

 24       from everyone we arrest, requires a 

 25       legislative change, but he wanted to know 



                                                             186
  1  

  2       what we could do to implement and use DNA 

  3       more effectively in our department.  

  4             And we're looking at it from a number 

  5       of different fronts, as he indicated, but 

  6       one of the things that he wanted me to look 

  7       at was the issue of rape kits and what rape 

  8       kits get analyzed;  and as we started 

  9       looking at the current policy, what I wanted 

 10       to talk to you about first is where we are 

 11       and where we're going.  

 12             The policy prior to January 1 of 1999 

 13       was that only kits with a known suspect were 

 14       analyzed.  Part of this had to do with a 

 15       capacity issue in the medical examiner's 

 16       office, and I think part of it just had to 

 17       do with a lack of understanding of what we 

 18       were doing.  

 19             When Commissioner Safir learned of 

 20       this, he immediately changed the policy, and 

 21       after January 1 of 1999, all rape kits 

 22       collected in the city go to the medical 

 23       examiner's office for DNA analysis.  

 24             The result of this policy, however, 

 25       left the New York City Police Department 



                                                             187
  1  

  2       with a staggering number of rape kits, and I 

  3       can say that Commissioner Safir is probably 

  4       one of the first law enforcement officials 

  5       in the country who has, number one, 

  6       acknowledged the size of his backlog, and 

  7       number two, has challenged us to do 

  8       something about it.  

  9             As you will see in the next picture 

 10       that unfolds here, that is some of the 

 11       16,000 rape kits that we have sitting in 

 12       your freezers.  

 13             When he started talking about this 

 14       issue, he said, "What are my options?"  I 

 15       said, "Well, we do what we're doing, which 

 16       is nothing; number two, we look at existing 

 17       resources," as you just heard Dave Coffman 

 18       talk about.  But the reality for us is that 

 19       it would basically be the same as our first 

 20       option up there, which is the status quo.  

 21             Our medical examiner's office, while 

 22       doing a great job for us, really only has 

 23       the capacity to handle the current caseload 

 24       of sexual assaults and homicides.  They just 

 25       cannot keep up with the demand of anything 



                                                             188
  1  

  2       else.  

  3             So we had to look at our third option, 

  4       which is outsourcing, and I can tell you, it 

  5       was just about a year ago as I started 

  6       talking to my mentors in this field like 

  7       Paul Ferrara from Virginia about this idea 

  8       of outsourcing our rape kits, I was met with 

  9       a great deal of skepticism.  

 10             But when you work for someone like 

 11       Howard Safir, to him, that's a challenge, 

 12       and he said, "Find a way to do it."  So what 

 13       I wanted to do is to next spend a few 

 14       minutes talking to you about the process.

 15             As David mentioned, in order to do 

 16       this as efficiently and as effectively as we 

 17       thought we could and still handle the volume 

 18       and get some useful information, we needed 

 19       to look at different ways to streamline the 

 20       processing of these rape kits.

 21             So all of our rape kits are currently 

 22       with the property clerk in a freezer, as I 

 23       mentioned.  What we intend to do is contract 

 24       with one or more vendors.  Obviously, the 

 25       labs would have to be NFTC certified or 



                                                             189
  1  

  2       ASCLD lab accredited.  

  3             The process, as we envision it, the 

  4       laboratory will receive the kits, in total, 

  5       approximately 175 kits per month.  They will 

  6       be responsible for inventorying the kits, 

  7       screening the four primary swabs, looking at 

  8       the vaginal swab, anal swab, oral swab, and 

  9       then the dried secretions, and obviously 

 10       looking at the victim controls; if they find 

 11       DNA on any of the swabs, do the analysis and 

 12       then create the profile data, as you see; 

 13       and return the profile information to the 

 14       medical examiner's office, which will then 

 15       upload that into our local databank and then 

 16       the state databank.  And then the rape kits 

 17       and contents will then be returned back to 

 18       the police department.  

 19             In the event we have a hit at the 

 20       local or state level, the remaining sample 

 21       will be reanalyzed by the medical examiner's 

 22       office.  

 23             In terms of our timetable, we, as I 

 24       mentioned, we started developing this last 

 25       summer.  We issued our negotiated 



                                                             190
  1  

  2       acquisition proposal in December.  The 

  3       written proposals were submitted in 

  4       February.  March and April had us doing the 

  5       evaluations and interviews and doing site 

  6       visits.  

  7             We are now in the process of contract 

  8       negotiations.  We received six proposals.  

  9       We intend, if all goes well, knock on wood, 

 10       with the contract negotiations to be doing 

 11       business with three private labs in the 

 12       country, and we hope to be making our 

 13       contract award, the formal award in June and 

 14       make our first shipment of kits shortly 

 15       thereafter.  

 16             As you saw in the previous slide, our 

 17       hope is have a 45-day turnaround, so if our 

 18       first kits go out in late June or early 

 19       July, we'll be getting some data back in 

 20       late July early August.  

 21             What do we hope to achieve here?  And 

 22       I was speaking to Debbie Smith earlier.  I 

 23       think that if you listen to her story, there 

 24       is no better result that we can hope to 

 25       achieve by doing this than to solve some 



                                                             191
  1  

  2       crimes for some of these crime victims.  

  3             And we have been met, as I said, with 

  4       a certain degree of skepticism about the 

  5       16,000 rape kits.  Not all of those kits are 

  6       within the statute of limitations.  Some of 

  7       those kits are beyond the statute of 

  8       limitations, but we intend to analyze them 

  9       all.  

 10             I think that even if the statute of 

 11       limitations expired, if we can bring some 

 12       closure to some of these victims, it would 

 13       mean a lot.  And our hope is to gather 

 14       support for the extension or elimination of 

 15       the statute of limitations proposal that's 

 16       been made by Governor Pataki.  

 17             As, I think, Lisa Forman said and Dave 

 18       Coffman said, you know, success in this 

 19       business is measured by results, and results 

 20       in this business are measured by hits; and 

 21       we need those stories to take to our 

 22       legislators and make our case.  

 23             And speaking of taking those stories 

 24       to our legislators, obviously, one of the 

 25       things that we hope is by getting those 



                                                             192
  1  

  2       hits, we're going to get some money.  The 

  3       Police Commissioner has already made one 

  4       trip to Washington to meet with a number of 

  5       Congressmen and Senators, and we plan on 

  6       doing it again and doing it as many times as 

  7       are necessary to get the federal government 

  8       to step up to the plate.  

  9             I think the state government, 

 10       particularly here in New York behind the 

 11       leadership of Governor Pataki and Katy Lapp, 

 12       as you heard this morning, they're doing 

 13       everything that they can, but we need the 

 14       assistance of the federal government.  

 15             And certainly, last but not least, you 

 16       know, the results are the hits.  You may 

 17       have heard about this case, although this 

 18       was not part of the official backlog that 

 19       we'll be contracting out, the rape kit that 

 20       was included in our local databank last 

 21       summer was part of a city-wide rape pattern 

 22       that we had going on.  

 23             But it just demonstrates the story. 

 24       This individual, Jonathan Williams, was 

 25       arrested on a homicide.  There was semen 



                                                             193
  1  

  2       left at that crime scene.  The D.A.'s office 

  3       got a court order.  They did the DNA 

  4       analysis, they up loaded that information 

  5       into our local databank, and he was linked 

  6       to a rape in Harlem, a June 1998 rape for 

  7       which he was not a suspect.  And that's what 

  8       we're all in this business about.  

  9             So David talked about possible 

 10       solutions.  We are turning this possible 

 11       solution into a reality, and as somebody 

 12       said, I don't know, Lisa, if I'm going to be 

 13       up here singing with the horns and hat on 

 14       there, but hopefully, next year at this 

 15       time, we will be back to tell you about all 

 16       our successes that we will have as a result 

 17       of this project.  So thanks very much. 

 18             (Applause.)

 19             MR. GAHN:  Good afternoon.  I'm very 

 20       pleased to be here to talk to you about what 

 21       we're doing in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin 

 22       with DNA.  Back last September, early 

 23       September, I issued a criminal complaint and 

 24       a warrant for a John Doe based upon his 

 25       genetic profile.  It got a little bit of 



                                                             194
  1  

  2       press in the Milwaukee, in The Milwaukee 

  3       Journal Sentinel, and the reporters went out 

  4       and interviewed the defense bar and some of 

  5       the law professors in the area.  

  6             Although no one came out and said that 

  7       I was a crazy man, the clear implication was 

  8       there.  And about 45, 50 days passed until I 

  9       received a telephone call one afternoon from 

 10       a reporter from The New York Times who said 

 11       he was looking in the internet and saw 

 12       something in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 

 13       and he thought that it was somewhat 

 14       intriguing, and he wanted to know a little 

 15       bit about it; and I told him what I did.

 16             Then this appeared not long after on 

 17       the front page of The New York Times and the 

 18       all of a sudden it became cool.  So go 

 19       figure how this stuff works.  

 20             I'm going to give you a little bit of 

 21       history about what came up and how this came 

 22       about.  I'm not a creative person, and I'm 

 23       not an innovative man, but I'm willing to do 

 24       things for others, and you'll find out that 

 25       there were some sharp City of Milwaukee 



                                                             195
  1  

  2       police detectives who came up with this idea 

  3       and hounded me to do it.  

  4             But a little bit of history for you.  

  5       We really didn't understand in Milwaukee 

  6       County what the effect of the databanking 

  7       would be, and our databank didn't really get 

  8       going until May of 1998.  

  9             And we met the police detectives of 

 10       the sexual assault unit and a few 

 11       prosecutors and crime lab met, and we set up 

 12       those goals that we wanted to get all the 

 13       old unsolved cases entered into the index, 

 14       that non-suspect cases immediately be taken 

 15       to the crime lab.  In other words, if a 

 16       crime occurred in Milwaukee County last 

 17       night, hopefully, today it at the crime lab 

 18       and it is being analyzed today.

 19             Surprisingly, we're somewhat close to 

 20       this, but we're mostly concerned with older 

 21       unsolved cases entered into the case index 

 22       and how we could go about that and get as 

 23       many as we possibly could.  In May of 1998, 

 24       though, our databank was only at 4,500, and 

 25       by December of 1998, it was at about 8,500.  



                                                             196
  1  

  2             So it wasn't all that large, but, 

  3       initially, we had just tremendous results in 

  4       those first eight months of 1998.  We had 8 

  5       hits against a convicted offender index, 13 

  6       against the case index, and when we got 

  7       hooked up to NDIS, we had one in Cooke 

  8       County and one in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 

  9       but the successes were terrific once we just 

 10       started the databank.  

 11             We came up, naturally, with a few 

 12       problems.  This was a case that the crime 

 13       lab, they got the cold hit out of the 

 14       convicted offender databank on December 2nd 

 15       of 1998, and this was a rape that occurred 

 16       on December 5th of 1992; and eight hours 

 17       before the statute expired, I managed to get 

 18       a criminal complaint and warrant out in this 

 19       case.  

 20             But this started the police detectives 

 21       thinking, what about all those other cases 

 22       that statute is about to expire, or has 

 23       expired, what are we going to do with these?  

 24             And they were fast approaching because 

 25       we were trying to analyze everything from 



                                                             197
  1  

  2       1992 and 1993 and get into the databank.  

  3       But the statute was passing for many of 

  4       them, and we really were very concerned 

  5       about that.   

  6             I don't know how many prosecutors are 

  7       out there, but I suspect all of you have, 

  8       there's a police detective somewhere, 

  9       usually in the sexual assault unit, who kind 

 10       of, we have on who's kind of like a pit 

 11       bull.  They just hound you and follow you 

 12       around to get you to issue warrants and 

 13       search warrants and things.

 14             And we have one.  Her name is 

 15       Detective Gail Leoni.  But I say it with 

 16       great warmness and great fondness and 

 17       respect because she's just absolutely 

 18       terrific.  

 19             And she had come back from a 

 20       conference in Santa Fe last year, and she 

 21       says, "If you think this DNA's so great, why 

 22       don't you start issuing them based upon 

 23       these genetic profiles before the statute 

 24       expires?"  

 25             And she would hound me on this, 



                                                             198
  1  

  2       throughout the whole summer she would hound 

  3       me.  And I said, "All right, I'll do it, but 

  4       you bring me a case.  I want it a serial 

  5       sexual assault case. I want it to be very  

  6       powerful DNA evidence.  I want it to be 

  7       semen from either vaginal or surgical swabs, 

  8       and and I want the MO to be pretty much the 

  9       same."  And sure enough, she found one.

 10             In the meantime, though, I started 

 11       looking at our statute on warrant or summons 

 12       on complaint and on the provisions, and it 

 13       stated that, "To issue a warrant, you must 

 14       state the name of the person to be arrested, 

 15       if known, or if not known, designate the 

 16       person to be arrested by any description by 

 17       which the person to be arrested can be 

 18       identified with reasonable certainty."  

 19             I felt that our statute was robust 

 20       enough to embrace what Laurie wanted me to 

 21       do to issue these complaints based upon the 

 22       genetic code.  I knew that the history of 

 23       this when the statute was written was based 

 24       upon physical identifiers, something that a 

 25       police officer could drive by and look at 



                                                             199
  1  

  2       and see whether it be tattoos or some other 

  3       physical markings that you could identify 

  4       with reasonable certainty if you don't know 

  5       the name.  

  6             But I believe the technology today 

  7       that we will someday, I hope, be successful 

  8       in arguing this in front of a court that 

  9       genetic code certainly matches our 

 10       requirements for a warrant.  

 11             So I went ahead and issued those in a 

 12       felony warrant as John Doe, unknown male 

 13       with matching deoxyribonucleic acid, and 

 14       here is the one, this is PCR case.  This is 

 15       John Doe Number Four.  

 16             We're continually doing these now in 

 17       Milwaukee County every time they come up.  

 18       This is the criminal complaint, the top part 

 19       of the complaint.  This John Doe Number 

 20       Five.  This is an RFLP profile.  And we put 

 21       these in the system.  I've got about 20 of 

 22       them on my desk now, cases that we will be 

 23       issuing.  Again, this is top portion of the 

 24       criminal complaint.  

 25             When we talked about this, I feel that 



                                                             200
  1  

  2       with this technology, I almost believe that 

  3       as a prosecutor, it is your duty and 

  4       responsibility to do this when you're armed 

  5       with this wonderful technology.  I believe 

  6       we have to aggressively take this technology 

  7       and push the envelope and do everything we 

  8       can to preserve these cases.  

  9             It's been wonderful for the victims in 

 10       Milwaukee County, the surprise when we 

 11       contact them and tell them what we're doing, 

 12       and they ask, "You still care?  You're still 

 13       going to work on it?"  

 14             It sends sort of a nice warm blanket 

 15       over the community and we've seen this, that 

 16       they know the police are not stopping and 

 17       that we'll use everything available to us to 

 18       do what our job is as police and a job as 

 19       prosecutor.  

 20             I think it's the most wonderful job in 

 21       the world to get paid for seeking truth and 

 22       seeking justice, and I think that's 

 23       precisely what we're doing.  

 24             What also this spawned in Wisconsin 

 25       was that we teamed up with the women's 



                                                             201
  1  

  2       coalition against sexual assault and some 

  3       other groups, and we're trying to change the 

  4       statute of limitations.  Basically, if you 

  5       get a hit, a cold hit out of the databank, 

  6       you have one year to issue the criminal 

  7       complaint.  

  8             And I hope that we can get this 

  9       passed.  It's met with resistance from some 

 10       of the legislators.  We then got the people 

 11       from the Innocence Project from the 

 12       University of Wisconsin, Madison who want to 

 13       push through the post-conviction motion.  

 14             We've teamed up with them, and still 

 15       we haven't been successful in getting this 

 16       through, but we won't stop and we'll pursue 

 17       this because I certainly don't want to keep 

 18       issuing John Doe warrants forever.

 19             And that's basically what we're doing 

 20       in Milwaukee, and I thank you very much for 

 21       your kind -- I told you one thing, what 

 22       happened with our databank.  I don't know if 

 23       it's happening in any of your jurisdictions, 

 24       but I prosecuted an individual by the name 

 25       of Anthony Turner.  



                                                             202
  1  

  2             I don't know if you can see this.  

  3       This is a copy of the crime lab report.  But 

  4       we had a six-probe RFLP match on the sexual 

  5       assault and 13 loci from the STRs, and when 

  6       we put that profile into the case index, 

  7       three additional sexual assaults were linked 

  8       to him.  

  9             Throughout the course of the trial, 

 10       Mr. Turner maintained his innocence claiming 

 11       that there was someone else in Milwaukee, 

 12       Wisconsin who had the six RFLP probes and 

 13       the 13 loci that he had despite the numbers 

 14       being in the quintillions.

 15             But he persisted in this and kept 

 16       telling us that that is the case.  After 

 17       convicting him of the rapes and before 

 18       sentencing, our state crime lab received a 

 19       letter from Mr. Turner stating that, "If you 

 20       will check with a victim, her name is 

 21       Samantha," that "In March of 1999, Samantha 

 22       was raped, and if you will please analyze 

 23       that evidence, you will see that there is 

 24       someone in the city who matches my genetic 

 25       code, since I have been in prison all this 



                                                             203
  1  

  2       time, I could not have done it."  

  3             Well, we went back and found that 

  4       there was a case reported by Samantha in  

  5       March of 1999, and to humor him, we did 

  6       analyze it, and the 13 STRs came out to 

  7       match Mr. Turner, which, of course, would be 

  8       impossible because he was in prison when 

  9       that rape occurred.

 10             I then told the detectives, "Well, go 

 11       find Samantha for me."  And they did, and 

 12       she was in jail on a drug charge.  And they 

 13       went up and found her, and sure enough, 

 14       Mr. Turner had mailed his semen from the 

 15       prison in one of those little condiment 

 16       packets and paid her $50 to rub it on her 

 17       and report the rape.  

 18             So we've had two of those incidents in 

 19       Milwaukee County, and I guess that's quite a 

 20       testimonial to the reliability of this when 

 21       the defendants are now trying to use it.  So 

 22       thank you again very much for your 

 23       attention.  

 24             (Applause.) 

 25             MR. WERRETT:  Hearing that last 



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  2       comment, we had a dissimilar but sort of 

  3       similar experience in the UK when the law 

  4       became retrospective and we could now 

  5       collect samples from prisoners who were 

  6       still in prison and had been convicted of a 

  7       sexual offense.  So that started and there 

  8       was quite a thing in the Wormwood Scrubs of 

  9       swapping spit so that you could confuse the 

 10       taking of the DNA sample.  

 11             I think it's quite ingenious the 

 12       things people get up to to try to avoid 

 13       getting their DNA profiled.  Anyway, I'm 

 14       part of the duo and the duo would like to 

 15       thank the NIJ very much for bringing us over 

 16       from the UK to talk to you today.

 17             I'm going to talk to about some basic 

 18       data on the database, and then Becky Sparkes 

 19       is going to talk where we're going in terms 

 20       of the kinds of innovative things we're 

 21       doing in the future.  

 22             Just to recap, I'm part of the 

 23       Forensic Science Service, and we serve the 

 24       43 forces of England and Wales.  We have six 

 25       sites around the country.  It's my job to 



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  1  

  2       oversee all the casework and the DNA in 

  3       those six sites being delivered.  

  4             We have got more than 1,900 staff and 

  5       they're all state employees, but we charge 

  6       for every single thing that we do, and 

  7       income was in excess of $75 million last 

  8       year.  We charge about $50 to have a sample 

  9       put on the DNA database, analyzed in the 10 

 10       STR systems, and you challenge the database 

 11       and you get matches back, hopefully.  

 12             The DNA database is centralized.  It's 

 13       run from the center of England and Wales 

 14       based on buccal scrapes, which I echo how 

 15       it's safer, it's being a good way of 

 16       collecting samples, and we can collect from 

 17       both suspects and from convicted, arrestees 

 18       is the way, I think, you referred to them.  

 19             We supply to the database as the FSS, 

 20       but others do as well, for example, Cell 

 21       Mark Analogy C, so it's a commercial 

 22       environment in which we're working; and all 

 23       the other UK laboratories within Scotland 

 24       and Northern Ireland also supply profiles to 

 25       the database.  So it's a UK database.  



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  1  

  2             The numbers which Howard Safir 

  3       referred to at lunchtime look something like 

  4       this.  It's grown over the years since 1995 

  5       when we first introduced it, and we're 

  6       currently at about 760,000 samples from 

  7       suspects on the database.  Crime scene 

  8       stains are 75,000 files on the database, and 

  9       matches that we've issued to the police 

 10       amount ten and a half thousand linking 

 11       scene-to-scene matches and just over 70,000 

 12       suspect-to-scene matches.  

 13             Last year we reported about 22,000 

 14       matches, but those include partials as well, 

 15       I might add, in that a partial profile from 

 16       a scene stain matching a suspect.  

 17             The database is now likely to be 

 18       growing about a thousand samples per day, 

 19       and we're issuing 400 to 600 matches per 

 20       week to the police.  The little circle up 

 21       there is a synopsis of the serious crimes  

 22       which we issue to the police each week of 

 23       what we're reporting.  In this case it was 

 24       10 murder matches, one attempted murder 

 25       match, 19 rapes, control of drugs and supply 



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  1  

  2       of drugs, 7.  

  3             These are all matches with undetected 

  4       scene stain profiles. So this is not to do 

  5       with casework at all.  These are these 

  6       undetected scene stains.  The turnaround 

  7       time for a suspect going onto the database 

  8       is about 14 days.  For your undetected case 

  9       stain is now about 28 days, but we want to 

 10       get that down to 14 days this year.  

 11             The match scene stains are removed now 

 12       on request, so it's hard to see the match 

 13       rate, if I can get the arrow up there, but I 

 14       can assure you that if you collect a sample 

 15       from a scene of  crime, then as a policeman 

 16       you stand about a 40 percent chance of 

 17       getting it to match currently on the 

 18       database. If it's a suspect, then it's about 

 19       8 percent.

 20             And the issues really now relate to 

 21       the way the police handle the information.  

 22       I'd echo all those that have gone before 

 23       saying this isn't just about DNA technology, 

 24       this is about everybody being joined up, 

 25       seeing how we handle information.  



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  2             You might think all of that is rather 

  3       a lot of matches, but compared to the crime 

  4       in Britain, I think we're just touching the 

  5       tip of the iceberg.  For burglaries, we have 

  6       nearly a million a year, and we're reporting 

  7       about 10,000 matches a year; for theft of 

  8       vehicles,  about a million again, and we're 

  9       reporting out about 7,000 matches; for 

 10       violent crimes, about 660,000, and we're 

 11       reporting out just over a thousand. So 

 12       there's a long way to go, I think.  

 13             For undetected rapes, which is about 

 14       1,200 in the UK, I think the impact is much 

 15       greater, and year on year, we're reporting 

 16       about 336 matches to rape cases, so there, I 

 17       think the impact could be quite large for 

 18       the police.

 19             And for murders, similarly, we're 

 20       reporting out about 106 murder matches a 

 21       year out of a total of 711 murders in 1997 

 22       in the UK.  Now, out of that 711, the vast 

 23       majority will be, as we call them, 

 24       "domestics" where it's obvious who's 

 25       murdered who.  So if that's going to the 



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  1  

  2       heart of the undetected murders, then 

  3       there's really a lot of police saving in 

  4       investigative time.

  5             But there's room for improvement.  We 

  6       think there's much greater potential to 

  7       contribute to volume crime detection, and we 

  8       also believe that the contribution to 

  9       serious crime detection is good, but 

 10       intelligence leading to early detection, we 

 11       could improve on that.  

 12             Looking at a distribution of what 

 13       people were arrested for and what they've 

 14       matched against is on this table.  I 

 15       apologize for those at the back it being 

 16       small, but I'm just going to pick some 

 17       highlights out here.  

 18             Across the top, we've got the arrest 

 19       offense, and that's what the person came in 

 20       for; and down on this side we have what 

 21       they're matching against.  So you can see, 

 22       as I think Dave Coffman referred to, that 

 23       for burglary, we've got certainly burglars 

 24       matching more burglary scenes at the top 

 25       there, but lower down, we've got a  



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  2       significant small proportion of burglars 

  3       matching other sexual offenses, rape, 

  4       attempted murder, and even murder.

  5             Interestingly, for those arrested for 

  6       violent crime, they cover the whole gambit 

  7       matching from burglary, burglary dwelling 

  8       and there's 16 matching rape against 

  9       somebody arrested for just violent crime.  

 10       So interesting crime patterns are emerging 

 11       from this.  

 12             Overall, of the 2,464 matches that 

 13       I've surveyed there, 98 were for volume 

 14       crime arrests matching to a serious crime 

 15       scene stain, so that's about 4 percent, just 

 16       kind of an significant number in terms of  

 17       detections.  

 18             Building the DNA model, we wondered, 

 19       as politicians are interested in outcomes, 

 20       how we could express this in terms of 

 21       actually an outcome, and so I attempted to 

 22       build a model, which I admit is very crude, 

 23       but it served its purpose, I feel, as you 

 24       will see.  

 25             What we did is we looked at the number 



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  1  

  2       of property crimes, and we're looking at 

  3       volume crime here, property crimes and car 

  4       theft crimes, and we reckon through surveys 

  5       that we can recover in about 5 percent of 

  6       those cases DNA.  

  7             If you take that 5 percent and 

  8       translate that into the potential number of 

  9       scenes then that we can get DNA from, that's 

 10       about 70,000, and if you look at the percent 

 11       successfully analyzed in our laboratory, 

 12       that comes out at about 75 percent; and then 

 13       you take the percent match figure of 40 

 14       percent, we reckon on reporting about 

 15       $21,000 matches, which is close to what we 

 16       are doing.  

 17             Then I got the criminologists to look 

 18       at it and said, "Well, what effect does that 

 19       actually have?"  And they said, "Well, if 

 20       that's the case, you have to look at how 

 21       many of those matches turn into detections."  

 22             And we did a pilot constabulary called 

 23       Sussex, which is one of the 43 in England 

 24       and Wales, and they said, "If you get the 

 25       matches back to us quickly, then about 60 



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  1  

  2       percent of those, we convert into 

  3       detections."  

  4             The criminologists said, "Well, yeah, 

  5       if you can detect them, then you can 

  6       multiply that by three because most of these 

  7       guys are committing more than one crime."  

  8       So in terms of crime reduction, you're doing 

  9       actually doing better than just a mater 

 10       matches and detections.  So I multiplied it 

 11       by three and got up to 37,000.  

 12             And then they turned around to me and 

 13       said to me, "Yeah, but if you take out the 

 14       ringleaders, which you could do through this 

 15       process, you stop the recruitment to the 

 16       criminal fraternity," and they've shown that 

 17       in several studies.  "So multiply it again 

 18       by two for a deterrence effect."  

 19             Now that 74,000 or 75,000 there 

 20       represents about 5 percent of the property 

 21       and burglary crime that's going on in the 

 22       UK, which is nicely close to what the 

 23       government's trying to achieve in terms of 

 24       crime reduction.  

 25             Obviously, it depends hugely on what 



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  1  

  2       happens at the front end of the supply chain 

  3       with the police collecting the samples and 

  4       at the back end when the courts deal with 

  5       these people.  

  6             But it was a persuasive model, crude 

  7       though it is, and so persuasive that the 

  8       Prime Minister announced plans to increase 

  9       the size of the database in 1999, and the 

 10       government set aside now 34 million pounds, 

 11       an extra 34 million pounds, over the next 

 12       two years to expand the database.

 13             The goal is to make the databases 

 14       around 3 million samples, which would then 

 15       be close to the level of the fingerprint 

 16       database and five times its current size.  

 17             This is line with key government aims 

 18       to reduce serious and volume crime, the 

 19       latter by 30 percent over the next five 

 20       years.  So it kind of echoes Dave Coffman's 

 21       point that if you get some success, it tends 

 22       to attract more money.  

 23             What does this mean in terms of the 

 24       samples we're likely to analyze this year?  

 25       Well, I think about 400,000 is what we're 



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  2       going for in terms of suspect and convicted 

  3       samples, which is close to the new number of 

  4       criminal record of these numbers that are 

  5       issued each year.  

  6             We'll probably analyze about 50,000 

  7       stains from undetected scenes of crime, the 

  8       non-suspect cases that you referred to, and 

  9       we're also going to have a police 

 10       elimination database.  We're going to do DNA 

 11       profiling of all the police in the country 

 12       in the country on volunteer basis so that we 

 13       can immediately eliminate them as a 

 14       potential source of DNA for contamination 

 15       purposes.  

 16             That's the subject of debate amongst 

 17       police forces, but the chief constable's 

 18       assured me that that's what shall be done.  

 19       So I'll put it up.

 20             And we're also going through a 

 21       training program where we're targeting 

 22       training every single police officer in the 

 23       country so that if they're the first officer 

 24       attending the scene, they at least have a 

 25       rudimentary knowledge of what to do and what 



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  1  

  2       not to do.  

  3             And we're going on to launch a new 

  4       type of analysis, DNA analysis, which is 

  5       really based on looking at contact traces 

  6       for both serious crime and volume crime, and 

  7       at that exciting point in the juncture, I'll 

  8       hand over to Becky Sparkes.

  9             MS. SPARKES:  Good afternoon.  Dave 

 10       has just talked to you about the national 

 11       DNA database, and I think we can all agree 

 12       that the principle of databases and the 

 13       database in the UK has been a large success 

 14       scientifically.  

 15             But now I think we've come to the 

 16       point where we really need a strategy to 

 17       support the improvement of scene stain 

 18       recovery.  As you saw from one of Dave's 

 19       earlier slides, we're only having an effect 

 20       in about one percent, particularly in volume 

 21       crime cases.  

 22             And really we have to question whether 

 23       the police are now making the full use of 

 24       the potential of the database.  What are 

 25       they actually doing with the number of DNA 



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  1  

  2       matches they're receiving week on week.  

  3       There's a phenomenal amount in information 

  4       going out to the police forces.  What are 

  5       they doing about it, and what can we, as 

  6       forensic scientists, help them to understand 

  7       that?  And then to introduce to them the 

  8       concept of the scene linking sort of within 

  9       and between force boundaries.  

 10             Focusing first on the improvement of 

 11       stain recovery, the FSS is operating what we 

 12       call our low-copy number or call single-cell 

 13       analysis, and there's actually two strands 

 14       to this service.  

 15             The first is for serious crime, and 

 16       for that we have a specialist unit that's 

 17       been in operation since January 1999.  This 

 18       really is an enhancement to the existing 

 19       service that we offer, and it's available 

 20       for cases where conventional DNA profiling 

 21       has failed or is not appropriate.  

 22             It's been extremely successful, but 

 23       it's really lengthy, and each case is 

 24       approached on a very individual basis, and 

 25       this has really required a completely new 



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  1  

  2       reporting strategy for us.  

  3             So in addition to the application for 

  4       serious crime, we're now looking at the 

  5       development of a volume crime project.  For 

  6       this we need something that's completely 

  7       different.  Obviously, it needs to be rapid 

  8       and it needs to low cost.  Expensive, 

  9       lengthy turnaround times are not really very 

 10       suitable for volume crime cases, and if we 

 11       could actually develop something that was 

 12       rapid and low cast, then we could forecast a 

 13       very high demand.  

 14             So this is the kind of thing that 

 15       we're doing.  This is sort of reflecting the 

 16       traditional serious crime approach, if 

 17       you'll forgive our mock-up scene, we would, 

 18       traditionally, be looking at the analysis of 

 19       blood from the point of entry; the recovery 

 20       of hair from balaclavas or from in a  

 21       victim's hands, for example; blood from the 

 22       victim on a weapon that might be left on the 

 23       scene; cigarette ends that might be 

 24       recovered at the scene of the crime.  

 25             The kind of thing we've been doing 



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  1  

  2       this the specialist unit is this:  we're now 

  3       looking at contact traces, hand prints or 

  4       facial prints at the point of entry; 

  5       dandruff being recovered from balaclavas; 

  6       cellular material from ligatures or knots, 

  7       for example, from victims that have been 

  8       bound; again, cellular material on knife 

  9       handles, on weapon handles, on bottles, 

 10       other things discarded at the scene, or on 

 11       bag handles, anything like that.  

 12             And just to summarize the success, 

 13       we've profiled, I think, about 200 to 300 

 14       cases in the last 12 months, and if a case 

 15       required re-extractions, so we had to do 

 16       something to extract a stain that had been 

 17       previously extracted, the success has been 

 18       about 75 percent and some of them have just 

 19       been cases that failed for conventional DNA 

 20       profiling but have just required a 

 21       re-amplification, and that's been 69 

 22       percent.  So it has been extremely 

 23       successful.  

 24             So if we talk about supporting the 

 25       national DNA database and implementation of 



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  1  

  2       the strategy, what we're now looking at 

  3       doing is responsive partnership projects 

  4       where we actually take specially trained 

  5       forensic intelligence officers, and a lot of 

  6       these are individuals that have spent the 

  7       last five years working on the DNA database 

  8       and so are very experienced with DNA, and 

  9       we're moving them from the laboratory and 

 10       out to the scene, we're moving them into the 

 11       police forces to actually begin to work with 

 12       police personnel.  

 13             What we want to do is we want to adopt 

 14       a new approach, and if you talk about 

 15       contact traces, it very much a new approach, 

 16       new tools.  Some of these individuals would 

 17       actually go to the scene then go back to the 

 18       laboratory and carry out their own analysis.  

 19             We're looking at new ways of thinking 

 20       about evidence collection which will have 

 21       the obvious effect of increasing the use of 

 22       forensics many fold, and from an R&D 

 23       perspective, we're using them as a platform 

 24       to field-test new techniques and develop new 

 25       tailored services.  It's okay developing 



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  1  

  2       things in a laboratory environment.  Once it 

  3       goes out of the police forces, it's a very 

  4       different effect.  

  5             So I have approximately 30 staff in 

  6       that role, and we're currently involved in 

  7       about 26 different partnership projects 

  8       throughout the country, and I've really only 

  9       got time to tell you quickly about one of 

 10       those today.  

 11             And that was "Operation Autoguard," 

 12       and this was really, with its application to 

 13       volume crime, it was targeting autocrime.  

 14       As Dave said, it's very much in our 

 15       political arena at the moment.  The police  

 16       are very switched on to autocrime at the 

 17       moment and trying to do something about it 

 18       forensically.  

 19             Traditionally, very little forensic 

 20       evidence collected from vehicles.  Even if 

 21       cigarette butts or cans, drinks cans, are 

 22       found in a vehicle, no interview of the car 

 23       owner is carried out, so these aren't even 

 24       collected.  

 25             But what this pilot was actually about 



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  1  

  2       was field testing new DNA recovery 

  3       techniques and considering in a volume crime 

  4       application.  So we were piloting it.  We 

  5       were evaluating best areas within a vehicle 

  6       to target and considering things like would 

  7       the owners profile be required for 

  8       elimination, and if it was, that probably 

  9       wouldn't be appropriate because, obviously, 

 10       not many owners of vehicles are going to 

 11       give their samples for DNA; developing best 

 12       methods of evidence recovery and kind of 

 13       trying to assess what training needs would 

 14       be required, so, okay, the scientist's doing 

 15       it, but once it's handed over from research 

 16       phase to the police, what training needs 

 17       would be required.  That's at the front end 

 18       of the process.  

 19             At the back end of the process, we 

 20       were then looking at, supposing we got 

 21       results these vehicles, managing the 

 22       intelligence, working with the police and 

 23       ensuring that the police fully understood 

 24       what the results we were giving them back 

 25       meant, making the best use of even partials, 



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  1  

  2       and trying to use the intelligence 

  3       intelligently in many ways, targeting hot 

  4       spots, targeting areas, even targeting 

  5       particular individuals within the criminal 

  6       population.  

  7             And just to give you a feel for the 

  8       results from that pilot, we placed six 

  9       scientists, this OCU down the side is the 

 10       Operational Command Unit on six Operational 

 11       Command Units within one police force, and 

 12       during the three-month pilot, they attended 

 13       a total of 161 scenes with the 

 14       scene-of-crime officers.  

 15             And from those 161 scenes, we obtained 

 16       75 searches, and of those database searches,  

 17       we got 47 matches.  So 46 percent of the 

 18       vehicle scenes that we had attended that had 

 19       given no forensic evidence gave us a 

 20       searchable profile, and from those 46 

 21       percent of scenes, 30 percent gave us a 

 22       match.  And these were cases that previously 

 23       the police had no other information on, 

 24       would never likely be followed up.  

 25             So the possibilities, we're talking 



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  1  

  2       about solutions this morning, if we consider 

  3       that we have .5 million autocrimes in the UK 

  4       per year, that accounts for 20 percent of 

  5       all our crime, and theft of accounts for 

  6       250,000, the project demonstrated that the 

  7       best area for DNA recovery was the cowling 

  8       or the steering column.  

  9             If we only analyzed samples from that 

 10       area, we had no need to take profiles from 

 11       the owner of the vehicle. We did not see 

 12       mixtures in that area, and the police 

 13       figures show that 40 percent of all stolen 

 14       vehicles have the cowling tampered with in 

 15       some way.  Then the potential here is for 

 16       recovery of DNA from about 100,000 vehicles 

 17       per year.  

 18             Just very quickly, one of the other 

 19       projects that we're involved in is 

 20       distraction burglaries.  This is where 

 21       serial offenders work in pairs generally 

 22       distracting aged victims.  These offenses 

 23       often result in violence.  Although on one 

 24       hand, it's considered volume crime, on the 

 25       other, it's actually a very serious crime.  



                                                             224
  1  

  2             DNA in these cases was often much more 

  3       difficult to detect.  The offenders are very 

  4       clever.  They're very educated.  They're 

  5       very forensically aware.  As one policeman 

  6       said, "The offenders are better at their job 

  7       than the policemen are at theirs."  

  8             The success rate for that wasn't as 

  9       successful as the vehicle crime, but we have 

 10       had success with abandoned property, 

 11       property left by the offender at the scene, 

 12       even some visual marks after dusting; and 

 13       we're actually doing more project work at 

 14       the moment to expand on that.  

 15             We've also had limited experience but 

 16       some success with gun cartridge cases, 

 17       credit cards, and drug syringes, and, again, 

 18       those are products that we're going to 

 19       develop this year.  

 20             So, finally, what I think we really 

 21       want to stress, is this isn't just about new 

 22       technology.  For us it was about placing 

 23       scientists with the forces to help the 

 24       forces, to raise understanding that this 

 25       process was just as important.  



                                                             225
  1  

  2             We're offering DNA awareness training 

  3       to officers of all levels in serious and 

  4       volume crime, and we firmly believe that the 

  5       future for us is about partnership, 

  6       partnership with police forces, basically, 

  7       together, using the matches more 

  8       effectively.  Thank you very much.

  9             (Applause.) 

 10             DR. BERGER:  We have some time for 

 11       questions.  Anyone?

 12             SPEAKER:  It seems to be that we're 

 13       moving towards a new era in forensics where 

 14       we're beginning to look at stain samples for 

 15       which it's not obvious up front whether its 

 16       having to do with the crime scene. 

 17             Traditionally, this blood, this semen 

 18       sample looks probative, something that the 

 19       investigator is able to recognize as 

 20       probative.  The dangers are that criminals, 

 21       they, of course, they're smart.  

 22             My question is, in the UK, suppose you 

 23       find a blood stain that's in a location or 

 24       of a particular nature, et cetera, and pick 

 25       up ten different samples of DNA?  



                                                             226
  1  

  2             MR. WERRETT:  A lot of the work we're 

  3       doing, a lot of the success is from 

  4       cigarette ends.  It is possible to pick up 

  5       somebody else's cigarette and transport it 

  6       to the scene of the crime.  

  7             One of the things that we've got in 

  8       the UK from the police is intelligence 

  9       information, and we never take a case to 

 10       court on DNA levels.  I think that's 

 11       foolhardy.  

 12             The intelligence officer has to go out 

 13       and build his case around that piece of 

 14       information.  I think those kinds of 

 15       safeguards need to be built into that 

 16       approach that we've just shown you.

 17             SPEAKER:  I was intrigued by the 

 18       remark about elimination samples from the 

 19       police.  

 20             I think there might be much broader 

 21       view of the concept of DNA, just like 

 22       fingerprints, if, just like fingerprints, 

 23       law enforcement officials were volunteering 

 24       that DNA for the database.  

 25             I'd like to hear more about how that's 



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  1  

  2       accomplished in the United Kingdom and how 

  3       well that works. 

  4             MR. WERRETT:  I'll just backtrack on 

  5       that a little bit.  We started with our own 

  6       staff, and as a member of the boards, we 

  7       started with the boards.  Actually, none of 

  8       this came up positive.  

  9             Then we've done most of the DNA staff 

 10       who handled the evidence, and we're going on 

 11       a laboratory basis to do the rest of the 

 12       forensics of the staff.  

 13             From a base point of view, the Chief 

 14       Constable supported it and persuaded the 

 15       rest of the police community to support it.  

 16             I must say, so far we've received 

 17       about 3,000 samples, and we've got 70,000 to 

 18       go.  I'm sure we'll get a good update.  

 19             SPEAKER:  There's been no mention of 

 20       the immigration and child custody arena.  

 21             Is that something that's not under the 

 22       responsibility of these groups, or is that 

 23       handled separately?  

 24             MR. WERRETT:  The UK has been a leader 

 25       in using DNA profiling in immigration coming 



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  1  

  2       into the country.  DNA has been used in 

  3       immigration and for paternity and child 

  4       support situations. 

  5             SPEAKER:  What about taking the child 

  6       out of the country?

  7             MR. WERRETT:  Out of the country, I 

  8       don't know.

  9             SPEAKER:  Does the UK have the 

 10       Innocence Program where you're looking at 

 11       previously convicted offenders and actually 

 12       questioning whether they're the wrong 

 13       people?

 14             MR. WERRETT:  There's two parts of 

 15       that:  the criminal part which is set up by 

 16       the government to look into cases where 

 17       there are mixtures, of prisoners 

 18       complaining, and they're going through all 

 19       those cases and relooking at the evidence 

 20       and seeing if they can be reanalyzed to 

 21       either confer or refuse; there's another 

 22       sort of branch to that, and the police and 

 23       the forensic service are carrying out 

 24       cold-case reviews where we're going through 

 25       previous cases carrying out DNA analysis 



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  1  

  2       where it is deemed appropriate.  

  3             In the criminal case review, several 

  4       of the cases involved are where prisoners 

  5       have previously complained of conviction and 

  6       asked for their case to be reviewed.  

  7             It may have gone through the legalese 

  8       part of appeals not being allowed.  

  9             DR. BERGER:  So to the Commission 

 10       rather than the court.

 11             Any other questions?  

 12             Maybe someone on the panel would like 

 13       to comment on some of the other 

 14       presentations.

 15             MR. COFFMAN:  The only thing I'd like 

 16       to say is, I wish we got to the point where 

 17       we got 4,200 people per month.

 18             DR. BERGER:  Time for a break.

 19             (Applause.) 

 20             (Break.)  

 21           PANEL IV:  LEGISLATIVE SOLUTIONS       

 22             MR. GREENBERG:  Good afternoon.  My 

 23       name is Bob Greenberg.  I am the Senior Vice 

 24       President of G&H International Services in 

 25       Washington DC.  We support private 



                                                             230
  1  

  2       companies, not for profits, government 

  3       agencies and a range of institutions in that 

  4       area.  

  5             Several speakers stated today that in 

  6       order to take full advantage of DNA 

  7       technology, that it requires legislative 

  8       action in a number of areas.  There are a 

  9       number of issues to be resolved in order to 

 10       attain the best use of DNA.  There are also 

 11       a lot of issues with regard to development, 

 12       training processing, and improved 

 13       facilities.  

 14             The speakers on the panel today will 

 15       be addressing a broad range of these issues 

 16       and discussing the status of some of these 

 17       issues.  

 18             First, I'd like to address of Dr. Boyd 

 19       in which he cited the key to success is 

 20       making the best use of DNA.  In his opening 

 21       remarks today, David Boyd, The Director of 

 22       the National Institute of Justice cited 

 23       progress being made in that area.  

 24             He talked about a number of programs.  

 25       He talked about the five-year DNA R&D 



                                                             231
  1  

  2       program, and he talked about the need for  

  3       funding in order to clear up the CODIS 

  4       backlog.  

  5             There is real progress being made.  

  6       You can see it in the federal 

  7       administration.  I'm addressing exclusively 

  8       the federal end.  Congress is listening, 

  9       Congress is interested, at least to some 

 10       extent.  

 11             The fact of DNA technology and what it 

 12       can bring has meant a lot to that area.  It 

 13       is the cases that they're interested in, 

 14       and, in my view, and I think the view of 

 15       some other people here, there is an 

 16       opportunity to get some action on Capital 

 17       Hill from the administration in order to get 

 18       the increased resources that are required to 

 19       do the things we've been talking about.  

 20             But I want to give a word of caution 

 21       and a word of advice.  Some people have 

 22       heard me say this.  This is sort of my 

 23       schtick.  The progress that got us this far 

 24       has been pretty hard fought, but in order to 

 25       make significant new progress, it's going to 



                                                             232
  1  

  2       be even harder fought.  

  3             And the reason is simple.  While 

  4       Congress and government are interested in 

  5       DNA, it is also the case that Congress is 

  6       interested in a lot of things, and while DNA 

  7       might have been the issue of the day or the 

  8       issue of the year in 1999, Congress is now 

  9       concerning itself with other issues that 

 10       take its attention away from DNA and from 

 11       forensic science.  

 12             Look at counterterrorism.  Look at 

 13       cybercrime.  If you look at it, you can say 

 14       they are interested, they are intensely 

 15       interested, in cybercrime and 

 16       counterterrorism.  

 17             Looking to the point.  The DNA R&D 

 18       program Dr. Boyd talked about this morning 

 19       is a significant advance.  NIJ was very 

 20       pleased with the $5 million a year, and 

 21       we're looking at that as significant money.  

 22             The Forensic Laboratory Improvement 

 23       program is about $35 million and CODIS 

 24       backlog, I think they allocated $15 million.  

 25       That's a significant advance.  



                                                             233
  1  

  2             However, if you look at the 

  3       counterterrorism program, they're talking 

  4       cyberterrorism, the administration proposed 

  5       a $2 billion program to combat cybercrime, 

  6       $6 million for ten computer forensic 

  7       centers.  There's a public crime kind of 

  8       center, which is $15 million for ten of 

  9       those. They're spending a lot of time and a 

 10       lot of money in these areas.  

 11             Earlier, I said that Congress was 

 12       interested, to some extent, in DNA and 

 13       forensic science.  They're interested but 

 14       they're not interested enough.  By the same 

 15       token, a lot of members of Congress, and 

 16       this I can tell you from experience, a lot 

 17       of members of Congress feel they've already 

 18       done their bit in that area.  

 19             They look at line legislation in which 

 20       they had crime lab improvement of forensic 

 21       science, money set aside.  They look at the 

 22       monies that David Boyd talked about, and 

 23       they say, look, we've done our thing.  

 24             The other thing that Congress often 

 25       says, and is very frustrated about, is that 



                                                             234
  1  

  2       they often frequently will get visits from 

  3       people from the forensic science community 

  4       who will give them a little different 

  5       message with a little different emphasis.  

  6       The comment I've gotten is, who am I 

  7       supposed to believe, who am I supposed to 

  8       take the lead from?  

  9             In my view, the key to being able to 

 10       make the kind of progress that we're talking 

 11       about, that the Commissioner was talking 

 12       about, and to take advantage of the window 

 13       of opportunity, the key is for the forensic 

 14       science community, as a whole, those working 

 15       with DNA and the forensic science, to work 

 16       together and speak with one voice and 

 17       develop a common agenda; go to Congress with 

 18       that agenda, learn to work Congress because, 

 19       at least many people I've come across in 

 20       this community do not know how to work with 

 21       Congress.  Speak with one voice to get us 

 22       together.  

 23             There are two efforts going on now to 

 24       contribute to that.  One is the States 

 25       Coalition legislating for the National 



                                                             235
  1  

  2       Science Improvement Act, which would provide 

  3       significant new resources for forensic 

  4       science, and the other is a newly formed, 

  5       forming, forensic science consortium which 

  6       is made up of eight different organizations, 

  7       including the American Academy of Forensic 

  8       Scientists; ASCLD/LAB; the National 

  9       Association of Medical Examiners; the 

 10       National Centers for Forensic Science, that 

 11       organization is just coming together.  It 

 12       will actually have its first meeting at the 

 13       FRNSI Conference.  

 14             The forensic science community needs 

 15       to come together with one voice to speak to 

 16       Congress about what the forensic science and 

 17       DNA communities need if they're going to be 

 18       able to do what they want to do more 

 19       efficiently and effectively.  

 20             As my schtick, I'm going to leave it 

 21       at that, and with that, I'd like to 

 22       introduce the first member of our panel.  

 23             Mark Dale was assigned to the police 

 24       in 1973.  His interest in science prevailed 

 25       when a position became available in the New 



                                                             236
  1  

  2       York State Police Mid-Hudson Crime Lab in 

  3       1982.  He progressed through the laboratory 

  4       administration and then became assistant 

  5       director to the lab system as a captain in 

  6       1996 to become the Director of the 

  7       Washington State Patrol Laboratory System in 

  8       Olympia, Washington.  

  9             He was lured back to the New York 

 10       State Police in 1997 and was reinstated as 

 11       an Inspector in charge of the New York State 

 12       Police Forensic Investigation Center and 

 13       Laboratory System.  

 14             Inspector Dale was the President of 

 15       the American Society of Crime Laboratory  

 16       Directors in 1994 and currently serves on 

 17       the New York State Commission on Forensic 

 18       Science.

 19             He received a Bachelor's degree in 

 20       biology from Florida State University in 

 21       1970. Mark. 

 22             MR. DALE:  Thank you, Bob.  First, I'd 

 23       like to like to say that I've been slowly 

 24       deleting from my presentation so I would not 

 25       be redundant, but I think I still have a few 



                                                             237
  1  

  2       things left to say.  

  3             I've also said a few prayers to the 

  4       Microsoft god, hoping that my presentation 

  5       here works.  Good afternoon.  I usually get 

  6       a response from the State Police Academy, 

  7       but it's a good start.  

  8             First, I'm honored and it is, indeed, 

  9       a pleasure to stand before.  Bob Greenberg, 

 10       Don Schellberg, and I discussed how to focus 

 11       our presentation in order to provide the 

 12       audience with the most significant material 

 13       in our short time period.  

 14             I'm going to provide you with a 

 15       snapshot of the NYSP DNA program from the 

 16       beginning, the present and a glimpse into 

 17       the future.  

 18             You can see a picture of Adam and Eve 

 19       on the screen, and what more appropriate 

 20       place to start discussing DNA.  Now, if you 

 21       look at the picture real close, you can see 

 22       Eve has an apple in her left hand, and she's 

 23       trying to hide it.  It's behind her a little 

 24       bit there.

 25             She also as a serpent in her right 



                                                             238
  1  

  2       hand, and you can see Adam is kind of 

  3       leaning over in that direction; and you know  

  4       every time he makes a move for that apple, 

  5       the serpent is going to get him.  And that's 

  6       really probably where this all started, with 

  7       Adam and Eve and the serpent.  

  8             Now, when did policies for bioevidence 

  9       start with the New York State Police.  Let 

 10       me read you a few quotes from the archives.  

 11       And I quote:  

 12             "Two excellent publications have been 

 13       issued this year by the Citizen's Committee 

 14       on the Control of Crime in New York City.  

 15       Both would prove very interesting and useful 

 16       to the commanding officers of police units 

 17       in general and especially to those who are 

 18       interested in the statistical phases of the 

 19       crime problem.  

 20             The first of the two bulletin deals 

 21       with sex offenses in New York City.  Besides  

 22       statutory definitions of sex crimes covered 

 23       by the report and excellent statistical 

 24       data, the bulletin deals with the problem of 

 25       mental deficiency in sex crimes reviewing a 



                                                             239
  1  

  2       number of cases of unusual interest.  

  3             The bulletin emphasizes the importance 

  4       of the Mayor's order that all persons 

  5       convicted of impairing the morals of 

  6       children or of sex crimes involving 

  7       perversion be rearrested,"

  8             Let me repeat that.

  9             "be rearrested on their release from 

 10       prison and brought before a magistrate under 

 11       Section 81 of the mental hygiene law.  The 

 12       recidivistic characteristics,"

 13             Let me repeat that.

 14             "recidivistic characteristics of the 

 15       sex offenders are especially emphasized.  

 16       Reviewing the case history of rapes and 

 17       murders of three little girls; Einer 

 18       Sporrer, Paula Magagna of Brooklyn, and Joan 

 19       Kuleba of Richmond."

 20             This is one of the earliest New York 

 21       State Police records or mentions of 

 22       recidivism and sexual offenses I could find. 

 23       Who was the mayor of New York City?  Mayor 

 24       La Guardia.  What was the date of the 

 25       citation?  New York State Police BCI 



                                                             240
  1  

  2       Bulletin, Volume Three, Number Ten, October 

  3       1938.  

  4             Think about it.  In 1938 and probably 

  5       earlier, we were concerned with recidivism 

  6       and actually mandating a psychiatric 

  7       examination of a sexual offender upon 

  8       release from prison.  

  9             The second citation starts as follows:  

 10             "A number of inquiries reached us as 

 11       to the attitude of the New York State Police 

 12       in relation to the taking of blood samples 

 13       for whatever purposes they may be.  

 14             State police officers, in the 

 15       performance of their duties, are under the 

 16       explicit orders of their superior officers."  

 17             They've always got to put that in.  

 18             "Relative to the issue under 

 19       consideration, the following is the order:  

 20             Subject:  Human Blood as Evidence.  

 21             One, our laboratory has recently 

 22       received samples of human blood taken from," 

 23             And I emphasize this,

 24             "living human beings for the purpose 

 25       of analysis to determine certain chemical 



                                                             241
  1  

  2       contents which might be present in such 

  3       blood;  

  4             Two, there are many conflicting 

  5       opinions on the subject of taking samples of 

  6       blood from living human beings, and the 

  7       procedure presents somewhat of a question, 

  8       the legal aspects must be determined at some 

  9       future date;"  

 10             Here we are.  

 11             "Three, blood chemistry is extremely 

 12       technical because of chemical changes which 

 13       take place in human blood by reason of the 

 14       time element between the taking of a sample 

 15       and its analysis;" 

 16             I thought that was very interesting.

 17             "And Four, this subject is under 

 18       consideration until the legal and chemical 

 19       viewpoints are finally determined."  

 20             Taking blood from living human beings, 

 21       what a novel idea.  What citation is this?  

 22       New York State BCI Bulletin, Volume Three, 

 23       Number 11, November 1938.  

 24             Now, let's move ahead about 60 years 

 25       later to 1993. This is the time when Dawn 



                                                             242
  1  

  2       Herkenham was counsel at DCJS and took an 

  3       interest in forensic science.  Dawn began to 

  4       attend the New York Crime Laboratories 

  5       Advisory Committee meetings.  NYCLAC is made 

  6       up of all New York crime laboratories with 

  7       representatives from district attorneys', 

  8       court, and the academic community.  

  9             Dawn soon learned forensics and began 

 10       to formulate the first DNA databank law for 

 11       New York State.  Her work led to the passage 

 12       of Article 49B of the executive law that was 

 13       made up of four main areas.  

 14             The first was the mandate that all 

 15       public forensic laboratories in New York 

 16       State be accredited by ASCLD/LAB or either 

 17       ABFT.  The second was the establishment of 

 18       the Commission of Forensic Science, the 

 19       third was the establishment of the DNA 

 20       Subcommittee, and the fourth was the 

 21       authority to draw blood from convicted 

 22       offenders.  

 23             The ASCLD/LAB accreditation program 

 24       was established in 1980 by the American 

 25       Society of Crime Laboratory Directors.  This 



                                                             243
  1  

  2       program now has over 200 laboratories in the 

  3       United States, Canada, Australia, and the 

  4       Far East that can share standards of quality 

  5       for all types of forensic disciplines.

  6             The program is done on a five-year 

  7       cycle that consists of 138 criteria.  There 

  8       are 58 essential, 50 important, and 30 

  9       desirable criteria that consist of all the 

 10       administrative technical safety issues in a 

 11       forensic laboratory.  

 12             The toxicology laboratories also have 

 13       an alternative of participating in the 

 14       American Board of Forensic Toxicology 

 15       Accreditation program.  

 16             New York State can now proudly state 

 17       that all 15 forensic laboratories and 8 

 18       toxicology laboratories are now accredited 

 19       by either ASCLD/LAB or ABFT.

 20             Specifically, New York City PD 

 21       Laboratory was recently accredited by 

 22       ASCLD/LAB and at the same time moved into a 

 23       new laboratory.  One of these feats alone is 

 24       worthy of commendation.  I, personally, 

 25       applaud the efforts of Inspector Pulaski, 



                                                             244
  1  

  2       Dr. Wilk, and Tim Dunphy on their commitment 

  3       and enthusiasm to get the job done.  

  4             How is the Commission on Forensic 

  5       Science put together?  The New York State 

  6       Commission on Forensic Science is set up as 

  7       follows:  The chair is the Director of 

  8       Criminal Justice Services, Katherine Lapp, 

  9       who oversees the Commission on Forensic 

 10       Science.  

 11             Operations of the DNA databank, the 

 12       DNA databank's technical operation and 

 13       sample analysis are performed by the New 

 14       York State Police Forensic Investigation 

 15       Center. 

 16             The operations of the DNA databank are 

 17       supervised by the DCJS Office of Forensic 

 18       Services under the new direction of Mr. John 

 19       Hicks.

 20             What is the make-up of the Commission 

 21       on Forensic Science?  As I mentioned before, 

 22       the chair is Katherine Lapp; One DCJS 

 23       recommended law enforcement agency 

 24       representative, which is my boss, 

 25       Superintendent, James McMahon; the 



                                                             245
  1  

  2       Commissioner of the Department of Health is 

  3       an Ex-officio, Antonia C. Novella; the chair 

  4       of NYCLAC, which is Dr. Robert Shaler; the 

  5       Director of Forensic Science for DCJS is 

  6       Mr. John Hicks; two DOH recommended 

  7       scientist, Morton K. Schwartz and Ann 

  8       Willey; and one DCJS recommended prosecutor, 

  9       William Fitzpatrick from Onondaga County.  

 10             The Defense recommends one public and 

 11       one private defense attorney.  Who other 

 12       than Peter Nuefeld and Barry Scheck; two 

 13       members at large, one recommendation from 

 14       the Senate and one recommendation from the 

 15       Assembly, Ken Bruno, from the Rensselaer 

 16       County District Attorney's office and Vince 

 17       Crispino, the Director of the Suffolk County 

 18       Laboratory; one member recommended by the 

 19       Court of Appeals with attorney or judge 

 20       background in ethics and privacy issues, 

 21       Ivar Goldart.  

 22             The DNA Subcommittee, Chair appointed 

 23       by Director Lapp, Jack Ballantyne, who you 

 24       heard earlier today, and DOH recommends four 

 25       scientist, a molecular biologist, Thomas 



                                                             246
  1  

  2       Stows; lab standards, Lorraine Flaherty; and 

  3       a forensic scientist, Charles Hirsch, the 

  4       Medical Examiner for the City of New York.  

  5             DCJS recommends a population 

  6       geneticist, Ranajit Chakraborty; and a 

  7       forensic scientist, David Werrett, Forensic 

  8       Science Services.  

  9             Now, what are some specifics of the 

 10       1994 New York legislation.  As was mentioned 

 11       earlier today there was 21 designated 

 12       offenses that resulted in approximately 

 13       3,000 samples a year. 

 14             We began collecting samples January 1, 

 15       1996.  The State Police Forensic Center was 

 16       authorized to begin analysis of convicted 

 17       offender samples July 2nd, 1998.  All 

 18       samples were analyzed with the old law by 

 19       November 1999, but then the law was 

 20       expanded.  

 21             Now, Dawn is back from her sabbatical 

 22       with the New York State Office of Child and 

 23       Family Services, the FBI Unit Chief in 

 24       charge of the CODIS and NIBIN programs.

 25             Dawn worked hard with Dr. Barry 



                                                             247
  1  

  2       Duceman, the New York State Police Director 

  3       of Biological Sciences, Superintendent 

  4       McMahon, Director Lapp, and DCJS' Ken 

  5       Connolly to negotiate passage of the new 

  6       expanded DNA databank law.  

  7             The new law now includes over 60 

  8       percent of all felony convictions in New 

  9       York State.  60 percent of 50,000, 

 10       obviously, is approximately 30,000 offenses 

 11       annually.  

 12             The law also includes a retroactive 

 13       component for designated offenders in 

 14       custody on December 1st, 1999, with the 

 15       exception of controlled substances; changes 

 16       in the definition of sample from blood to 

 17       DNA sample; and adds an E felony for the 

 18       misuse of DNA databank.  And most 

 19       significantly the law was accompanied by 

 20       substantial fiscal support.  

 21             Here is where the new samples come 

 22       from; Approximately, in the new pool, 

 23       approximately, 21,000 from the Department of 

 24       Corrections; none, obviously, from parole 

 25       yet; 50 from Office of Child and Family 



                                                             248
  1  

  2       Services; Sheriffs contribute about 2,000 

  3       samples; Upstate Probation, 3,000; New York 

  4       City Probation, 5,000; New York City DOCs, 

  5       2,000, for a total of 32,000 samples a year.

  6             Now, the new retroactive pool, where 

  7       will those samples come from?  DOCs, again, 

  8       68,000; Parole, 14,000; Office of Child and 

  9       Family Services, 300; Sheriffs, 2,000; 

 10       Upstate Probation, 7,500; New York City 

 11       Probation, 12,500; New York City DOCs, 500, 

 12       for a total of 105 samples in the 

 13       retroactive pool.  

 14             The fiscal impact of legislation is 

 15       significant.  We were adamant that to be 

 16       successful, we needed a 30-day turnaround 

 17       time for all bioevidence in case work.  

 18             Staffing, $3 million; equipment, $2.2 

 19       million; consumables, $1 million; 

 20       contracting with an outside laboratory, $7.7 

 21       million for a total of $13.9 million.  

 22             What does the staffing component look 

 23       like?  It's a total of 65 positions.  1 M5 

 24       Assistant Director of Biosciences; 8 Grade 

 25       25 supervisors of DNA; 7 forensic 



                                                             249
  1  

  2       scientists, Grade 20; 38 senior lab 

  3       technicians; 7 keyboard specialists, Grade 

  4       9; 1 Sergeant; 2 evidence clerks; 1 computer 

  5       programmer.  

  6             How are we doing on our hiring?  We 

  7       designed a website and went on the net 

  8       December 1st, 1999, and I have to say, I was 

  9       astonished by at the response we received.  

 10       We received over 500 applications solely by 

 11       downloading an application over the net.  

 12             We've targeted 278 of those folks for 

 13       interviews.  We've scheduled 245 interviews.  

 14       We've conducted 184 interviews.  We have 127 

 15       backgrounds in progress, and 17 of the 65 

 16       positions are filled.  Most of them are from 

 17       internal promotions at this time.  

 18             A sample update, and some of these 

 19       numbers you've heard.  As I mentioned, we 

 20       were authorized to receive samples January 

 21       '96.  We were authorized to analyze the 

 22       samples July 1998.  We've received 43,000 

 23       samples since January of '96.  We've 

 24       received 33,000 samples since December 1st, 

 25       1999.  We've analyzed approximately 8,300 



                                                             250
  1  

  2       samples by April 1st, and they are in SDIS 

  3       and NDIS. We have uploaded approximately 552 

  4       forensic unknowns into SDIS, and we have, at 

  5       the time I did this a couple of days ago, we 

  6       33 high stringency matches; and they tell me 

  7       now, we have maybe close to 50 high 

  8       stringency matches.  

  9             Now, those numbers right there, I 

 10       think, are incredible.  We're astonished at 

 11       that early success.  If you think about a 

 12       ten percent high stringency match rate 

 13       against a forensic unknown that are bounced 

 14       against a database of 8,300, that's just 

 15       simply incredible.  

 16             Case work update for the first three 

 17       months of the year 2000 at the Forensic 

 18       Center in Albany.  Our staff analyzed 189 

 19       bio cases, if you will, in three months.  

 20             There was 1,419 items that were 

 21       presumptively tested for blood and semen.  

 22       222 of those items were analyzed at the 13 

 23       STR loci and resulted in 23 matches, 4 

 24       exclusions, and 12 trials.  

 25             Those numbers, also, are a small 



                                                             251
  1  

  2       snapshot, I realize, but it's a very 

  3       interesting relationship where you get 

  4       approximately 200 cases, there's 1,400 items 

  5       analyzed from those about 200 cases; 220 

  6       items were analyzed for DNA, 23 matches and 

  7       4 exclusions.  And the numbers are 

  8       constantly going up, obviously.  

  9             Our contract with Myriad Lab, how is 

 10       that working out?  We've sent 100 QA 

 11       samples.  They've analyzed those.  

 12       Obviously, those were samples in which we 

 13       knew the answer, and they passed that with 

 14       flying colors.  

 15             We've already sent them 3,000 

 16       convicted offender samples, which they're 

 17       working on now, and myself and Peter Wistart 

 18       are going to visit them in a few weeks to 

 19       review their technical review and security 

 20       measures that they have in place for our 

 21       samples.  They've projected that they can do 

 22       about 3,000 a month, not the 4,200 of 

 23       Florida, but we're getting there.  

 24             Now, working with local industry to 

 25       develop bioevidence storage.  We need to 



                                                             252
  1  

  2       apply more technology upstream at the crime 

  3       scene.  We need to maximize bioevidence.  We 

  4       do not want to lose bioevidence due to 

  5       degradation or contamination.  

  6             Crime scene technicians need our 

  7       support to provide them with equipment they 

  8       need to properly process a scene.  We must 

  9       maximize potential of evidence that is at 

 10       every scene and protect our personnel 

 11       blood-borne pathogens also.  

 12             We can apply technology to reduce 

 13       contamination, reduce exposure to 

 14       blood-borne pathogens and biodegradation by 

 15       providing storage that includes cool, 40 

 16       degrees; dry, 15 percent humidity with total 

 17       air filtration using HEPA filters for all 

 18       input and exhaust air.  

 19             This, we have done with a local 

 20       manufacturer in Albany, New York.  What you 

 21       see there is a first prototype.  It's an 8 

 22       by 20 foot unit consisting of two 8 by 9 

 23       foot compartments.  The two compartments are 

 24       separated by a mechanical room that houses 

 25       the HVAC and HEPA filters.   



                                                             253
  1  

  2             Legislation.  A few of us old timers 

  3       in forensic science who can remember 

  4       anything comparable to what you see on this 

  5       slide.  There have been many solicitations 

  6       from NIJ, OJP, and BJA over the years that 

  7       helped tremendously.  

  8             Individual states have also supported 

  9       forensic science with facilities, training 

 10       and hiring initiatives.  Personally, our 

 11       laboratory system is benefitting from 

 12       tremendous support from Superintendent 

 13       McMahon, Director Lapp, and Governor Pataki.  

 14             I realize this is the exception, and 

 15       many laboratories and states need help to 

 16       support their forensic science programs.  I 

 17       know the numbers are constantly changing and 

 18       will change again before any funds hit the 

 19       street, but forensics is now in the 

 20       political game; and we must respond as 

 21       professionals with a single voice and a 

 22       single purpose.  Everyone must have the same 

 23       story, and we're going to stick to it.  

 24             What single plan will provide the 

 25       bedrock for continued short-term and 



                                                             254
  1  

  2       long-term improvement of forensic science in 

  3       the United States?  What mechanism, if put 

  4       in place, would even be a legacy to provide 

  5       the structure and framework that will 

  6       deliver the best forensic science to the 

  7       criminal justice community?  

  8             What better way for NIJ to end their 

  9       annual DNA seminars than with a bold vision 

 10       for the future?  I would like to offer one 

 11       plan that could act as a starting point for 

 12       discussion and a way to focus our priorities 

 13       for the anticipated federal funding of the 

 14       future.  

 15             Let's focus on the future and maximize 

 16       the benefits from unprecedented forensic 

 17       legislation.  We don't needs to go back to 

 18       bubble diagrams and strategic planning.  

 19       We've done that, and we all know what need 

 20       to get the job done.

 21             We all know that a quality assurance 

 22       program entails all aspects of a forensic 

 23       science program.  It includes all criteria 

 24       of the ASCLD/LAB accreditation program and 

 25       should also include a marriage with the new 



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  1  

  2       ISO 17025 guidelines.  

  3             I also believe the single most 

  4       problematic issue we have is training.  

  5       There are hundreds of police academies that 

  6       graduate thousands of police cadets ready 

  7       for the street.  Why can't we have regional 

  8       forensic quality assurance centers that 

  9       specialize in the different disciplines of 

 10       forensic science.  

 11             We must evolve away from our 

 12       traditional method of mentor training.    

 13       Illinois, Virginia, California, and Florida 

 14       made an excellent start in this area.  In 

 15       New York we're now forming relationships 

 16       with the State University of Albany and 

 17       Rensselear Polytechnic Institute to develop 

 18       forensic programs.

 19             The national laboratories and NASA, 

 20       they must have a major role in this plan.  

 21       How can we broker and transfer this 

 22       technology into the field of forensic 

 23       science?  

 24             A national quality assurance program.  

 25       How can we put together a national program 



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  1  

  2       that will address all aspects of quality 

  3       assurance, a program that will apply the 

  4       best technology to the best evidence, a 

  5       program that will be administered nationally 

  6       and provide a consensus of what needs to 

  7       done in the forensic community, a program 

  8       that will graduate scientists as case work 

  9       ready, a program that will lead the way with 

 10       research and development, a program that 

 11       will take advantage of the technology 

 12       available in our national laboratories,  and 

 13       finally, a program that will provide 

 14       international recognition using ISO 17025 

 15       and ASCLD/LAB guidelines.  

 16             This is the model that I offer to you 

 17       today.  As a starting point for our 

 18       discussion, let's consider the development 

 19       of a national quality assurance forensic 

 20       program that will take advantage of three 

 21       existing components, the accredited forensic 

 22       laboratory; the universities; and the 

 23       national laboratories.  

 24             These relationships are starting to 

 25       form and have provided several promising 



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  1  

  2       programs.  Let's build on the positives.  

  3       Let's develop quality assurance regional 

  4       sites using this three-part team.  There's 

  5       plenty of work to go around, a national 

  6       office or entity can provide direction and 

  7       funding for the total program.  A little bit 

  8       out of the box?  Maybe, but I think it's 

  9       time to get out of the box.  

 10             Regional quality assurance sites can 

 11       be established where the teamwork of the 

 12       universities, national labs, and accredited 

 13       forensic labs have shown they can work 

 14       together.  

 15             Personally, I would like first dibs on 

 16       Florida and New York, so I can go to Florida 

 17       in the winter and stay in New York in the 

 18       summer.  

 19             Now, we're back at the beginning, and 

 20       I think this really is the beginning.  The 

 21       New York State program is off to a great 

 22       start, and I have to mention a few names 

 23       here.  

 24             Largely, because of Dawn Herkenham,  

 25       and let's not forget Carl Solovka when he 



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  2       was Director of Forensic Science in New York 

  3       State; Vince Crispino in Suffolk County with 

  4       Joe Galdi; Bob Shaler and Paul Gonsoroff, 

  5       New York City Office of the Medical 

  6       Examiner;  Fred Drummon and Bob Adamo at 

  7       Westchester County; Barry Duceman and Peter 

  8       Wistort of the State Police Forensic Center; 

  9       Tim Rohrig and Cathy Carota at Onondaga 

 10       County; Nancy Scibetta at Monroe County;  

 11       Mike Dujanovich and John Simmich at Erie 

 12       County; Julie Pasquini; and now the addition 

 13       of John Hicks at DCJS, working with Barry 

 14       Brown and Steve Niezgoda at the FBI and all 

 15       other states programs will guarantee a 

 16       successful program.  

 17             And that was all one sentence.  But 

 18       they need help.  Let's put our heads 

 19       together and develop a national forensic 

 20       quality assurance program that will lead us 

 21       for years to come.  

 22             We've come a long way from 1938 when 

 23       the taking of blood from a "living human 

 24       being" was being questioned scientific and 

 25       legally.  Hopefully, future legislation, 



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  2       funding and national oversight can provide a 

  3       plan that will provide the criminal justice 

  4       community with the highest quality forensic 

  5       science.  

  6             I thank you for your time and hope 

  7       that this short presentation will lead to a 

  8       discussion here at the forensic conference 

  9       and other seminars to build a consensus, a  

 10       single vision, a single voice for Congress 

 11       and the state legislatures to act upon.  

 12             Thank you very much for this 

 13       opportunity to speak here today.

 14             (Applause.) 

 15             MR. GREENBERG:  Our next speaker, Jane 

 16       Siegel Greene, is the Executive Director of 

 17       the Innocence Project which currently 

 18       represents more than 200 inmates seeking 

 19       post-conviction release through DNA testing 

 20       at the at Cardozo School of Law.  

 21             The Innocence Project has been 

 22       responsible in whole or in part for 

 23       exonerating 40 clients.  Ms. Greene was a 

 24       member of the Post-conviction Issues Working 

 25       Group for the National Commission for the 



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  1  

  2       Future of DNA Evidence and helped to draft 

  3       the Department of Justice's recent report, 

  4       "Post-Conviction DNA Testing: 

  5       Recommendations for Handling Requests."

  6             Ms. Greene was formerly a litigation 

  7       associate at the law firm of Winston & 

  8       Strawn.  She received a BA from the 

  9       University of Pennsylvania in 1991 and a law 

 10       degree from University of Pennsylvania Law 

 11       School in 1995.  Jane. 

 12             MS. GREENE:  Hi.  I'd like to thank 

 13       NIJ for inviting me to speak today, and, 

 14       fortunately, I have a very low-tech 

 15       presentation, so I don't have to worry about 

 16       any computer glitches.  

 17             But, as Bob said, I'm the Executive 

 18       Director of the Innocence Project, which is 

 19       a clinical program set up at Cardozo Law 

 20       School.  We deal with DNA cases solely on a 

 21       post-conviction basis, so it's a fairly 

 22       limited mission, and all we do are cases 

 23       where there's evidence susceptible to DNA 

 24       testing.  We search for the evidence, get 

 25       for DNA testing, and hopefully, if there's 



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  2       and exclusion, we get the person exonerated.  

  3             And there have been, so far, 70 DNA 

  4       exonerations total;  there have been 64 in 

  5       the United States and 6 in Canada.  We're 

  6       actually about to get another one, 

  7       hopefully, in the next few days, somebody up 

  8       in Boston should be getting out of prison.  

  9             So it's pretty exciting, and the rate 

 10       of exonerations is actually increasing 

 11       exponentially now.  In the first few years 

 12       of our existence, they came much fewer and 

 13       farther between, and now they happen at a 

 14       pretty rapid rate.  

 15             But we face several obstacles on the 

 16       path to a DNA exoneration.  Two of the main 

 17       problems, and typically our cases take years 

 18       to work through our system, but the two main 

 19       problems we have are, one, that we can't 

 20       find the evidence, the biological evidence.  

 21             In about 70 percent of our cases, it's 

 22       been destroyed or lost, and then the 

 23       question of whether we can get access to it 

 24       is moot, of course, because there's just 

 25       nothing that we can do; and these people are 



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  1  

  2       often destined to spend the rest of their 

  3       lives in prison and often they're facing the 

  4       death penalty.  

  5             The second main problem is, even if we 

  6       do find the evidence, we can't get access to 

  7       it.  Typically, we would approach the 

  8       prosecutor after we find the evidence and 

  9       try to get their consent to release the 

 10       evidence for testing and thereby avoid 

 11       having to go to court, which, typically, 

 12       will take years.  

 13              But unfortunately, prosecutors, 

 14       frequently, won't agree to this, and then we 

 15       do have to go to court and litigate; and as 

 16       I said, often it takes year.  

 17             For example, we have a case in 

 18       Louisiana right now where we found the 

 19       evidence after a couple of years of 

 20       searching.  We found the evidence in 1995.  

 21       We first filed in the state court in 1996.  

 22       We've been denied on every level in state 

 23       court.  

 24             We've gone to federal court now where 

 25       we have both a federal habeas petition 



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  1  

  2       pending and a 1983 civil rights action 

  3       pending.  I'm not sure of our chances of 

  4       success.  The problem in that case is, the 

  5       evidence, there was not a great deal of it 

  6       to begin with, and we know, based on our 

  7       experience, that in Louisiana, because of 

  8       the high humidity and the way the evidence 

  9       is stored, that often there's a great deal 

 10       of degradation; and we're concerned that 

 11       even if we do fight and win in court and 

 12       we're allowed DNA testing, there won't be 

 13       anything left that's meaningful to test.  

 14       So it's very frustrating for us.  

 15             Both of these issues are addressed in 

 16       Senator Leahy's recent bill that he 

 17       introduced, which Chris Asplen mentioned 

 18       earlier this morning, called the Innocent 

 19       Protection Act, and this act is a 

 20       comprehensive piece of legislation that 

 21       would really address most of the problems in 

 22       post-conviction DNA issues.  

 23             First, it requires that evidence be 

 24       preserved while the prisoner is 

 25       incarcerated, and if the state plans to 



                                                             264
  1  

  2       destroy the evidence, it has to give ample 

  3       notice and an opportunity to have a hearing 

  4       on whether the evidence should be destroyed 

  5       or not.

  6             We have terrible problems finding the 

  7       evidence, as I said.  Often, either people 

  8       won't return our phone calls, or they say,  

  9       oh, sure, sure, we'll look, we'll look or 

 10       they say we looked, it's gone.  And we say, 

 11       well, can you put this in writing so we know 

 12       it's been destroyed, and they won't put it 

 13       in writing; and we go to court to get them 

 14       to verify that it's destroyed, which is, of 

 15       course, a terrible drain on our resources 

 16       which are very limited and the court's 

 17       resources which are also limited.  

 18             And even in a place like New York 

 19       State, which obviously has a very strong 

 20       commitment, as you heard from several people 

 21       speaking today, strong commitment to the use 

 22       of DNA in all aspects of its power, even in 

 23       this state, we have problems that we can't 

 24       get people to help us look for the evidence, 

 25       or we can't find it and it's just gone.  



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  1  

  2             So it's really crucial to have 

  3       legislation that requires states to preserve 

  4       evidence until the person is released from 

  5       prison, and there has to be uniformity of 

  6       preservation.  Even right now, each locality 

  7       within a state has a different procedure for 

  8       preserving the evidence.  So it also takes a 

  9       lot longer to go find it because there's no 

 10       one place to look.  

 11             The second, and most important part, 

 12       of the Leahy bill is that it would require 

 13       states to pass legislation that would 

 14       provide a meaningful opportunity to have 

 15       post-conviction DNA testing.  

 16             The leahy bill would condition federal 

 17       funding for the DNA databanks, for prison 

 18       construction, for crime lab construction on 

 19       the passage of such legislation, and the 

 20       standard used in Leahy bill is whether 

 21       there's a reasonable probability that the 

 22       DNA evidence would have resulted in a 

 23       different verdict at trial.  

 24             So this limits the number of cases 

 25       that would be suitable for the DNA testing.  



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  1  

  2       Only, so far, two states have DNA statutes 

  3       or statutes allowing DNA testing, New York 

  4       and Illinois, and in those states there have 

  5       been 7 and 14 exonerations, respectively.  

  6       That's no coincidence.  They have this 

  7       number of exonerations because there's 

  8       legislation in place that allows for 

  9       legitimate claim to heard.

 10             Also Washington State has passed 

 11       similar legislation.  Although that's very 

 12       limited.  It limits the class of people that 

 13       can apply under the statute to those who 

 14       have been convicted with either a life 

 15       sentence or on death row.  

 16             So, clearly, there's a whole class of 

 17       people that need DNA testing.  There is 

 18       biological evidence in their cases, and just 

 19       because they haven't had the requisite 

 20       sentence, they're not going to be able to 

 21       avail themselves of this statute, so that's 

 22       unfortunate.  

 23             And people often ask me, why do 

 24       prosecutors say no?  Why don't they just let 

 25       you get the testing?  There's no downside to 



                                                             267
  1  

  2       it.  We tell everybody, if we have a client 

  3       and the client goes to testing and he's 

  4       included, we close the case.  We don't 

  5       pursue it further.  

  6             We're looking for cases of actual 

  7       innocence.  We're not trying to do anything 

  8       funky with the test results, and, in fact, 

  9       in almost 50 percent of our cases, the 

 10       client is, in fact, guilty.  And it's always 

 11       disappointing because we've spent years 

 12       working on their cases, but it's just a 

 13       reality of the way these things work.  So we 

 14       deal with it.

 15             But there's no real principled reason 

 16       for denying access.  The reasons most often 

 17       cited by prosecutors and courts are statute 

 18       of limitation grounds and the need for 

 19       judicial finality.  And while these are 

 20       certain legitimate concerns, when measured 

 21       against a person's life, and sometimes, 

 22       literally their life, if they're on death 

 23       row, it certainly pales in comparison.  

 24             For example, we have a client who, 

 25       also another Louisiana case, where his name 



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  1  

  2       is Clive Charles, and some of you may have 

  3       heard about him.  He was recently released 

  4       from prison after 19 years in Angola Prison, 

  5       and he had been convicted for rape.

  6             And he had been asking for DNA testing 

  7       for nine years, and it wasn't until the 

  8       Innocence Project got involved and we filed 

  9       a civil rights lawsuit and we were lucky 

 10       enough to be in front of a magistrate judge 

 11       who really took our case seriously, and she 

 12       said to us and to the prosecutor, "I want 

 13       you guys to get an agreement reached, and I 

 14       don't want to hear about it until you come 

 15       back with an agreement."  

 16             And we were able to work out a 

 17       protocol for testing, and Clive Charles was, 

 18       of course, excluded and ultimately 

 19       exonerated, but he lost nine additional 

 20       years of his life for no reason other than 

 21       the prosecutor's reluctance.  And there was 

 22       no legal right for Clive to get the testing.  

 23       Therefore, the prosecutors weren't going to 

 24       do it.  

 25             We do find now with the number of 



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  2       exonerations and with the public awareness 

  3       and appreciation for what's going on, we do 

  4       find the prosecutors more frequently will  

  5       consent to DNA testing, or if we go into 

  6       court, we are more frequently successful; 

  7       but it's still always a fight and it always 

  8       takes years, and these are precious years to 

  9       these people just sitting in prison.  

 10             The other argument that prosecutors, 

 11       in conjunction with these other arguments 

 12       why they're against allowing post-conviction 

 13       DNA testing, is that the flood gates will 

 14       open and they'll be bombarded with thousands 

 15       of people seeking DNA testing, and it will 

 16       cost the states billions of dollars.  

 17             These arguments are fallacious for 

 18       several reasons.  First of all, there's only 

 19       a very small number of cases that actually 

 20       have DNA, biological evidence in the first 

 21       place, and the number of cases where, as I 

 22       said, it's not been destroyed is even a 

 23       smaller fraction of the cases.  

 24             We receive, at the Innocence Project, 

 25       we receive thousands of letters every year.  



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  1  

  2       We probably accept maybe 10 to 15 cases each 

  3       year.  So, as you can see, most of the cases 

  4       are never going to go anywhere.  

  5             And we have a rigorous screening 

  6       process, which we recommend to anybody 

  7       involved in these kinds of cases, to screen 

  8       out frivolous requests or requests where it 

  9       would just not be dispositive of innocence.  

 10             For example, if it's a gang rape case, 

 11       and there have been four assailants and the 

 12       victim was unclear as to how many people 

 13       ejaculated and who did what to her, we may 

 14       not take that case because just because we 

 15       don't find our guy's DNA doesn't mean he's 

 16       actually innocent.  

 17             So we really try to be very rigorous 

 18       in the cases that we take on because we 

 19       don't want to set bad precedents.  We want 

 20       people to take our cases and realize that 

 21       there are these actually innocent people out 

 22       there.  

 23             Additionally, the standard, as I said, 

 24       in the Leahy bill where there's a reasonable 

 25       probability that the evidence would result 



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  1  

  2       in a different verdict just necessarily 

  3       limits the cases.  

  4             Also, we pay, in most of our cases 

  5       right now, the way things stand, we pay for 

  6       the DNA testing.  There's no cost to the 

  7       state.  Sometimes the state would prefer to 

  8       have their own lab do the testing, which we 

  9       can work out a protocol that's amenable to 

 10       both of us, and that's fine.  But, usually, 

 11       the client himself will bear the burden of 

 12       the costs.  

 13             In today's client where there's the 

 14       increased enthusiasm for using the death 

 15       penalty and where states and on the federal 

 16       level are continually speeding up the 

 17       process post-conviction in terms of death 

 18       penalty cases.  There was, of course, 

 19       antiterrorism, and, in fact, the Death 

 20       Penalty Act passed several years ago now, 

 21       which severely limits the number of 

 22       petitions that a prisoner can bring and the 

 23       time period for when a person can bring it.  

 24             So the process is happening much 

 25       quicker, and if we don't have the right to 



                                                             272
  1  

  2       go back into court and get DNA testing, 

  3       there are going to be many more innocent 

  4       people executed.  That's just an 

  5       inevitability.  

  6             And, in fact, there was a recent 

  7       gallop poll that showed that 92 percent of 

  8       the population at large is actually in favor 

  9       of DNA testing on a post-conviction basis 

 10       where the person didn't have an opportunity 

 11       to do so at trial.  

 12             And this has to be reconciled with 

 13       politicians and prosecutor zeal to get their 

 14       convictions and to be tough on crime, and 

 15       those things are all great, but they really 

 16       have to be administered and thought about in 

 17       a little bit more judicious and in fairer 

 18       manner.  

 19             And, of course, the flip side to 

 20       getting DNA exonerations is that in all of 

 21       our cases, we strongly advocate putting the 

 22       resulting DNA profile into the databanks, 

 23       and, in fact, in a few of our cases, we've 

 24       actually gotten a hit and found the true 

 25       perpetrator in that fashion.



                                                             273
  1  

  2             And, of course, the mission of the 

  3       criminal justice system should be, and is 

  4       still, although it's often overlooked, to 

  5       get the true assailant, not just any 

  6       assailant; and we think that with passage of 

  7       the Leahy bill or similar state statutes, 

  8       this mission would be more fairly 

  9       accomplished.  Thank you.

 10             (Applause.) 

 11             MR. GREENBERG:  We're obviously going 

 12       to go a little bit over because we want to 

 13       take some questions.  The third speaker, Tim 

 14       Schellberg, is a partner in the governmental 

 15       affairs and law firm of Smith Alling Lane, 

 16       P.S.  His firm has offices in Tacoma, 

 17       Washington, and Washington DC.

 18             Outside the state of Washington, 

 19       Mr. Schellberg's focus is dedicated to 

 20       representing high-tech companies in need of 

 21       governmental affairs services.  He 

 22       represents these clients in numerous local, 

 23       state, and federal government agencies.  

 24             One of Mr. Schellberg's most 

 25       significant clients is PE Biosystems, a DNA 



                                                             274
  1  

  2       equipment manufacturer based in Foster City, 

  3       California.  While representing PE 

  4       Biosystems, he has developed a comprehensive 

  5       understanding of the forensic DNA debate 

  6       taking place in many state legislators.  

  7             His presentation will focus on the 

  8       forensic DNA legislation introduced during 

  9       the 2000 legislative sessions.  He the will 

 10       discuss the outcomes, trends, and politics 

 11       of DNA legislation.  

 12             Mr. Schellberg received his 

 13       undergraduate degree from Washington State 

 14       University in 1988 and his law degree from 

 15       Seattle University in 1991.  Tim.      

 16             MR. SCHELLBERG:  Good afternoon.    

 17       Again, what I'm going to talk about is 

 18       basically the year 2000 legislation 

 19       throughout the country, and being that my 

 20       knowledge base is mostly with the DNA 

 21       expansion issue, that's where I'm going to 

 22       spend most of my time talking about the 

 23       bills themselves and the trends, and then 

 24       briefly talk about just some of the bills 

 25       dealing with post-conviction and the statute 



                                                             275
  1  

  2       of limitation issue.  

  3             I apologize in advance for those of 

  4       you who have already heard this 

  5       presentation.  I know, looking around, that 

  6       there's a handful of you, and I have changed 

  7       it slightly, so, hopefully, it will keep 

  8       your interest.  

  9             We do represent a DNA equipment 

 10       manufacturer that deals with most of the 

 11       states in the country, and what they have us 

 12       do is basically track the legislative debate 

 13       around the country so they can keep tabs on 

 14       what's going on. 

 15             In addition, we serve as a resource to 

 16       various legislators that are introducing 

 17       bills and staff that want to see what are 

 18       the trends and what are the hot spots to 

 19       stay away from when they're introducing 

 20       these bills.  

 21             First, getting into, prior to looking 

 22       at the bills themselves in 2000, I think 

 23       it's always important to kind of remind 

 24       ourselves of what has been the evolution of 

 25       the state statutes around the country, and, 



                                                             276
  1  

  2       of course, we all started with the sex 

  3       offenses, moving down to the violent crimes, 

  4       into burglary.   

  5             Six states now have all felon laws.  

  6       We're going to see some in the misdemeanors, 

  7       and the next generations will be into the 

  8       arrestees, and, perhaps, even some of the 

  9       sweeps like Great Britain does.

 10             Here's the map, of course, of all the 

 11       sex offender states.  The states here in the 

 12       white, are the ones that do sex offenders 

 13       only; the ones in the pink shade are sex 

 14       offenders and murder only; and the ones in 

 15       the orange shade are sex offender murders 

 16       and all violent crimes.  

 17             Here are the 17 states that have 

 18       currently passed laws dealing with requiring 

 19       burglary, and, of course, here the six 

 20       states for all felons.  Now, so far, there 

 21       are 17 states in the country here in the 

 22       2000 legislative sessions that have 

 23       introduced expansion bills, and here they 

 24       are.  There may be a couple more prior to 

 25       the end of the legislative sessions.  Most 



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  1  

  2       sessions are wrapping up, although a handful 

  3       of them go throughout the year.  

  4             I'm going to quickly go through the 

  5       bills.  It should just take a couple of 

  6       minutes.  In Alaska, they wanted to add all 

  7       burglaries.  This bill was defeated based on 

  8       policy grounds.  The Legislature said, "We 

  9       currently have enough information about 

 10       individuals, and we don't want anymore."  

 11             Arizona, different result.  This bill 

 12       was a significant bill because they were a 

 13       just a sex offender state, adds all violent 

 14       offenses and burglary.  I think there might 

 15       have been two dissenting votes throughout 

 16       the legislative process, and the bill has 

 17       been signed by the Governor.  

 18             California, the only expansion bill 

 19       they've seen this year is Assembly Bill 267.  

 20       Failed in committee based on policy grounds 

 21       to expand all felonies.  

 22             Colorado has two bills that are 

 23       passing.  The first bill, 1166, adds 

 24       burglary.  They're currently a violent 

 25       offense and sex offender state.  That bill 



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  1  

  2       has passed both houses, but just needs to go 

  3       through a few procedural hoops.

  4             Next bill deals with adding the people 

  5       on parole or probation that we've talked 

  6       about earlier today.  Another interesting 

  7       clause in this bill, and this bill has 

  8       passed the legislature, it allows them to 

  9       take samples from all convicted felons if 

 10       they were convicted of a qualifying offense 

 11       at a previous time.  So that's a very unique 

 12       clause to to get them into the database.  

 13             Connecticut is the most comprehensive 

 14       bill our nation has seen yet.  It deals, 

 15       basically, with what the Commissioner was 

 16       talking about today, everybody arrested.  

 17             And it's it's modeled after the ISAP 

 18       association's resolution, the International 

 19       Association of Chiefs of Police.  It has 

 20       experienced a very significant debate up 

 21       there.  It is likely that it will not pass 

 22       this year in its current form, but, perhaps,  

 23       they'll end up with all felonies or 

 24       something just short of that. 

 25             Florida, the bill's on the Governor's 



                                                             279
  1  

  2       desk for all burglaries.  Georgia has passed 

  3       an all felons bill.  A very different 

  4       result, and we'll talk about this in a 

  5       moment.  I don't believe there were any no 

  6       votes on this bill as it zipped through the 

  7       legislative process.  

  8             Hawaii had two bills grabbing violent 

  9       offenses and burglary.  These bills have 

 10       failed, but not on policy grounds, strictly 

 11       on financial concerns.

 12             Kentucky has a couple of bills that 

 13       have failed. 671 adds all the violent 

 14       offenses.  We're looking into the reason why 

 15       this bill failed.  

 16             And another bill has failed.  It was 

 17       trying to add some of the lower sex 

 18       offenses, even some misdemeanors, but that 

 19       bill was defeated.

 20             Mississippi had an all felons bill 

 21       that was defeated, we're told on policy 

 22       grounds.  New Jersey, a very large populated 

 23       state that is looking to add the violent 

 24       offenses.  The main bill is Senate Bill 

 25       43839.  It has passed the Senate and is 



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  1  

  2       currently moving through the house.  

  3             Ohio, somewhat of a disappointment 

  4       because it's a larger state, and it doesn't 

  5       have the burglary or some of the other 

  6       violent offenses in its database.  This bill 

  7       was moving forward, and this provision was 

  8       stricken from the bill, so it doesn't look 

  9       like Ohio's going to deal with this issue 

 10       this year.  

 11             Pennsylvania has a few bills that are 

 12       moving around.  They haven't had hearings on 

 13       these bills this year.  They were introduced 

 14       last year, but we're told that some of them 

 15       won't move forward.

 16             Rhode Island introduced a bill as an 

 17       all felons bill, Senator McDonald up there, 

 18       but his leadership told him to tone down the 

 19       bill or it would go nowhere, so he's turned 

 20       it into a burglary bill, and Senate Bill 

 21       2184 will be the one to advance.  

 22             South Carolina has a very significant 

 23       bill.  They were just a sex offender only 

 24       state, adds all the  violent crimes, 

 25       burglary, and as far as I know, it's the 



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  2       first state in the nation, because this bill 

  3       has passed, well, it needs to go through 

  4       concurrence and back to the governor, but it 

  5       will be the first state in the nation to 

  6       have misdemeanors on the database.  And the 

  7       misdemeanors they chose were the stalking 

  8       offenses and those types of misdemeanors. 

  9             Washington State has an all felons 

 10       bill, 2732.  Being from that neck of the 

 11       woods, I was able to attend that hearing 

 12       personally where I watched the far right and 

 13       the far left join hands, create a very 

 14       unusual alliance to defeat this legislation 

 15       saying it was too broad and brought too many 

 16       privacy concerns.  

 17             West Virginia rounded out the violent 

 18       offenses adding burglary and is the first 

 19       state in the nation, absent the all felon 

 20       states to add lower level property crimes.  

 21             Now, looking at these bills throughout 

 22       this year and, perhaps, looking at the past 

 23       couple of years, there are definitely some 

 24       trends that we notice.

 25             First of all, the more populated 



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  2       states are moving towards all felons, or at 

  3       least attempting to.  Prior to this year, 

  4       you, basically, the only large populated 

  5       state you had do this was Virginia, but 

  6       we're seeing movement out of Florida, 

  7       California, Texas, New Jersey, so that is 

  8       definitely a trend in the making.  

  9             The next trend is that burglaries seem 

 10       to, obviously, be the baby steps that policy 

 11       makers, the lawmakers, around the country 

 12       are comfortable moving to when they move 

 13       outside of the violent offenses and into the 

 14       non-violent offenses.  

 15             State funding is definitely ly on the 

 16       rise.  I don't have to remind you folks that 

 17       state legislatures around the countries have 

 18       negligently ignored funding DNA databasing.  

 19             But things are definitely starting to 

 20       change.  New York, Governor Pataki, in his 

 21       budget, $11.8 million; Governor Grey Davis 

 22       in California, 5.5; Illinois has 2.3 for the 

 23       backlog; and I mentioned Florida, and I've 

 24       done this the last couple of presentations 

 25       because I just want to remind everyone I 



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  2       speak to that this is a textbook way of how 

  3       to pass legislation, what Florida did.

  4             What Florida did, is they went to the 

  5       Governor's office, and they said, we'd like 

  6       to add burglaries to our database, convinced 

  7       the Governor prior to the start of the 

  8       session to add the money in his budget 

  9       request to legislature, then they went and 

 10       got a legislator to introduce the bill, the 

 11       bill moved, the budget moved, and they both 

 12       passed during the same time; and that is a 

 13       perfect way to pass these expansion bills.  

 14             Unfortunately, that's not the way it 

 15       typically works in most states.  Usually, a 

 16       legislator gets the idea on their own to 

 17       introduce the bill.  It's too late to get 

 18       the money.  The bill passes.  There's an 

 19       unfunded mandate, and then you're trying to 

 20       catch up.  

 21             Another trend is that, obviously, 

 22       Congress is going to give you more money, we 

 23       hope, than they did last year.  They were 

 24       blessed with $15 million, but this year, I 

 25       suspect, there's going to be quite a bit 



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  2       more.  

  3             There's a slew of bills out there to 

  4       fund DNA databanking and things like that, 

  5       and Representative Gilman's bill, if you 

  6       compile all the money that he has 

  7       recommended in that bill over the next 

  8       couple of years, it reaches nearly $90 

  9       million.  

 10             We took a quote out a recent article 

 11       by Representative McCullum out of Florida, 

 12       who's the Crime Subcommittee Chair, and he's 

 13       quoted as saying, "This is definitely the 

 14       year that something big is going to happen 

 15       on DNA."  So that's good for all of us.  

 16             Another trend is that we're starting 

 17       to see a merger of the expansion bills and 

 18       the post-conviction bills.  Usually, these 

 19       bills are introduced separately in the 

 20       various state legislatures, but the state of 

 21       Arizona merged the two bills together and 

 22       passed it.  The state of Georgia did the 

 23       same thing, and I expect we'll see much more 

 24       of it in the future.  

 25             However, there are definitely pros and 



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  2       cons to this.  The pros are that you, 

  3       basically, take all the various interest 

  4       groups that are attached to each bill, put 

  5       them together, and they create a united 

  6       front to push these bills through.  

  7             On the expansion side, you usually 

  8       have your prosecutors, your law enforcement 

  9       groups, your victims' groups; and on the 

 10       post-conviction side you usually have the 

 11       ACLU, the defense bar, and when you merge 

 12       them together, they can't oppose each other.  

 13       And that, sometimes, is a good thing. 

 14             However, the downside is that each 

 15       state's politics are sometimes different.  

 16       Perhaps, in one state you might have a bill 

 17       introduced by different parties, and when 

 18       you try to merge those bills, things happen.  

 19       So that is definitely a con that might come 

 20       when merging these bills.  

 21             While many DNA expansion bills have 

 22       passed, unfortunately, a majority of them 

 23       have failed, and I think that it's common, 

 24       and dealing with you folks and hearing you, 

 25       I think it's common for all of us to say, 



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  2       oh, we're going to be in all felonies in a 

  3       couple of years anyway.  

  4             Well, I agree that eventually, you'll 

  5       probably end up at all felonies, perhaps, 

  6       more.  But I think it's not a two-year 

  7       process.  I think you're looking at more 

  8       like a ten-year process.  

  9             And the reason that these bills are 

 10       failing has to do with the intense level of 

 11       privacy and politics in the various policy 

 12       bodies in the country and how law 

 13       enforcement proposals, such as DNA 

 14       databasing are experiencing some resistance 

 15       from legislators.  

 16             This next slide kind of illustrates 

 17       what some of the black helicopter crowd 

 18       legislators view on legislation giving law 

 19       enforcement more power, and they see it as a 

 20       "Big Brother" at its best; and it's 

 21       something that the DNA issue's going to have 

 22       to deal with.  

 23             And it brings up many questions.  How 

 24       do we explain the different results on the 

 25       all felonies bills?  Why did the Georgia 



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  2       bill zip through the legislature with hardly 

  3       a no vote?  But yet we saw four states go 

  4       down on policy grounds.

  5             And I used to think that the reason 

  6       for this, perhaps, had to do something with 

  7       the northern state/southern state, democrat/ 

  8       republican, whether it was a veteran sponsor 

  9       or not.  

 10             But what really what it is, it's 

 11       depending on each individual state and how 

 12       bombarded that state's been on policy 

 13       issues.  And a state like California, I'm 

 14       saying this facetiously, but half of the 

 15       state's bills in that state deal with 

 16       privacy issues, and they're very cautious 

 17       about it.  So it's building and something 

 18       that's going to effect us in the long run.  

 19             Next question is, what is the impact 

 20       of other non-forensic DNA legislation going 

 21       to be DNA database expansion?  In 1999, 

 22       There were 150 bills dealing with DNA in the 

 23       state legislatures.  In 2000, that number 

 24       has doubled.  Most of those bills don't deal 

 25       with forensic DNA.  They deal with other DNA 



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  1  

  2       issues, such as telling insurance companies 

  3       that they can't use DNA to rate you.  

  4       They're telling employers that they can't 

  5       use DNA to screen you for jobs.  

  6             And what happens is, they're starting 

  7       to develop some bad feelings about DNA 

  8       because they're having to deal with these 

  9       privacy problems, and then when a good bill 

 10       comes in like expansion, sometimes the 

 11       legislatures are too upset about it; and 

 12       they'll ignore the expansion bill.  

 13             Will the power of advancing DNA 

 14       technology have a negative effect on 

 15       lawmakers?  I believe it may.  When some 

 16       lawmakers hear about law enforcement using 

 17       the advancing technology to pick up 

 18       cigarette butts of somebody that's not even 

 19       a suspect, but somebody they have a hunch 

 20       on, when they hear about that and they know 

 21       that that technology is readily available or 

 22       soon will be, they get nervous.  

 23       And then when the expansion bills come at 

 24       them, they start asking questions, and you 

 25       know how legislatures can be.  



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  1  

  2             However, can privacy concerns be 

  3       addressed in the legislation?  And prior to 

  4       answering this question, I think we need to 

  5       compare, and it was already done earlier 

  6       today, it to the AFIS systems, the finger 

  7       imaging databases.  

  8             Why is it that AFIS doesn't have any 

  9       problems?  It's, basically, the same type of 

 10       thing.  They take it, actually, for 

 11       everybody, not just convicted of a crime, 

 12       but everybody arrested.  

 13             But it doesn't seem like the ACLU 

 14       minds.  It doesn't seem like the legislators 

 15       mind.  How can we make DNA similar to that 

 16       in legislation, in giving the legislators 

 17       the comfort they need?  

 18             Well, we all know that the reason why 

 19       they are different and the reason why some 

 20       legislators have concerns is because DNA 

 21       provides you with much more information 

 22       about the individual as opposed to the 

 23       finger imaging.  

 24             So what can we do to make them the 

 25       same and to protect these privacy interests?  



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  1  

  2       We could say things in the legislation that 

  3       says that the DNA sample must be kept within 

  4       the law enforcement family.  We all know 

  5       that you're going to do that anyway, but if 

  6       you write it in a law, it gives these 

  7       legislators concerned about privacy 

  8       something to hold onto.  

  9             Another issue that Chris Asplen 

 10       brought up before was the issue of 

 11       destruction of evidence.  I believe that is 

 12       what would make most legislators 

 13       comfortable.  If you could take the 

 14       evidence, profile it, destroy it, so you 

 15       can't give that sample out to the nasty 

 16       insurance companies, that would make these 

 17       legislators comfortable.  

 18             I know there's huge issues involved 

 19       with that, and I'm glad to hear that it's 

 20       still on the plate of NIJ to keep evaluating 

 21       this issue.  

 22             Next, final, question is, is the 

 23       opportunity to expand forensic DNA 

 24       databasing going to close?   If this is 

 25       possible, should forensic DNA advocates take 



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  2       the statutory authority now, and worry about 

  3       the funding later.

  4             I know, as many of you, being crime 

  5       lab directors, it makes you very nervous to 

  6       have a statutory authority on the books and 

  7       not to be doing it. However, you may want to 

  8       continue taking some alternatives.  

  9             For example, what Arizona did is, they 

 10       didn't have the money to roll out a full 

 11       bill this year, so they did it in stages.  

 12       And they said, contingent on legislative 

 13       funding, we will do burglary later, that 

 14       type of thing.  

 15             Because if you wait -- let me back up.  

 16       Obviously, whenever these bills are 

 17       introduced, you must advocate the funding 

 18       throughout the whole process.  But let's say 

 19       at the end, leadership comes to the 

 20       advocates and says, we just don't have the 

 21       money this year.  Do you just let the bill 

 22       die or do you take the authority contingent 

 23       on later funding.

 24             And I would argue that you take the 

 25       authority contingent on legislative funding 



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  1  

  2       later because we're going to see our 

  3       opportunity to expand these things close, I 

  4       believe, because of these privacy issues, 

  5       and if we don't get it all in place in the 

  6       next five years, you might experience 

  7       resistance down the road.  

  8             Quickly, on post-conviction DNA 

  9       testing, there are a number of events that 

 10       have propelled this issue before our 

 11       nations' legislatures, of course, the 

 12       National Commission's work; The Innocence 

 13       Project, which has done an outstanding job 

 14       of advocating this issue; Governor Ryan's 

 15       moratorium; and the US Senator Patrick 

 16       Leahy's bill; and the extensive media 

 17       coverage. 

 18             All of that, in one year, has caused 

 19       this; 17 state legislatures to introduce 

 20       this bill, and that is quite a phenomenal 

 21       response, when you compare it to other 

 22       activities.  

 23             Statute of limitations issues, which 

 24       as we heard earlier, was started up in 

 25       Milwaukee, and the result of that cool idea 



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  1  

  2       that they had up there, nine states want to 

  3       make sure that that's okay; and they've 

  4       introduced statute of limitations extensions 

  5       for when you're dealing with DNA evidence.  

  6             I believe Connecticut's bill is 

  7       passed, Colorado's bill is passed, and it's 

  8       close in Minnesota, and Washington, of 

  9       course, had a little bill pass, but others 

 10       are still working it through.

 11             Quickly on the missing persons, As DNA 

 12       technology advances, some legislators are 

 13       saying, hey, why don't we do this for 

 14       missing persons too.  Why don't we create 

 15       these separate missing persons databases.  

 16       The FBI is doing this.  

 17             However, what I've noticed is that 

 18       some of these bills may be inconsistent with 

 19       developing FBI program, and they may want to 

 20       look at these bills and when these bills are 

 21       introduced, the FBI go out and make sure 

 22       it's consistent with sending the right 

 23       information to the FBI.  

 24             Finally, my last slide here is a "help 

 25       wanted sign."  It says, "A nonprofit group 



                                                             294
  1  

  2       with no government advocacy restrictions or 

  3       corporate interest that will make the 

  4       expansion and funding of criminal DNA 

  5       databasing their primary mission."  

  6             Many individuals throughout this 

  7       country in various states have been 

  8       extremely active in advocating the expansion 

  9       issue.  In New York, we heard from the 

 10       Commissioner and the Governor promoting this 

 11       in their own states.  

 12             In Arizona, somebody, Judge Reinstein 

 13       from the Commission, went out, and he's 

 14       pretty much the main reason why that bill 

 15       passed down there, a lot of individual 

 16       efforts.  

 17             But you don't have a collective group 

 18       capable of advocating to the various 

 19       legislatures, getting press releases out.  

 20       NIJ, they've got federal lobbying 

 21       restrictions.  The National Commission can't 

 22       do it, very restricted on what they can and 

 23       can't do.  

 24             A corporate lobbyist, we can provide 

 25       information and, perhaps, meet with some of 



                                                             295
  1  

  2       the legislators we deal with, but we're 

  3       tarnished by having the corporate label, and 

  4       we really can't be the ones out front 

  5       advocating.  

  6             So what I believe is needed is some 

  7       nonprofit group, similar to the Innocence 

  8       Project, that's had that phenomenal success, 

  9       to focus on this issue and go out and do 

 10       press releases, make appearances at 

 11       hearings; and I make that a challenge to 

 12       anyone sitting in the audience today to kind 

 13       of lump onto this idea and see if there's 

 14       somewhere you can run with it.  

 15             In closing, I want to say that in 

 16       order for me to give my presentations and 

 17       the get the information I have, what it's 

 18       based on is weekly searches we do of all the 

 19       various state legislation, all the 

 20       government publications, and newspaper 

 21       articles dealing with forensic DNA.  

 22             And what our office does is we put it 

 23       together in a nice little summary, a 

 24       paragraph about each bill, a paragraph about 

 25       each newspaper article, and we mail it on to 



                                                             296
  1  

  2       our clients, PE Biosystem.  They've 

  3       graciously allowed me to distribute that 

  4       report, that weekly summary to anyone who 

  5       wants it.  

  6             We currently have 200 people that get 

  7       a weekly e-mail with this summary attached.  

  8       And if you give me your business card with 

  9       your e-mail on it after the presentation 

 10       today, we will add you to that list and give 

 11       you that weekly e-mail.  Thank you very 

 12       much.

 13             (Applause.) 

 14             MR. GREENBERG:  We have a little bit 

 15       of time.  If people will stick around a 

 16       little bit, we'll take questions.  

 17             SPEAKER:  Yeah, I'd like to ask your 

 18       opinion of the Oregon law, which gives an 

 19       explicit property interest in the DNA 

 20       information.  

 21             MR. SCHELLBERG:  I'm not familiar with 

 22       that.  I believe Oregon is a pretty limited 

 23       in the database they have, and it's probably 

 24       a good question for Dawn Herkenham since she 

 25       was probably involved in that.



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  1  

  2             SPEAKER:  It's not a forensic DNA 

  3       issue.  It's from the other genetic privacy 

  4       issues, but instead of just keeping it 

  5       privacy, they have included property in it.  

  6       You'll find it in other legislation.

  7             MR. SCHELLBERG:  That's the first I've 

  8       heard of it, but that definitely shows that 

  9       legislature's very concerned about DNA 

 10       being, the issue about the insurance and 

 11       employers and things like that.  

 12             I suspect if that was a recent 

 13       creation by that legislature, and it 

 14       probably was, that if they try to  expand 

 15       their database to all felons, that some of 

 16       those legislators expand the database and 

 17       deal with some of those issues. 

 18             SPEAKER:  On the limited sample that 

 19       you have so far in your program what would 

 20       you estimate to be the number of wrongly 

 21       incarcerated rapists in the U.S., could you 

 22       put a number on it?

 23             MS. GREENE:  I don't have that exact 

 24       number on those, but we use, we often 

 25       extrapolate from an FBI study that was done, 



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  2       where they've done DNA testing every year 

  3       since 1989 of main suspects in rape cases, 

  4       and I think it's 25 percent of people that 

  5       you do at that stage are excluded and never 

  6       go to trial.  

  7             But based on that number, if you go 

  8       look at state conviction rates, which is 

  9       about a 62 percent conviction rate, out of 

 10       those numbers of people that would have gone 

 11       on to be convicted that should have been 

 12       excluded, you can tell you have thousands of 

 13       people, but it's not of innocent people in 

 14       prison.  

 15             But again, it's a pretty limited 

 16       number, you know, in general, in the 

 17       relative scheme of things.  It's pretty 

 18       easily remediable as well.

 19             SPEAKER:  Can you put a number on it 

 20       based upon your own experience, not the 

 21       FBI's experience, having worked through "X" 

 22       number of cases.

 23             MS. GREENE:  Well, I mean, on our 

 24       cases, as I said, we only can take a few of 

 25       the cases of the thousands of people that 



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  1  

  2       request our assistance just because there's 

  3       not DNA testing that would be appropriate to 

  4       test.  

  5             And out of the cases that we test, 

  6       about 40 to 50 percent are, in fact, guilty.  

  7             So, I mean, I can't really give a 

  8       general number for the whole prison 

  9       population, but there's clearly hundreds if 

 10       not thousands of innocent people out there.  

 11       I just can't get much more specific than 

 12       that, based on the numbers we have.

 13             SPEAKER:  Did I understand you 

 14       correctly that half the cases that you take, 

 15       would you say they are guilty, these are 

 16       people who have come to you, approached, you 

 17       said, I'm innocent, please get me this 

 18       testing, and they just don't understand the  

 19       technology, they don't understand that it 

 20       could prove them guilty?

 21             MS. GREENE: Right.  Well, that's a 

 22       good question, one that everybody always 

 23       asks.  I mean, you wonder how they can so, 

 24       particularly where they actually pay for DNA 

 25       testing.  



                                                             300
  1  

  2             So if it's an average of $5000, you 

  3       would probably think that that would prevent 

  4       them from going forward with it, but I think 

  5       some of them:  a. have actually convinced 

  6       themselves that they're actually innocent; 

  7       b.  some of them don't really understand DNA  

  8       testing and the power of it and the accuracy 

  9       of it, so they think, oh, well they have 

 10       nothing to lose.  They're in prison anyway, 

 11       maybe, by some fluke it will exclude them 

 12       and they'll get out; and some of them, it's 

 13       to their benefit in prison, the rapists and 

 14       particular if they've been involved, if it's 

 15       a sexual assault on a child, they're treated 

 16       really badly.

 17             So it's to their benefit to say, I'm 

 18       innocent.  The Innocence Project is working 

 19       on my case, and they know it will take us 

 20       years to actually get to the point where DNA 

 21       testing.  So they can kind of string us 

 22       along for a long time.

 23             SPEAKER:  I think if I was in prison 

 24       and I was truly guilty, I would have nothing 

 25       to lose by contacting the Innocence Project 



                                                             301
  1  

  2       because my great hope is that, okay. They 

  3       found my semen.  I'm guilty anyway.  There's 

  4       a chance maybe some people go to for this at 

  5       some point is fact that it doesn't matter 

  6       that people know at some point.  

  7             So it's actually beneficial to me not 

  8       to lose.  If I was in prison, I'd have 

  9       nothing to lose by contacting the Innocence 

 10       Project.

 11             MS. GREENE:  Right.  I mean we try to 

 12       scare people off a little bit and say if you 

 13       have other post-conviction relief petitions 

 14       pending, it could hurt you. You could hurt 

 15       your chances for parole.  

 16             I don't know how accurate that is, but 

 17       we try to at least caution them to think 

 18       about it before they go through with the 

 19       testing, and sometimes at the last minute, 

 20       they'll say, okay, we really don't want to 

 21       do the testing.  

 22             SPEAKER:  What effect do you think the 

 23       international practice will have on DNA 

 24       testing?  

 25             MR. SCHELLBERG:  I'm sorry.      



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  1  

  2             SPEAKER:  What effect do you think the 

  3       international practice on DNA testing will 

  4       have on U.S. law making.

  5             MR. SCHELLBERG:  I think, for example, 

  6       what you're saying is, what is the impact of 

  7       Britain going to have on us when they're 

  8       already doing all their arrestees.  

  9             I think it does show that we're 

 10       stopping short of that, and it allows us to, 

 11       perhaps, convince the lawmakers that 

 12       somebody's doing more, so they should at 

 13       least give us half way.  

 14             But, then again, I was at the 

 15       Washington State meeting and the chair of 

 16       the committee, it was told to her that 

 17       Britain is solving 600 cases a week or 

 18       whatever they do, and they say, yeah, but 

 19       they collect DNA from you when you're born 

 20       and we don't do that in the United States, 

 21       Those types of perceptions.  

 22             I don't know.  I don't really see them 

 23       having large impacts, other than the story 

 24       of results and the surveys of people that 

 25       support it by 80, 90 percent.  Those 



                                                             303
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  2       statistics would help, but the gut feel of 

  3       the privacy is something unique to our own 

  4       legislators around the country. 

  5             MR. GREENBERG:  Any other questions? 

  6       Okay.  Well, with that, I'd like to thank 

  7       our panel for their insights and innovative 

  8       suggestions.

  9             (Applause.)

 10  

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  2                 C E R T I F I C A T E

  3   STATE OF NEW YORK   )

  4                       : ss.

  5   COUNTY OF NEW YORK  )

  6  

  7              I, JEAN VALARIE GAFA, a Notary Public

  8        within and for the State of New York, do

  9        hereby certify that the within is a true and

 10        accurate transcript of the proceedings taken

 11        on May 8, 2000.

 12              I further certify that I am not

 13        related to any of the parties to this action

 14        by blood or marriage and that I am in no way

 15        interested in the outcome of this matter.

 16              IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto

 17        set my hand this 18th day of May, 2000.

 18        

 19  

 20                              _____________________

 21                                JEAN VALARIE GAFA

 22  

 23  

 24  

 25  


                                                             305
  1  

  2           The  National Institute of Justice

  3         U.S. Department of Justice, Presents 

  4                            

  5              THE FIFTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

  6                  ON THE FUTURE OF DNA

  7                            

  8      Implications for the Criminal Justice System

  9                            

 10                    Co-Sponsored By
                   New York State Division 
 11              of Criminal Justice Services

 12                 New York State Police

 13            New York City Police Department

 14    Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists

 15                            
                   Marriott East Side Hotel
 16                   New York, New York
                       Stuyvesant Room
 17                  Tuesday, May 9, 2000
                          8:45 a.m.
 18  

 19  

 20  

 21  

 22  

 23  

 24  Reported by:
     JEAN VALERIE GAFA
 25  JOB NO. 104648



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  1  

  2  A P P E A R A N C E S

  3  

  4  GEORGE F. SENSABAUGH
     Professor of Forensic Science 
  5  and Biomedical Sciences
     School of Public Health
  6  University of California, Berkeley
     Berkeley, California
  7  
     R.E. GAENSSLEN
  8  Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
     Forensic Science Program
  9  University of Illinois at Chicago
     Chicago, Illinois
 10  
     DAVID A. ROWLEY
 11  Professor of Chemistry and Forensic Sciences
     Chair
 12  Department of Forensic Sciences
     The George Washington University
 13  Washington, DC

 14  VICTOR W. WEEDN
     Director of Biotechnology and Health Initiatives
 15  Principal Research Scientist
     Carnegie Mellon University
 16  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

 17  KENNETH J. CONNOLLY
     Deputy Commissioner and Counsel
 18  New York State Division 
     of Criminal Justice Services
 19  Albany, New York

 20  KEITH COONROD
     Director
 21  Toxicology and Drug Chemistry Services
     New York State Police Laboratory System
 22  Albany, New York

 23  

 24  

 25  



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  1  

  2  TERRY W. FENGER
     Director
  3  Forensic Science Program
     Chair
  4  Department of Microbiology, 
     Immunology and Molecular Genetics
  5  Marshall University School of Medicine
     Huntington, West Virginia
  6  
     KIM HERD
  7  Senior Attorney
     Program Manager
  8  DNA Legal Assistance Unit
     American Prosecutors Research Institute
  9  Alexandria, Virginia

 10  WILLIAM J. TILSTONE
     Executive Director
 11  National Forensic Science Technology Center
     Largo, Florida
 12  
     DAVID G. BOYD
 13  Deputy Director
     National Institute of Justice
 14  U.S. Department of Justice
     Washington, DC
 15  
     C. THOMAS CASKEY
 16  Chief Operating Officer and President
     Cogen Biotech Ventures, Ltd.
 17  Houston, Texas

 18  JAMES R. CROW
     Professor-Emeritus
 19  Department of Genetics
     University of Wisconsin at Madison
 20  Madison, Wisconsin

 21  HENRY A. ERLICH
     Director
 22  Human Genetics Department
     Roche Molecular Systems, Inc.
 23  Alameda, California

 24  

 25  



                                                             308
  1  

  2  NORMAN A. GAHN
     Assistant District Attorney 
  3  Sexual Assault Unit
     Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office
  4  Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  5  KENNETH K. KIDD
     Professor
  6  Department of Genetics and Psychiatry
     School of Medicine
  7  Yale University
     New Haven, Connecticut
  8  
     JOSHUA LEDERBERG
  9  President-Emeritus
     Sackler Foundation Scholar
 10  The Rockefeller University
     New York, New York
 11  
     MARK BATZER
 12  Associate Professor
     Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 
 13  and Biometry and Genetics
     Louisiana State University
 14  New Orleans, Louisiana

 15  MICHAEL HAMMER
     Associate Research Scientist
 16  Division of Biotechnology
     University of Arizona
 17  Tuscon, Arizona

 18  TERRY MELTON 
     President and Chief Executive Officer
 19  Mitotyping Technologies
     State College, Pennsylvania
 20  
     REBECCA REYNOLDS
 21  Section Manager
     Human Identity Program
 22  Roche Molecular Systems, Inc.
     Alameda, California
 23  
     JOHN BUTLER
 24  Research Chemist
     Biotechnology Division / DNA Technologies Group
 25  National Institute of Standards and Technology



                                                             309
  1  

  2  DAN EHRLICH
     Director
  3  BioMEMS Laboratory
     Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
  4  Cambridge, Massachusetts

  5  MARK W. PERLIN
     Chief Executive Officer
  6  Cybergenetics Co.
     Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
  7  
     RONALD SOSNOWSKI
  8  Director of Molecular Biology and Assay Development
     Nanogen Inc.
  9  San Diego, California

 10  LISA FORMAN
     Deputy Director
 11  Investigative and Forensic Sciences Division
     Office of Science and Technology
 12  National Institute of Justice
     U.S. Department of Justice
 13  Washington, DC

 14  

 15  

 16  

 17  

 18  

 19  

 20  

 21  

 22  

 23  

 24  

 25  



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  1  

  2     PANEL V:  THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION IN THE FIELD

  3             DR. SENSABAUGH:  Good morning.  My name 

  4       is George Sensabaugh, and I have the 

  5       pleasure of introducing the first session of 

  6       the morning.  The topic of this session is 

  7       education and science.  

  8             The scene over the last decade has 

  9       seen a change in forensic science and the 

 10       way it is crafted, and quite a bit of that 

 11       can be attributed to the application and the 

 12       inference of the science.  Let me just spell 

 13       out some of the ways in which the landscape 

 14       has changed in the last decade.  

 15             First off, forensic science has become 

 16       far more visible in years past, the public 

 17       knows who we are as a field.  They have a 

 18       perception of who we are.  Unfortunately, 

 19       some of that perception is changed and 

 20       shaped by what they see on television, both 

 21       the fictional form as well as real cases.  

 22             But more to the point, forensic 

 23       science has come under increased scrutiny 

 24       for the quality of its work product.  

 25       There's far more criticism.  Everyone's mind 



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  1  

  2       is on quality control in years past.  The 

  3       quality of evidence created by DNA has 

  4       raised the quality bar in all other areas of 

  5       forensic science as well.  

  6             Secondly, the legal system greatly, as 

  7       a consequence of the Dalbert Decision but 

  8       also by the emergence of DNA technology, is 

  9       taking a new look at the scientific 

 10       underpinnings of the forensic evidence that 

 11       we use in forensic science.  

 12             These are some of the more apparent 

 13       changes in the landscape, but there are 

 14       somewhat more subtle ones as well.  The 

 15       economics of criminal investigation have 

 16       changed.  There's a new reemphasis on the 

 17       quality control, that is, how evidence is 

 18       recognized, collected and brought into the 

 19       laboratory.  

 20             There's more of an emphasis on the 

 21       collection of high-information yield 

 22       evidence, sometimes to the detriment of 

 23       other forms of evidence that have less 

 24       information.  

 25             It is worth noting that in the Becky 



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  1  

  2       Sparkes presentation yesterday, she spoke of 

  3       the development of a scientific task force 

  4       that would go to scenes of crimes to 

  5       maximize the collection of evidence, the 

  6       value of evidence that was collected at 

  7       scene.  

  8             This is, incidentally, reminiscent for 

  9       me of my mentor, Paul Herm at Berkeley, who 

 10       advocated some 50 years ago that science 

 11       should be much more involved in the criminal 

 12       information process, in criminal 

 13       investigation.  

 14             Another aspect of this is that from 

 15       the emergence of the potential of databases, 

 16       forensic science is being thought of both as 

 17       an intelligence tool as well as an 

 18       investigative tool. This is forensic science 

 19       in the proactive mode rather than in a 

 20       reactive mode, and that is a new way of 

 21       thinking for the field.  

 22             Lab operations have changed in scope 

 23       and in scale.  We now talk casually about 

 24       analyzing thousands or tens of thousands of 

 25       samples rather than the case-by-case 



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  1  

  2       analysis that has been the mode for the last 

  3       40 or 50 years.  

  4             We talk of clinical lab models.  Dave 

  5       Coffman spoke yesterday of submitting only 

  6       rape kits for analysis and ignoring the 

  7       general work-up of the case until after the 

  8       rape kit had been worked.  This reflects, in 

  9       part, on the distribution of the use of 

 10       resources in the laboratory, a change in the 

 11       distribution between the scientific and the 

 12       technical roles within the laboratory.  

 13             There is a pressure for increased 

 14       specialization, and DNA has brought this to 

 15       a sharp relief, but the requirements for 

 16       specialized training are spreading 

 17       throughout the field.  

 18             The technology and knowledge base 

 19       within the field are expanding, and this is 

 20       putting at risk a generation of people who 

 21       were trained 10 and 20 years ago, who either 

 22       have to be retrained or elevated into 

 23       administrative positions, as often is the 

 24       case in government when we find we can't do 

 25       anything else with them.  At least it 



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  1  

  2       happens in our government.  

  3             So all of this reflects this major 

  4       change that has occurred to the landscape of 

  5       forensic science.  So in this period of 

  6       change, we can ask, where is the next 

  7       generation of forensic scientists going to 

  8       come from? How will they be prepared to face 

  9       the challenges of tomorrow?  This is where 

 10       the question of education comes in.  

 11             Historically, the professors have 

 12       turned to academia to provide the education 

 13       for its practitioners.  This is what we, as 

 14       a group, up here are going to address today.  

 15             There are a series of questions which 

 16       we are going to focus on.  No one individual 

 17       is going to focus on any or all of them 

 18       specifically, but, overall, we hope to touch 

 19       on all of them.  

 20             The set of questions are here:  

 21             1.  What are the elements of core 

 22       curriculum in forensic science?  

 23             2.  What is the balance in specialized 

 24       training, and what are the mechanisms for 

 25       achieving the balance?  



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  1  

  2             3.  What is the appropriate level for 

  3       education programs, undergraduate and 

  4       graduate both?  

  5             4.  What is the proper scope of 

  6       forensic science; should it address, 

  7       particularly, the needs of crime 

  8       laboratories, or should it address more 

  9       broadly the diverse uses of science in the 

 10       legal system?  

 11             5.  How do we transmit the core values 

 12       of the field, the ethics of the field?  

 13             6.  How do we transmit the future 

 14       directions of the field?  

 15             7.  What is the role of research; 

 16       should it be a part of the educational 

 17       curriculum, and what about the role of 

 18       Ph.D.?

 19             8.  How do we fund forensic science 

 20       education?  

 21             With these questions in mind, let me 

 22       introduce the panel.  We have Dave Rowley 

 23       from George Washington University; Victor 

 24       Weedn from Carnegie Mellon University; and 

 25       R.E. Gaensslen, currently known of the 



                                                             316
  1  

  2       University of Illinois, Chicago.  And Dave 

  3       will make the first presentation.  

  4             DR. ROWLEY:  First of all, I want to 

  5       NIJ for inviting me to give this 

  6       presentation.  It's always nice to stand up 

  7       and talk about things that you strongly 

  8       believe in.  

  9             What I'd like to try to do today is to 

 10       discuss what I think is the importance of 

 11       the education in the forensic science field; 

 12       to give some examples, specifically, the 

 13       example of our programs at George Washington 

 14       University; and then to finish off by giving 

 15       you sort of my thoughts and recommendations 

 16       about what needs to be done to promote 

 17       education in the field of forensic science.  

 18             I thought maybe I'd start out by 

 19       talking briefly about the knowledge base 

 20       that we all share.  In my mind, the 

 21       underpinning of the knowledge base is the 

 22       education that you pursue from your 

 23       elementary school right through to Ph.d.    

 24             Probably, the most important course 

 25       that I took, and I was in school for many 



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  1  

  2       years, my wife at one time called me a 

  3       professional student, was plane geometry in 

  4       high school.  It was a course that taught me 

  5       how to think, how to solve problems.  

  6             It's a method that I use daily in the 

  7       things that I do, and I think, maybe if you 

  8       look back and decide on the course that you 

  9       think was the most important kind of thing 

 10       to the development research, it is a 

 11       critical component of knowledge.  

 12             What you try to do in research is 

 13       developing hypotheses, designing research 

 14       projects, carrying out the project, and 

 15       analyzing the material.  

 16             Training.  I'd like to differentiate 

 17       between education and training.  Yesterday, 

 18       I heard the word "training" used almost 

 19       exclusively.  I can't remember hearing more 

 20       than once or twice during the time that 

 21       people talked about education.  

 22             They talked about training.  Training, 

 23       to me is learning and using and doing very 

 24       well with a particular technique.  You are 

 25       not interested in solving problems, 



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  1  

  2       necessarily.  You wanted to accomplish a 

  3       goal with a particular technique.  And to 

  4       me, that's the major difference between 

  5       education and training.  

  6             Education.  We just talked about the 

  7       fact that there are people in the 

  8       laboratories, people in the society, that 

  9       have a certain education, tools, and they 

 10       need to be upgraded.  Continuing education 

 11       is clearly an important component, and that 

 12       can take many different forms.  

 13             That can take the form of going back 

 14       to school, getting another degree.  It can 

 15       take the form of courses.  It can be 

 16       training, if you have arrived at different 

 17       kinds.  

 18             The one bullet that I didn't put up is 

 19       life experiences.  That is the clear heart 

 20       of the knowledge base that we all have, and 

 21       our interaction with our peers gives us a 

 22       great deal of knowledge with which to work.  

 23             I just want to make one comment, and 

 24       that is that I think we need to be careful 

 25       that we don't succumb to this topic of the 



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  1  

  2       day, education.  

  3             Today we're going to teach one thing 

  4       because it's important today.  Because it's 

  5       quite possible that by the time that you 

  6       finish your education, that particular topic 

  7       is no longer going to be the topic of the 

  8       day, and there's going to be something else 

  9       in its place, we need to have a broad 

 10       educational program.  

 11             In my opinion, education provides the 

 12       basis for life-long learning.  When you talk 

 13       about education in the forensic sciences, 

 14       the three sort of general areas are, of 

 15       course, Undergraduate education, the 

 16       Master's program, and the Ph.D.  

 17             I'd like to comment on all three of 

 18       those.  At the Undergraduate level, what 

 19       you're trying to do is provide the 

 20       individual with a well-rounded education, an 

 21       education in which the student knows what 

 22       learning is about, knows how to communicate 

 23       when they finish, and has a fundamental 

 24       understanding of his own particular arena.  

 25             At the Master's level, you're talking 



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  1  

  2       about a discipline-oriented program or 

  3       multidiscipline program, programs that 

  4       combine chemistry, they combine physics into 

  5       a particular program.  Even broader at the 

  6       Master's level.  

  7             Ph.D., again, this is a research 

  8       degree, a degree in which people get an 

  9       in-depth knowledge of the particular field 

 10       they're interested in.  They learn how to 

 11       formulate hypotheses, carry out experiments, 

 12       and analyze the experiments, critically 

 13       analyze the experiments.  

 14             If you look at the fields of study for 

 15       forensic science, you can again talk about 

 16       the three areas.  The Undergraduate degree, 

 17       in my mind should not be a degree in 

 18       forensic science.  It should be a degree in 

 19       a discipline.  

 20             As I said, I was a chemist.  So it 

 21       might be chemistry, but it could be any 

 22       other field.  You could prepare for  

 23       forensic science as a person in religion or 

 24       philosophy.  I would think that if you 

 25       pursued degrees of humanities, you would 



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  1  

  2       want to have a strong science base, 

  3       chemistry, physics, biology.  You would not 

  4       take only the discipline, but the science 

  5       base as well if you're not in the science.  

  6             The Master's degree, for me, is for 

  7       forensic science.  It is an 

  8       interdisciplinary degree.  It is not a 

  9       discipline-based degree at this time.  

 10             You would be taking courses in 

 11       forensic DNA, forensic chemistry, law, a 

 12       variety of different kinds of things at the 

 13       Master's level.  

 14             Then we go back to the Ph.D., back to 

 15       the discipline.  I don't think at this point 

 16       that forensic science is ready for a Ph.D. 

 17       program.  We are still looking at 

 18       discipline-oriented programs.  We may look 

 19       at forensic science, but it is a 

 20       discipline-oriented program. 

 21             Let me give an example or two.  At 

 22       George Washington University, we have two 

 23       programs in forensic science.  In this is 

 24       one, our Master of Science in Forensic 

 25       Science, we have a second track, which is 



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  1  

  2       not here, which is our Master of Forensic 

  3       Science, which is a general program which 

  4       provides an arena.  

  5             We have our Master of Science.  Three 

  6       tracks requiring an Undergraduate degree in 

  7       biology, biological sciences, biochemistry.  

  8             We have our Forensic Chemistry program 

  9       and our Forensic Toxicology program.  I'll 

 10       show you the curriculum for the Forensic 

 11       Molecular Biology.  

 12             If you look at this, two things sort 

 13       of jump out at you.  It's interdisciplinary; 

 14       it's law, it's molecular biology.  In 

 15       addition to the focus on DNA, we have the 

 16       criminal law component of it.  

 17             We have physical aspects.  We feel 

 18       that people need to have a broad forensic 

 19       science background in addition to the 

 20       in-depth study of DNA.  

 21             You'll see a couple of other kinds of 

 22       things.  There are internships that we 

 23       strongly encourage our students to do.  

 24       Research is required.  This is a 

 25       thesis-oriented program.  



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  2             In addition to this, we have a seminar 

  3       series at the University which provides the 

  4       opportunity for people to meet practitioners 

  5       in a variety of areas, not only DNA, but 

  6       forensic photography.  We had the Chief 

  7       Inspector of Fairfax County, a variety of 

  8       programs for students.  

  9             So when they come out of the program, 

 10       they're not narrowly focussed in DNA, but 

 11       they have a wide experience in a variety of 

 12       different areas.  Not only do our faculty 

 13       teach this, but our students observe DNA 

 14       profiling up in Rockville.  

 15             We have people on staff and people out 

 16       in the community working in the area 

 17       teaching the programs.  We have internships 

 18       with a variety of different organizations:  

 19       The private production laboratories, I 

 20       guess, is a way to characterize that, Bode, 

 21       Fairfax Laboratory and these groups work 

 22       with us and provide paid internships; the 

 23       public, AFDIL, the FBI(Quantico) provide a 

 24       variety of different kinds of things, and 

 25       these internships typically are half-time, 



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  1  

  2       so the student is working in these 

  3       laboratories.  

  4             Some of them are paid, some of them 

  5       not.  Some of them carry tuition, some of 

  6       them don't.  For those who aren't, we can go 

  7       to the administration and get money for them 

  8       for tuition.  

  9             We talked a little bit, one of the 

 10       things that they wanted us to say something 

 11       about was future research, and you already 

 12       heard about this, but some of the things 

 13       that we can do is not human research.  

 14             People at Bode are working very hard 

 15       on plant DNA, the characterization of 

 16       pollen, for example, can help identify the 

 17       location of a particular person, whether or 

 18       not they were at or likely to be at a crime 

 19       scene.  

 20             Remote sensing, we talked about.  We 

 21       had the opportunity just recently to talk 

 22       with people at NASA and their teleforensic 

 23       program, and it looks like we'll be working 

 24       with them to try to develop something along 

 25       those lines.  



                                                             325
  1  

  2             Miniaturization, of course, the 

  3       lab-on-a-chip.  That keeps coming up.  

  4       You'll hear that a lot.  They've been 

  5       talking about a lab-on-a-chip for probably 

  6       seven or eight years.  Some day it will come 

  7       to fruition.  It's not there yet, but 

  8       hopefully. 

  9             Training.  We talked about just 

 10       briefly before.  Let me give some examples.  

 11       You may need to have people that are 

 12       competent in a particular piece of 

 13       equipment, an example, of course, being the 

 14       ABI 310, a common workhorse that many of the 

 15       laboratories use.  

 16             Learning how to use that is training.  

 17       Learning the basic principles of operation 

 18       and problem solving, I think, is more 

 19       education.  There are two things you can do.  

 20       The same would be true, of course, for other 

 21       kinds of opportunities, and, of course, a 

 22       very important consideration is this whole 

 23       on-the-job training.  You're going to be 

 24       learning as you go on many kinds of 

 25       different things.  I learn every day.  



                                                             326
  1  

  2             Finally, what I'd like to do is hope 

  3       that I've convinced you that education is 

  4       critical, that it is a necessary component, 

  5       and in order to continue education to make 

  6       the forensic science programs as strong as 

  7       possible, I think there are some things that 

  8       need to be done.  

  9             I think there are sort of, in my mind, 

 10       three important and critical areas that need 

 11       attention, that there is no attention or 

 12       little attention to at this point for the 

 13       forensic science community.  

 14             Funding for graduate students.  We 

 15       have, and I'm sure this is true of all the 

 16       programs I've talked about, in Michigan they 

 17       have some highly-qualified applications 

 18       they're turning away.  We have, for our 

 19       Master of Science program, probably over a 

 20       hundred students that are qualified.  

 21             We take, for the Microbiology Program, 

 22       eight students.  The reason we don't take 

 23       more is that we don't have the money for 

 24       them.  We don't have space for them.  We 

 25       don't have money for research.  These are 



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  1  

  2       the things that are limiting in forensic 

  3       science education at this point.  I would 

  4       encourage the group to think carefully about 

  5       that. 

  6             It is critical that we have 

  7       well-educated people in forensic science, 

  8       and we're going to need to do that.  We're 

  9       going to help do that by increasing the 

 10       funds for forensic science education.  Thank 

 11       you very much. 

 12             DR. SENSABAUGH:  Our next speaker will 

 13       be Bob Gaensslen from the University of 

 14       Chicago, Illinois. 

 15             DR. GAENSSLEN:  Thank you, George. I'd 

 16       like to thank the Institute for inviting me 

 17       here today to talk about this subject.  I've 

 18       been a forensic science educator all my 

 19       adult life.  

 20             I'd like to introduce to you a new 

 21       model which we have put together with the 

 22       Illinois State Police and suggest to you 

 23       that this model might be exportable.  It 

 24       might be extrapolatable to other 

 25       jurisdictions and other places.  My 



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  1  

  2       colleagues in this work have been my friend, 

  3       Adam Negrusz, A. Karl Larsen, and Peter 

  4       Striupaitis.  

  5             Normally, we talk about how to educate 

  6       forensic scientists, how we've done it up to 

  7       now, and, typically, at a minimum, there's 

  8       pretty many people working in forensic labs 

  9       who have forensic science degrees.  

 10             More recently, say in the last 20 

 11       years or something like that, we've tended 

 12       to see people with either Undergraduate 

 13       hard-science degrees and Masters in Forensic 

 14       Science.  That's pretty typical, and that's 

 15       the one we probably favor for, perhaps, not 

 16       altogether unselfish reasons.  

 17             You also can see people who have 

 18       Undergraduate degrees in Forensic Science, 

 19       sometimes who also go on to get Master's 

 20       degrees in Chemistry or Biochemistry or 

 21       things like that.  

 22             And lately, because of the DNA push, 

 23       people have come into the field with 

 24       Molecular Genetics and Microbiology.  Those 

 25       people have been necessary to the 



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  1  

  2       development of DNA programs.  Technically, 

  3       they don't have any forensic science in 

  4       their educational background.  

  5             One of the global questions, as I go 

  6       along too, is why should we have forensic 

  7       science degree programs at all?  Who the 

  8       hell cares?  Why don't we let the lab 

  9       directors decide?  Everybody can pick up 

 10       this stuff on-the-job, right?  

 11             I think most of us think that's not 

 12       right.  If we're going to be a profession, 

 13       there has to be some underlying principles 

 14       to define our profession.  As George was 

 15       saying, there are ethics issues.  There are 

 16       approaches that we follow that are not the 

 17       same as those used by traditional 

 18       scientists, and if you want to pass that 

 19       along to another generation, education has 

 20       to play a role in that.  

 21             I'll just mention two of them that I 

 22       think are important.  One, is our dealings 

 23       are strictly with the legal system, almost 

 24       exclusively.  We don't deal with fellow 

 25       scientists.  We deal with lawyers, sometimes 



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  1  

  2       with citizens when we testify.  

  3             That's a different exercise in 

  4       education than writing articles, and it 

  5       requires some additional knowledge and 

  6       training and ways of thinking about things 

  7       that are not common in the sciences.  

  8             The second thing, is 

  9       individualization.  We, uniquely among 

 10       scientists, are interested in 

 11       individualizing people and things.  No other 

 12       chemist in the world cares about 

 13       individualizing things that are mostly 

 14       unseen.  

 15             I agree that basic science training 

 16       doesn't deal with problem solving, and as a 

 17       profession, we probably should encourage 

 18       education and training so that there will be 

 19       an education base for our profession that we 

 20       can pass on from one generation to the next. 

 21             This whole residency concept came 

 22       about by trying to relate educational 

 23       preparation and science degrees, basic 

 24       science.  A Forensic science degree is a 

 25       knowledge and background in forensic 



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  1  

  2       sciences, and that's about where we stop 

  3       most of the time.  

  4             The laboratories need both of those 

  5       things, but they also need, as I pointed 

  6       out, high laboratory skill levels and they 

  7       need high level skill levels in specialty 

  8       areas.  

  9             I think the way it shapes out is, the 

 10       first two are typically met by the education 

 11       most people get when they hit the job 

 12       market, but these last three are probably 

 13       not.  

 14             This program is in response to that 

 15       need which has been articulated in some 

 16       quarters by the lab directors.  Most are 

 17       engaged in a lot of training.  They hire 

 18       somebody -- Illinois is an extreme example 

 19       of this.  Illinois training is one year and 

 20       can be as long as three years depending on 

 21       the specialty.  There is an enormous need 

 22       for people that are trained up to case work 

 23       level at the point of hire.  

 24             That's what we're trying to do here.  

 25       We would like to incorporate their training 



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  1  

  2       programs, which are acknowledged as being 

  3       good, and have academic components added 

  4       into them, into our existing curriculum.  

  5       This is a marriage, if you will, of 

  6       education and training.  

  7             Dave Rowley is absolutely right.  

  8       There is a complete difference between 

  9       education and training.  They're not 

 10       identical.  They shouldn't be seen at 

 11       identical.  We think we can meet the 

 12       education roles of the university so we can 

 13       actually claim that a person has a Master's 

 14       level training but also incorporate lab 

 15       training in the same program.  

 16             This "Clinical" Model Concept 

 17       originated, actually, in an old issue of the 

 18       Journal of Forensic Sciences.  Any way, the 

 19       usual concept of internship doesn't quite do 

 20       it, so let's look around us.  

 21             We're in a medical environment where 

 22       we are.  What do these words mean?  What do 

 23       people do to train themselves?  We decided 

 24       to use this term "residency" to distinguish 

 25       it from internship, primarily, because the 



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  1  

  2       internships are way too short and sometimes 

  3       they're not even structured properly.  

  4             The residency follows along, clinical 

  5       residency, where you have a basic level of 

  6       education.  Now, you're really learning your 

  7       education, and in this case, it's forensic 

  8       science.  It doesn't take a lot of change 

  9       for us in order to incorporate this into our 

 10       current curriculum.  

 11             You will find that people who believe 

 12       in core curricula at George Washington, 

 13       Michigan state, are all going to have 

 14       similar core programs.  We all accept what 

 15       Criminalistics covers.  So there will be a 

 16       course in each one of those things.  

 17             Basically, this is the underlying 

 18       philosophy:  Drug ID / Toxicology and 

 19       Pattern Evidence.  You've got to have a 

 20       research component, and people call this 

 21       different things, but they're all going to 

 22       be there in some form or another.  

 23             In order to integrate that training, 

 24       what we will do is take some of the common 

 25       elements the Illinois State Police presents 



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  1  

  2       to their new employees and build that into 

  3       the criminalistics core, which is very easy 

  4       to do.  

  5             Electives.  We simply can build in 

  6       specialized academic courses that will be 

  7       required or residency credits.  There will 

  8       be about a credit a month for maintaining 

  9       the residency.  

 10             For students, they have to apply for 

 11       this, including taking a polygraph.  We do 

 12       lose a fraction of our people to polygraph 

 13       when they're trying to get internships.  

 14       Admission to the program cannot be 

 15       guaranteed.  Admission into the University 

 16       of Illinois doesn't guarantee you admission 

 17       to an internship, so it's an option.  

 18             You have to select, at least in 

 19       Illinois, you have to select a specialty, 

 20       and the way we conceptualized it, in any 

 21       specialty selected.  We're going to let 

 22       students try to do this at the end of year 

 23       when they start to have an idea of what 

 24       their specialties are.  

 25             There's a huge time and effort 



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  1  

  2       commitment that will have to be met, and 

  3       finally, you can fail, you cannot make it 

  4       through residency.  Success is not 

  5       guaranteed by admission.  

  6             Just to give you a quick idea of the 

  7       Illinois State Police Forensic Program, the 

  8       components of their training program are, 

  9       number one, academic.  There's a lot of 

 10       classroom work, there's a lot of testing.  

 11       There's test you must pass, practical 

 12       laboratory work.  

 13             Then at the end of the supervised case 

 14       work, this is where you do case work in one 

 15       to three years, as I said depending on the 

 16       state.  It's highly structured.  It's very 

 17       formal.  

 18             They put a lot of resources into it.  

 19       It's performance and outcome based, tailored 

 20       to a particular area, as I said.  It is 

 21       internationally recognized for its 

 22       excellence.  They have to just get their 

 23       training.  

 24             Illinois has trouble retaining people.  

 25       They come to get the training, they put the 



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  2       time back in, and they leave.  It is easily 

  3       integrated into a formal education program 

  4       such as ours.  

  5             In terms of the academic program, we 

  6       will take some of their academic stuff and 

  7       put it in our core.  And then the laboratory 

  8       training skills part.  The supervised case 

  9       work will not be an included in the 

 10       residency program.  

 11             The University M.S. program in 

 12       Forensic Science is a two-year deal which, 

 13       is not too much in variance with what we do 

 14       right now.  The way we will shorten what is 

 15       otherwise a longer training program on their 

 16       part is simply by incorporating some of this 

 17       academic material and training into the 

 18       University's program and eight months to a 

 19       full year depending on the specialty area 

 20       for the practical laboratory program, and 

 21       that would be done as soon as someone is 

 22       hired, it seems to us.  

 23             For the University, obviously, we're 

 24       better integrated to the operational 

 25       laboratory needs.  It's better for students 



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  1  

  2       who go for an interview to say, I'm trained 

  3       in trace DNA and molecular whatever it is.   

  4       And, of course, it's designed in such a way 

  5       that other laboratories and universities 

  6       could use it as a model. 

  7             For operational laboratories, they 

  8       have a chance to select residents from a 

  9       pool of highly qualified and geographically 

 10       diverse students that we can provide to the 

 11       national application pool of something like 

 12       a hundred people every fall, and all very 

 13       good students.  

 14             They get a prescreened pool.  They've 

 15       already been polygraphed and we've trained 

 16       them.  It would be a good thing for the 

 17       scientists.  This is the kicker:  They get 

 18       free trainees.  Their stake in it 

 19       economically is, they didn't have to pay the 

 20       trainee.  We've written this up in ASCLD 

 21       News, Spring 2000 for those who may be 

 22       interested in reading more about it.  

 23             Back to the global questions for a 

 24       moment to try to relate this idea to those 

 25       questions.  Do we need forensic science 



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  1  

  2       programs?  My answer is, yes, we do.  We 

  3       would favor a hard science Master's degree.  

  4       We love chemistry.  Biology is acceptable.  

  5             We do believe in core curriculum 

  6       elements.  If we're going to be a 

  7       profession, there's a basic quality of 

  8       knowledge that we should convey to everyone.  

  9       The Illinois State Police accept this.  Even 

 10       though they're very specialty oriented, they 

 11       do accept it.  

 12             And I think that's true, if only, and 

 13       I would go beyond this, if only because they 

 14       may some day be supervised, and they may 

 15       have to supervise people who have to do 

 16       other things and we may reach that.  

 17             Not every case is still a DNA case.  

 18       So the pattern evidence and DNA evidence are 

 19       still going to continue to be necessary.  

 20             The integration of education versus 

 21       training.  We are going to continue to do an 

 22       M.S.  Degree for people, broader scope 

 23       training, even training cops to try to 

 24       understand how to work scenes and how to do 

 25       forensic science.  That's very important.  



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  1  

  2             Probably the single thing that's 

  3       missing is lab scene communications and lab 

  4       scene relationships.  We are addressing them 

  5       and it's going to take time.  

  6             This program does in a way transmit 

  7       the core values to a new generation, 

  8       something that I deeply believe in.  

  9       Research continues to play a big role.  

 10             I would probably argue that we would 

 11       not expect a lab person to do a reasonable 

 12       validation study that would not even be able 

 13       to be considered research.  

 14             How can forensic science education be 

 15       funded; the key question.  Right now we fund 

 16       it from our own monies.  Each university 

 17       program does that.  We're Master's programs 

 18       for the most part.  

 19             I would agree with Dave that there's 

 20       no room here for a Ph.D. in forensic science 

 21       because forensic science is a discipline.  

 22       With all the Ph.D. programs on our campus, 

 23       about 57 of them to try to support these 

 24       grad students.  

 25             We do succeed in getting money, but 



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  1  

  2       not every year.  We can support four to 

  3       five, so it doesn't need to be a problem.  

  4             The last thought, or let's say second 

  5       to last thought.  One word they didn't put a 

  6       bullet for, distance in the classroom.  In a 

  7       way, we're uniquely positioned, I suppose, 

  8       within our system to provide this kind of 

  9       education.  

 10             My answer is sometimes to this 

 11       question, it depends on what you're doing.  

 12       We haven't figured out how to do laboratory 

 13       instruction by distance.  There are some 

 14       things that don't seem to work very well.  

 15       Court testimony training doesn't seem to 

 16       work very well by videoconference.  It 

 17       requires you to be there in person.  

 18             The last thought which I didn't put a 

 19       bullet point for is, lately we've been 

 20       getting these wonderful student 

 21       applications, and they all want to do 

 22       research and they all want Ph.D.s.  

 23             With all the assurance and quality 

 24       control being as stringent as it's become, 

 25       are we going to be able to keep these kids' 



                                                             341
  1  

  2       attention simply because the lab work is too 

  3       drudgy, because you have to follow the 

  4       protocol instructions.  

  5             We need to figure out how to keep kids 

  6       interested, how to keep them in this field.  

  7       Thank you, I appreciate that.

  8             DR. SENSABAUGH:  Thank you, Bob.  Part 

  9       of my role as moderator is to provide 30 

 10       seconds or so of talk while they get the 

 11       next computer lined up.  

 12             Our next speaker is Victor Weedn who 

 13       is at Carnegie Mellon. 

 14             DR. WEEDN:  I too am very honored to 

 15       be here today to tell you about something I 

 16       am emotional about.  I am charged up about 

 17       the idea of education in the forensic 

 18       sciences.  When I say education, I am not 

 19       talking about the preemployment foundation, 

 20       the degree that you need to go and get a 

 21       job, but really about the concept that 

 22       education provides a concept, a meaningful 

 23       conceptual frame work as opposed to 

 24       competence training, something that has been 

 25       echoed by three of the speakers before me.  



                                                             342
  1  

  2             Education and giving this 

  3       understanding is important to forensic 

  4       science and the forensic science community.  

  5       It allows one to troubleshoot when one 

  6       encounters problems, particularly, when our 

  7       evidence comes from the plethora of 

  8       situations it comes from, from any 

  9       environment it's obtained, from this or 

 10       that. It's different types of evidence, when 

 11       we're certainly confronted with nonstandard 

 12       evidence to test.  

 13             It also provides us with a changing 

 14       environment, an exposure to what's coming 

 15       down the field.  So you train people to look 

 16       down to what's the next step.  Also, there's 

 17       a way of thinking here so that you use this 

 18       life-long learning experience, so that 

 19       you're in the process of watching for that 

 20       next step.  

 21             Lastly, is the ability to give 

 22       effective testimony.  If you no more than 

 23       know how to push buttons, I don't think you 

 24       can effectively testify.  This requires 

 25       understanding.  



                                                             343
  1  

  2             Education also teaches one how to 

  3       think.  For instance, in medical school, I 

  4       might learn how to think like a doctor.  If 

  5       I go to law school, I might think like a 

  6       lawyer -- Although some people wouldn't 

  7       think that's a necessarily good thing.  

  8             So, as we relate it to forensic 

  9       science, it allows us to scientifically 

 10       approach a problem.  But also, and I think 

 11       it should be recognized, are these last 

 12       things.  It allows us to put into approach 

 13       the case work.  It is what is the relevant 

 14       evidence.  

 15             What are the questions that need to be 

 16       answered by the district attorney?  Are we 

 17       answering those?  I think there is a more 

 18       wholistic approach that cannot only come 

 19       from a good education in forensic science.  

 20             Education also confers a certain 

 21       amount of credibility to the jury.  Of 

 22       course, it's important when you're on a 

 23       witness stand.  It's important to say, I've 

 24       had the following educational credentials.  

 25       It's important to public to know that the 



                                                             344
  1  

  2       forensic science community is educated so 

  3       we're credible.  

  4             Bottom line, and I think this is a bit 

  5       harsh, but I want to say professionals are 

  6       educated and technicians are trained.  We 

  7       use the word "trained" as opposed to 

  8       education.  

  9             In preparing for this speech, the one 

 10       thing that I read was in a book called "The 

 11       Authority of Experts," and it had a whole 

 12       chapter on the early learned professions and 

 13       it specifically talked about Connecticut and 

 14       Massachusetts and the development and the 

 15       rise of the profession of medicine.  

 16             It turns out, at the start of this 

 17       nation, the clergy was well organized, and 

 18       to become a member of the clergy, you had to 

 19       have a college degree.  Everybody respected 

 20       the clergy.  It was a very well respected 

 21       profession from the get-go of our nation.  

 22             Lawyers, they came along a little 

 23       later, but from the get-go, they required at 

 24       least a college degree, and they were a 

 25       respected group (not always admired, but 



                                                             345
  1  

  2       respected.)  

  3             Physicians.  I was surprised to learn 

  4       that at the beginning of the founding of 

  5       this country that physicians were largely 

  6       considered charlatans.  They were out there 

  7       for money.  Those people who were practicing 

  8       the trade were also practicing other things 

  9       because they really couldn't support 

 10       themselves.  

 11             It was around the 18th century that 

 12       physicians began to align themselves with 

 13       universities and to say that you needed an 

 14       educational background.  This was a very 

 15       important concept.  

 16             The physicians that were present, and 

 17       there was first about a half dozen in 

 18       Massachusetts, something less in 

 19       Connecticut, during the very early years of 

 20       the 1700s, and those people came from 

 21       Europe, they were educated in the European 

 22       tradition, but they applied it in America.  

 23             What they specifically resented was a 

 24       journeyman background to ply their trade.  

 25       They said, we are a scientific discipline, 



                                                             346
  1  

  2       and we're grounded in education and the 

  3       scientific approach, and with the rise of 

  4       that as a model for the practice of the 

  5       physique, medicine began to be a credible 

  6       profession within our community.  

  7             I think that's an important historical 

  8       background because I think there are 

  9       implications.  The evolution of the M.D. 

 10       today, and I do this to point out a 

 11       comparison, I'm not advocating that this 

 12       should be the model necessarily in forensic 

 13       science, but to be a physician today, you 

 14       need four years of undergraduate background 

 15       scientific knowledge with a core curricula 

 16       among that undergraduate program to apply to 

 17       medical school.  

 18             Then there's four years of medical 

 19       school.  Then you're licensed.  There is a 

 20       licensing exam.  Then there's a pathology 

 21       residency, if you go into forensic 

 22       pathology, that's five years.  Then you have 

 23       a specialty year, after those basic five 

 24       years of forensics, so that would really be 

 25       a sixth.  



                                                             347
  1  

  2             And then you're board certified, not 

  3       only in pathology, but if you want to take a 

  4       subspecialty exam in forensic pathology.  

  5             So there's a whole series of 

  6       education, training, and exams that this 

  7       profession has evolved to.  The legal 

  8       profession, really, is not that much 

  9       different with an undergraduate, a graduate  

 10       school, some informal training, and 

 11       licensure  examinations.  

 12             We also have the advantage of being a 

 13       scientific discipline, to the extent we, in 

 14       fact, are a scientific discipline, and I 

 15       think that confers itself on this 

 16       credibility because science is, after all, a 

 17       quest for a truth.  

 18             We understand this to be a search for 

 19       deeper understandings of what is truly 

 20       happening, and it involves experimental 

 21       verification, not just abstract assertion 

 22       out there, but the science says we have to 

 23       test these hypotheses.  Of course, it's only 

 24       true if it's not a sham.

 25             What do laboratory directors want?  I 



                                                             348
  1  

  2       think there's a mismatch here.  When I was a 

  3       laboratory director, I asked other 

  4       laboratory directors, what did they look for 

  5       in this theme.  

  6             And, generally, they said, "Right now, 

  7       I have a hole here and I need to plug it.  

  8       I've got all these cases, and right now I 

  9       need someone to step in and do that job.  

 10       I've always felt that that was a 

 11       short-sighted answer. Certainly, it would 

 12       satisfy the immediate true need.  

 13             But that's not what I looked for.  I 

 14       looked for someone who had a broad 

 15       education, who could, for the longer term, 

 16       better fulfill my requirements.  

 17             Although, I recognized I needed to do 

 18       some on-the-job training to tell them how, 

 19       in my laboratory, we mechanistically assured 

 20       quality and we pressed these right buttons. 

 21             I'll point out that this book 

 22       published by NIJ just last year talking 

 23       about a review of status and needs, has a 

 24       whole chapter devoted to training and 

 25       nothing devoted to education, and I think 



                                                             349
  1  

  2       this speaks to the general problem we have 

  3       in forensic science.  

  4             I also want to comment about the 

  5       forensic science academic communities 

  6       because, outside of the teaching of the 

  7       students and the professionals in the field, 

  8       there is true value in having the academia 

  9       itself.  

 10             First off, it's from that academia 

 11       that you get most of your scientific 

 12       underpinnings of the disciplines, and I 

 13       don't believe that any one or two labs can 

 14       do that entirely.  

 15             What the scientific community needs is 

 16       a plethora of people all working at 

 17       scientific issues, and together they come up 

 18       with a consensus that builds a foundation 

 19       that's understandable and credible to the 

 20       public at large and to other sciences.  

 21             I believe we need a forensic science 

 22       expert pool.  The typical attorney defense 

 23       expert will go to a university because 

 24       they're the experts, right?  And they'll go 

 25       to that biologist or chemist, but if they 



                                                             350
  1  

  2       haven't had any exposure to forensics, then 

  3       guess what, we have a problem.  

  4             We need a neutral and objective third 

  5       party.  Who can you go to?  We can't go to 

  6       the laboratories themselves.  That's the fox 

  7       guarding the chicken house.  We need a 

  8       neutral objective third party that knows 

  9       something about what we do in forensic 

 10       science.  

 11             This group also produces a literature 

 12       that we refer to, and I think that's 

 13       important.  It truly has to do with the 

 14       credibility of the forensic sciences.  

 15             Then what is the health of our current 

 16       forensic science programs today?  I don't 

 17       want to use the word "abysmal," but it isn't 

 18       good.  We have a small community.  Most 

 19       programs are one or two deep. One or two  

 20             You're expecting a professor to be an 

 21       expert in ballistics, in toxicology,  in 

 22       chemistry, in molecular biology.  We're 

 23       fooling ourselves.  No wonder there is some 

 24       credibility gap here.  We need enough 

 25       forensic faculty, or at least four or five, 



                                                             351
  1  

  2       to cover the bases in each of those 

  3       programs.  

  4             Our current situation is that most of 

  5       that faculty really were hired during the 

  6       LAAA years, and most of the forensic science 

  7       professors in our nation today are very near 

  8       to retirement; and in most cases, but not 

  9       all, there's nobody to backfill.  

 10             I feel like we're standing on a 

 11       precipice here, and we're about to go over a 

 12       cliff because this is a community that has 

 13       not been supported, and they're going to 

 14       retire and we're going to see many good 

 15       programs close.  

 16             A real changing environment, 

 17       nonexistent infrastructure.  This has 

 18       largely meant that we now do not have, in 

 19       many programs, many programs do not have 

 20       laboratory-based training.  

 21             Let's get real here.  This is science, 

 22       and to say that these people graduate with a 

 23       degree without laboratory training, I have a 

 24       problem with that.  No wonder that some of 

 25       our academic peers perceive a problem in the 



                                                             352
  1  

  2       forensic sciences.  

  3             First, it's just too applied.  It's 

  4       applied science, not basic science.  Two, 

  5       they feel that there's an inadequate 

  6       research base.  Therefore, it's only the 

  7       fringe that go into it.  Now, I don't 

  8       believe that, but I tell you, many of my 

  9       colleagues do.  

 10             What's needed is an adequate grant 

 11       support for basic research because that, 

 12       fundamentally, will end up supporting the 

 13       academic community, and, particularly, it 

 14       does so in a winnowing process, the good 

 15       survive, the poor don't.  

 16             What is the grant support now?  Well, 

 17       I'll just mention that NIJ over the last 

 18       couple has had about $5 million research, 

 19       almost all of it DNA, almost all of it not 

 20       going to the forensic science academic 

 21       community.  So what's left to support this 

 22       academic community?  No wonder we have 

 23       problems.  

 24             I've been dealing with the Dean of the 

 25       Medical School in Pittsburg, and he's going 



                                                             353
  1  

  2       around saying a typical start-up package is 

  3       about a million dollars for every research 

  4       that he brings into the University.  These 

  5       are basic research start-up packages.  

  6             Clearly, could be much higher.  In 

  7       fact, many would say this is a low dollar 

  8       figure, but a million dollars a researcher, 

  9       just to bring them in, just to get them 

 10       started.  Let's say all that $5 million were 

 11       targeted.  We're talking five people.  It's 

 12       not what we're looking for.

 13             In my own case, now, I'm not doing 

 14       forensic science research, and I consider my 

 15       situation to be a little atypical, but not 

 16       all that much.  I need to be 100 percent 

 17       grant-supported within three years.  That's 

 18       it or they'll just say, good-bye.  That is 

 19       my quest, and within these first six months, 

 20       I've submitted for $12 million here, with 

 21       other people, that's several times the NIJ 

 22       budget for research for the whole nation.  

 23       We have a problem here folks, in my view.  

 24             Then forensic science has no place to 

 25       apply for infrastructural support.  You can 



                                                             354
  1  

  2       apply for research, but unless you get 

  3       political and apply for legislation you 

  4       won't get anything.  As I mentioned before, 

  5       many of the programs are not lab-based.  

  6             Educational degrees.  I had several 

  7       things to say, but they've been largely 

  8       said, and I think I'm running out of time.  

  9             Master's of Forensic Science.  Why 

 10       should you do that as opposed to biology or 

 11       chemistry, et cetera?  I think there's a 

 12       place for the other, but there is clearly, 

 13       in my view, a need for a Master's degree of 

 14       Forensic Sciences that is, in fact, useful 

 15       to our community, our profession.  

 16             There is a preparation issue for the 

 17       American Board of Criminalist's exam.  I 

 18       think this exam is becoming more important.  

 19       It certainly hasn't arrived with full force, 

 20       but I'll point out that the other learned 

 21       professions need certifying examinations.  

 22       This is a part of credibility issue.  And to 

 23       do this, I don't think we want just DNA or 

 24       forensics, but I believe that there should 

 25       have a general knowledge exam at the 



                                                             355
  1  

  2       beginning.  

  3             Preparation for lab directorship.  If 

  4       somebody is only taught in chemistry or only 

  5       in biology, how are they going to be well- 

  6       heeled to then migrate up to the full 

  7       directorship.  

  8             The bigger issue, in my view, is case 

  9       synthesis.  You need somebody to look 

 10       wholistically, not just, well, what DNA 

 11       typing did we do here, or what chemistry 

 12       test did we do here.  They need the context.  

 13             And lastly, networking.  If you go to 

 14       a forensic science program, you're shoulder 

 15       to shoulder with other forensic scientists, 

 16       future forensic scientists, and I think that 

 17       is terribly important.  That will be missing 

 18       from a typical biology degree.  

 19             Traditionally, forensic science has 

 20       been populated by  baccalaureate degrees.  

 21       Most of our crime lab directors have no more 

 22       than a B.S., and they're fine crime lab 

 23       directors.  I don't mean this as a slight, 

 24       but I do want to point out the issue of 

 25       attitudes.  



                                                             356
  1  

  2             While there are many Master's degree 

  3       people in the system, I think the biggest 

  4       impact is going to happen because of DNA.  

  5       We just, at this time, have many DNA 

  6       individuals who grew up in that field coming 

  7       into power in the crime laboratory 

  8       directorships, and I think that there will 

  9       be a different attitude about education, 

 10       generally, because of that group.  

 11             There is this major mismatch alluded 

 12       to by Dr. Gaensslen about expectation to 

 13       solve mysteries, and they come in, "well, 

 14       all I do is push buttons."  That causes us a 

 15       retention problem.  

 16             And, in fact, our instrumentation is 

 17       becoming much more like a black box and the 

 18       crime labs much more like a factory.  That 

 19       exacerbates this problem, but I don't 

 20       believe that that negates the need for a 

 21       true forensic science education.  Because of 

 22       the wholistic approach, that instrument is 

 23       just that.  

 24             There is this issue about how many 

 25       graduates, and I guess, for time, we don't 



                                                             357
  1  

  2       have time to talk about that.  But I'll just 

  3       end on this note because, to me, this is 

  4       truly the bottom line. It is the foundation 

  5       for respect among scientific professions.  

  6       Thank you.

  7             (Applause.)

  8             DR. SENSABAUGH:  Thank you, Victor, 

  9       and I thank all of the panel for their 

 10       presentations.  I think it is clear that all 

 11       of us, and even me, have a passion for 

 12       forensic science and the value of a core 

 13       education in the field.  This is the way 

 14       that we believe that the field will 

 15       propagate itself in gaining credibility and 

 16       respect that we think it deserves.  

 17             The question is, how can this be 

 18       achieved?  And, perhaps, it is time to 

 19       think, as the sciences and other professions 

 20       do periodically, of taking an inventory of 

 21       where we are, where the field is headed, and 

 22       where should be done to prepare for the 

 23       education of the next generation of forensic 

 24       science, the next generation of forensic 

 25       scientists. 



                                                             358
  1  

  2             And just to get, since I've had less 

  3       to say than everyone else, I will throw in a 

  4       quote, a short statement made in a 

  5       millennium essay that appeared in nature in 

  6       March of this year by Frederick Sites, a 

  7       very prominent American scientist.  It was 

  8       called "The Decline of the Generalist."  

  9       Just selecting from that.  

 10             "Few scientists under 50 are familiar 

 11       with or express much interest in areas of 

 12       research outside their immediate 

 13       professional concern.  

 14             This trend is partially a result of 

 15       the growing complexity of research.  Most 

 16       students are not being prepared to become 

 17       broad experienced leaders in a highly 

 18       professional area.  

 19             Barring the guidance of highly 

 20       motivated and broadly based leadership, most 

 21       fields of cultural development will either 

 22       drift towards dole mediocrity or degenerate 

 23       into uncoordinated islands governed by 

 24       individuals of minor stature possessing 

 25       narrow idiosyncratic viewpoints."  



                                                             359
  1  

  2             A rather draconian view, that, but we 

  3       are, I think, at a juncture of forensic 

  4       science where, if we do not have the kind of 

  5       broad-based professional education, we run 

  6       the risk of moving in that direction.  

  7             And so with that then, I would open 

  8       the floor for questions.  We have about 15 

  9       minutes before our time is officially up.  

 10             SPEAKER:  I have a question about 

 11       technique.  You hear a lot about education 

 12       and training.  It's been our experience that 

 13       we are fortunate that we can have one out of 

 14       four candidates successfully complete our 

 15       background investigation, and these are kids 

 16       with excellent educations.  

 17             Is there any component in your 

 18       program, has it been your experience to have 

 19       a problem with technique.

 20             DR. GAENSSLEN:  I guess I would just 

 21       say that my experience is, by the time we 

 22       see that it's too late, they've done stuff 

 23       in college.  That's the problem.  By the 

 24       time we get a hold of them, and they all of 

 25       a sudden realize, oh, my God.  This is law 



                                                             360
  1  

  2       enforcement.  I am really facing the 

  3       background.  They're really going to 

  4       polygraph me, and I'm not going to be able 

  5       to lie myself through this, whatever the 

  6       standards are.  

  7             And the standards, actually, are not 

  8       that stringent in most jurisdictions.  It's 

  9       just too late, and it's a tragedy.  You're 

 10       absolutely right.  We've lost some fairly 

 11       good students to things like that.  

 12             I don't know what to do about it.  

 13       It's part of a larger societal problem.  I 

 14       think undergraduates could, perhaps, could 

 15       do a little bit more.  Undergraduate 

 16       students, perhaps, could do a little bit 

 17       more about this.  

 18             Some of these kids don't know they 

 19       want to be in forensic science until pretty 

 20       late in their undergraduate life, and that's 

 21       part of it as well.

 22             SPEAKER:  I think it's a concern, 

 23       particularly, with more case work going to 

 24       private laboratories.

 25             DR. GAENSSLEN:  That's a really good 



                                                             361
  1  

  2       point.

  3             DR. SENSABAUGH:  I think Bob it's an 

  4       issue, and Bob is absolutely right. They 

  5       come to us after they've completed their 

  6       undergraduate years and their high school 

  7       years, and there are lots of things that 

  8       happen during those times that you just 

  9       don't have any control over.  And they 

 10       realize it all of a sudden, which is too 

 11       late.

 12             SPEAKER:  I don't know what the answer 

 13       is, but I wish that maybe something could be 

 14       done on the front end to wake these kids up.

 15             DR. ROWLEY:  I must also say that  

 16       I've seen three or four students fail 

 17       polygraphs that I think were false failures.  

 18       I think that happens too.  

 19             I'm not a huge believer in polygraphs, 

 20       but I think the agencies probably figure 

 21       it's better to throw the baby out with the 

 22       bath water.  They're not going to take the 

 23       risk if they don't have to, and I understand 

 24       that.

 25             SPEAKER:  There seems to be this trend 



                                                             362
  1  

  2       to send case work also to private 

  3       laboratories, and there's a lot of excellent 

  4       private laboratories, but I hear no 

  5       discussion on the integrity issue across the 

  6       board.

  7             DR. SENSABAUGH:  We used to tell our 

  8       students when they came into the program 

  9       that if they had smoked something 

 10       inappropriate in their past that they should 

 11       take note that they may not have a future.  

 12       Some disappeared at that point.  

 13             But also, we had, perhaps, because we 

 14       were in California, and some laboratories 

 15       are a little bit more liberal, we had one 

 16       laboratory director who once told me, if I 

 17       don't get a student who hasn't experimented 

 18       in high school or college, I'm not sure I 

 19       want a person of such narrow intellectual 

 20       scope.  So it takes all kinds.

 21             SPEAKER:  Here's a follow-up question 

 22       to that.  Are there any programs focussed on 

 23       high school students in providing them with 

 24       the vision of themselves as, for example, 

 25       forensic scientists or as scientists in 



                                                             363
  1  

  2       general.

  3             DR. GAENSSLEN:  I know there are such 

  4       programs, and I certainly accept invitations 

  5       to go to high schools or sending graduate 

  6       schools out to high schools.  We all do this 

  7       stuff.  

  8             This is a message you always give to 

  9       students.  "If you are thinking of a career 

 10       in law enforcement, don't to it."  Because 

 11       that's a message they need to get through 

 12       their heads.  

 13             And George is right.  We do tell them 

 14       at the front end.  "If you have a serious 

 15       drug problem or a serious honesty problem or 

 16       if you've been convicted of a felony or 

 17       something coming in the door, you're 

 18       probably not going to be able to be employed 

 19       in this profession.  It's just too little, 

 20       too late a lot of times. 

 21             DR. SENSABAUGH:  To follow up on your 

 22       question, though, there seems to be a rather 

 23       interesting trend, at least in some of the 

 24       schools in our area, to use forensic science 

 25       as a kind of platform for providing a mode 



                                                             364
  1  

  2       to scientific thinking or an introduction to 

  3       scientific thinking at the high school 

  4       level, and even to the extent that we have 

  5       at a Lawrence Hall of Science, which is a 

  6       science museum associated with the 

  7       University of California at Berkeley, a 

  8       program that's really geared, primarily, 

  9       towards primary school students in which 

 10       they get to play detective and how to 

 11       construct a logical thought process to 

 12       develop evidence so that you can prove a 

 13       case.  

 14             And it's all very simplistic sort of 

 15       stuff, but, this doesn't get at the 

 16       integrity question, but it does get at the 

 17       kind of exposure that forensic sciences can 

 18       have at a much earlier level in the 

 19       educational process.  Bill.

 20             SPEAKER:  George, you mentioned that 

 21       your fundamental principle to solve a lot of 

 22       the things would be education core values 

 23       for forensic science.  

 24             I'd just be interested to hear what 

 25       your views of these core values are.  



                                                             365
  1  

  2             DR. WEEDN:  Some of us did talk last 

  3       night about core curriculum.  That's not the 

  4       same as a core set of values, and what we 

  5       really talked to ourselves is, we need to 

  6       discuss more among the academic community on 

  7       what those are.  So to come to a consensus 

  8       that could be enunciated.  I don't think 

  9       there's going to be much hardship in that.  

 10       I think that's pretty clear.  

 11             Integrity.  If you look at the ASCLD 

 12       set up of words, I think those speak to 

 13       them.  Clearly, integrity is going to be 

 14       there.  Clearly, accuracy in our results 

 15       will be there.  Clearly, the ability to 

 16       communicate and articulate these things that 

 17       we do to.  All are very important as values 

 18       and core curricula, both.

 19             DR. SENSABAUGH:  I'm going to add, but 

 20       at somewhat a deeper level.  I think what we 

 21       have is a fundamental core value, the 

 22       application of science towards the 

 23       application of science in justice, and this 

 24       creates, actually, some interesting ethical 

 25       conflicts, as you and I have talked about on 



                                                             366
  1  

  2       occasion, Bill.  

  3             If we think about our exercise as 

  4       providing the best scientific information 

  5       possible to a legal system at the earliest 

  6       stage of investigation all the way through 

  7       the legal system, I think that is a core 

  8       value.  

  9             Do no harm, this follows from the 

 10       medical model, but do no harm to any aspect 

 11       of the system, particularly, to the person 

 12       who is accused in the case.  We are there to 

 13       try to provide the best science possible to 

 14       the system.  

 15             There are potential conflicts in core 

 16       values because, for some, the core value is 

 17       to provide service to the police, and this 

 18       creates the potential conflict when the 

 19       information reported by the laboratory does 

 20       not support police view in a particular 

 21       case.

 22             But I think most of us would agree, I 

 23       hope all of us would agree, that if we find 

 24       something that is exculpating, that it is 

 25       our obligation as scientists, as forensic 



                                                             367
  1  

  2       scientists to make sure that that 

  3       information is brought to the legal system.  

  4       Tom.

  5             SPEAKER:  Just a comment on the 

  6       polygraph.  I hadn't realized the situation, 

  7       and I just wanted to make a couple of 

  8       points.  

  9             I can certainly understand the need to 

 10       do background checks for employment for 

 11       those working in the forensic field, and I 

 12       can also understand the basis to do a 

 13       database check.  

 14             But there are a lot of other 

 15       professions in which truth is really 

 16       important to those professions, and I doubt 

 17       that there is a divinity school, a law 

 18       school, or a medical school that uses a 

 19       polygraph as a criteria for admission into 

 20       those professions.  

 21             Certainly, background checks, and I'm 

 22       sure in the future strikes against the 

 23       database will be part of it, but I think we 

 24       need to re-examine this polygraph test.  It 

 25       sounds wrong to me.



                                                             368
  1  

  2             SPEAKER:  Not to defend the polygraph, 

  3       but I think the issue is, how do you focus 

  4       the direction of polygraph and what kind of 

  5       issues.  

  6             Do you focus on lifestyle issues, or 

  7       do you focus on past criminal-type issues?  

  8       It seems to me that it may serve a function 

  9       for screening, in some instances, of course, 

 10       that's taking criminal behavior as well as 

 11       lifestyle issues.  From what I understand, 

 12       it seems that lifestyle issues are included.  

 13             DR. GAENSSLEN:  Well, it has to do 

 14       with drug use, primarily, but it also has to 

 15       do with basic integrity.  I kind of 

 16       understand the law enforcement agency's 

 17       position on this.

 18             If you go to work in the Illinois 

 19       State Police Forensic Science Center in 

 20       Chicago, you have access to tons of 

 21       controlled substances if you get in the drug 

 22       unit, which you could, theoretically, if you 

 23       knew the system, steal and put back on the 

 24       street.  That's the bottom line.

 25             You also have access to tons of 



                                                             369
  1  

  2       weapons that come in off the street.  That's 

  3       the lab director's nightmare.  The lab 

  4       directors lay awake at night and think, is 

  5       anyone stealing my drugs?  Is anyone 

  6       stealing my guns?  And that's just how it 

  7       is.  

  8             You've got to worry about that kind of 

  9       stuff, and that's not true of lawyers and 

 10       it's not true of doctors to the same extent.  

 11       Although I realize doctors have narcotics 

 12       privileges and all that kind of stuff.  

 13             I think that's where this comes from.  

 14       Every case fry case in the United States is 

 15       a polygraph case.  We know what the 

 16       limitations are, I think.  

 17             There has to be some kind of a fairly 

 18       serious background investigation for people 

 19       that are going to have access to that kind 

 20       of stuff.  That's all.  David.

 21             SPEAKER:  I'll just make a couple of 

 22       observations.  The first thing is that the 

 23       polygraph does a remarkable job of 

 24       eliminating honest people who are nervous 

 25       and is essentially ineffective in 



                                                             370
  1  

  2       eliminating sociopaths.  

  3             Secondly, I'll point out that in the 

  4       Department of Defense, for persons cleared 

  5       to top secret and above who have access to 

  6       nuclear secrets, weapons, munitions, and the 

  7       rest, we do not use the polygraph because we 

  8       do not trust it.

  9             DR. SENSABAUGH:  John, I'll give you a 

 10       word on this.

 11             SPEAKER:  One of the panelists 

 12       mentioned the need for funding to support 

 13       educational programs, and, of course, 

 14       everyone turns to the federal government as 

 15       a source for that funding.  

 16             But I just wondered, within the 

 17       academic institutions themselves, are there 

 18       sources of funds that can be redirected to 

 19       worthy causes outside of their own programs, 

 20       some social deed like this?  

 21             I wondering if there is a role that 

 22       the forensic practitioners, lab directors 

 23       can play in trying to draw attention to that 

 24       and seek the benefits of the academic 

 25       institutions themselves.



                                                             371
  1  

  2             DR. SENSABAUGH:  Well, I think in one 

  3       regard, this is not so much related to funds 

  4       but as to basic survival.  I can tell you 

  5       that when we went through, at Berkeley, our 

  6       first crisis, which was in 1975, we were 

  7       associated with School of Criminology at 

  8       that time.

  9             And it was clear that the School of 

 10       Criminology was going to be closed.  The 

 11       crime laboratory directors from around the 

 12       State of California came en masse to the 

 13       Chancellor of the University and said, this 

 14       program is too valuable to lose.

 15             And, as a consequence, John Thornton 

 16       and I, who were the two people on the 

 17       forensic science faculty were the only ones 

 18       that survived out of the School of 

 19       Criminology.  

 20             Some people went into the law school 

 21       and were able to shift, senior faculty were 

 22       able to shift into other departments, but we 

 23       were the only junior faculty to survive.  

 24             And so that kind of support from the 

 25       professional community is tremendously 



                                                             372
  1  

  2       important for making the case for the 

  3       continuation of programs of this sort.  

  4             With regard to funding, I think you 

  5       will find that the universities, and I'll 

  6       speak for my colleagues, I think correctly, 

  7       the University there will say, we'll allow 

  8       you to survive, but if you really want to 

  9       flourish, you'd better get some money on 

 10       your own.

 11             SPEAKER:  Listening to the discussion, 

 12       I know your university doctorate programs, 

 13       but if you look at the history of several 

 14       fields, when you're in a situation where you 

 15       need resources, you want to gain attention.  

 16       You want to attract funds, so on, university 

 17       resources for getting started.  

 18             Historically, what people do is to 

 19       start doctoral programs.  For example, 25 

 20       years at  SUNY, Binghamton, a group of 

 21       chemists and physicists decided computer 

 22       science was not a science, and that never 

 23       got off the ground.  

 24             At Carnegie Mellon, where Victor is 

 25       now, the decision was made that, well, maybe  



                                                             373
  1  

  2       computer science is a science.  Maybe, they 

  3       still didn't think it is, but at least they 

  4       made a decision that it was.  

  5             And that gave them a focus for getting 

  6       some start-up capital, for getting 

  7       university presidents involved and going to 

  8       DOD at the time, and within a 20 years, they 

  9       built up a hundred million a year department 

 10       out of what was not considered then to be a 

 11       field.  

 12             So if you want to look at how you're 

 13       going to perpetuate a field, get new 

 14       faculty, keep training the trained faculty, 

 15       you may have to consider, what about 

 16       forensic science could be considered to be 

 17       worthy of a granted doctoral degree because, 

 18       historically, those are the fields that 

 19       survive.  

 20             DR. GAENSSLEN:  I think in order for a 

 21       doctoral program to survive, there has to be 

 22       a discipline base to it, and I think there 

 23       is in things like forensic chemistry, 

 24       forensic molecular biology.  I'm still a 

 25       little hesitant to think about the generic 



                                                             374
  1  

  2       forensic science kind of degree, and, in 

  3       fact, in some universities, there are Ph.D. 

  4       programs in forensic science and in forensic 

  5       biology but not in the generic field of 

  6       forensic science.  

  7             I don't think they're quite ready yet.  

  8       I think we'd have a hard sell going through 

  9       our administration to sell a program like 

 10       that, and, particularly, with the small 

 11       funding base that's available at this time.

 12             DR. SENSABAUGH:  This is sort of a 

 13       chicken or egg problem.  I can speak as 

 14       someone who had a Ph.D. program at Berkeley.  

 15             If you have money or if you can find 

 16       that there is a funding for students, then 

 17       it's much easier to make a an argument for a 

 18       Ph.D. program than otherwise.  

 19             The basis of our program was that it 

 20       was basically a disciplinary program, in my 

 21       case, biochemistry based, but in which 

 22       everyone who went through it had a very 

 23       solid foundation forensic science as well.  

 24       So it's sort of the combination of the 

 25       academic research and professional degree 



                                                             375
  1  

  2       program, and it worked quite successfully, I 

  3       think.

  4             SPEAKER:  The success that I think 

  5       almost everyone on the panel said that one 

  6       of the prerequisites for even a Master's 

  7       degree is some kind of background Bachelor's 

  8       degree and chemistry or biology.  

  9             If we're assuming that these people 

 10       are taking DNA track or the biological 

 11       sciences track are going to have that 

 12       foundation, you've got to start somewhere.  

 13             Maybe it's not time to have a Ph.D. 

 14       and a doctrine, but for some of the 

 15       biological sciences, someone went to GW or 

 16       Berkeley as a pilot program, wouldn't it be 

 17       useful to try some sort of interdisciplinary 

 18       program where you could take classes at the 

 19       law school or specific genetic classes at 

 20       medical school designed, some kind of 

 21       program and be funded from more than one 

 22       department rather than just the forensic 

 23       science department, and, again, as a pilot 

 24       program to start somewhere, it seems that 

 25       maybe it is time.



                                                             376
  1  

  2             DR. GAENSSLEN:  I just think that I'm 

  3       persuaded for the moment, that maybe there's 

  4       a couple of people already doing this, and 

  5       probably going to start doing this in 

  6       Illinois where we take students into a 

  7       Master's, M.S., program in forensic science.  

  8             But, maybe, simultaneously or while 

  9       they're in their first year or something, go 

 10       ahead and try to get them admitted into 

 11       traditional Ph.D. programs on the same 

 12       campus.  

 13             I know Jay Siegal has a student who's 

 14       going to be an M.S. Forensic Science, Ph.D. 

 15       Chemistry.  That, to me, is a nice 

 16       combination.  

 17             I think UAB has a program, Alabama, 

 18       Birmingham, along these lines where you can 

 19       track the biological sciences and you can 

 20       track to chemistry.  I like that kind of 

 21       model.  

 22             We can do that right now if we have 

 23       the right student and the right set of 

 24       circumstances.  I probably would think 

 25       toxicology is sort of interdisciplinary, and 



                                                             377
  1  

  2       we're probably going  to do Ph.D.s in 

  3       Toxicology before long.

  4             SPEAKER:  Will students be recognized 

  5       as forensic scientists when they come out of 

  6       the programs?  

  7             DR. GAENSSLEN:  I think they could 

  8       certainly go to a lab director and say, you 

  9       know what, I have a Ph.D. in Chemistry, but 

 10       I got my M.S. in Forensic Science.  I know 

 11       about forensic science.  I like it.  I want 

 12       to work in it.  

 13             And if the lab director were at all 

 14       inclined to hire a Ph.D., which they may or 

 15       may not be, they would probably talk to that 

 16       person.  

 17             I think Ph.D.s, frankly, who are 

 18       trained in research, are going to be harder 

 19       to retain than our better Master's students 

 20       in case work laboratories, for all the 

 21       reasons that other people talked about.

 22             SPEAKER:  We at the University of 

 23       Central Florida are taking one approach to 

 24       this, to the Ph.D.s.  

 25             I'm a faculty member and the Chief of 



                                                             378
  1  

  2       Forensic Science, but I want to point out 

  3       that biology and chemistry is 

  4       interdisciplinary Ph.D. program.  Also 

  5       there's a Ph.D. in Biological Science.  

  6             That program, of course, would be the 

  7       core curriculum for that program, which is 

  8       biological science, in general.  

  9             Of course, if you specialize and you 

 10       want to work, do research in forensic 

 11       science.  

 12             Fully fledged Ph.D. program says 

 13       forensic science is the future, but we have 

 14       been approaching it as, I think, that's the 

 15       way of the future, we have a good 

 16       foundation, we have broader-based subject, 

 17       but research is really important.  

 18             For those students interested in 

 19       forensics, that's one model.

 20             SPEAKER:  I'd just like to get back to 

 21       the issue of integrity for a moment, this 

 22       has to do with what Dr. Gaensslen said about 

 23       people's pasts and the polygraph and finding 

 24       out what they'd done.  

 25             I would mention for the sake of a 



                                                             379
  1  

  2       direct form the perspective of a laboratory 

  3       director in a private lab what's important 

  4       to me and what keeps me awake at night, and 

  5       I think this is probably the same in the 

  6       public sector and Mark Dale asked this 

  7       question.  

  8             I'm concerned about people who are 

  9       dealing drugs, producing drugs, or involved 

 10       in illegal drug use now.  I'm concerned 

 11       about drug addicts and habitual users now.  

 12       I'm concerned about employees or people who 

 13       are involved in illegal activity now.  

 14             But what I'm very, very concerned 

 15       about and what I want in integrity, or what  

 16       I believe is really important in terms of 

 17       integrity is science.  

 18             I'm concerned about evidence shaping.  

 19       I'm concerned about tampering; manipulating 

 20       of evidence; mistake covering; and reporting 

 21       lies, misrepresenting scientific facts in 

 22       favor of one side or another.  I'm concerned 

 23       about plagiarism, fabrication, and 

 24       falsification.  All these are things, I see, 

 25       are things that students can engage in as 



                                                             380
  1  

  2       students.  

  3             How do you see that as fitting into 

  4       teaching students about this?

  5             DR. GAENSSLEN:  This is extremely 

  6       important.  This is the heart of the 

  7       enterprise.  George articulated this better 

  8       than I'll be able to, but if you take as our 

  9       core value that we are scientists who serve 

 10       the legal system and try to produce truth, 

 11       whatever that quite means in any context, 

 12       then all these ethical things start coming 

 13       up.  

 14             Some of these things are just outright 

 15       fraud.  Obviously, we rail against that sort 

 16       of thing, but that's a value we share with 

 17       every science.  

 18             Then you get into these kind of very 

 19       subtle things of where, well, you were hired 

 20       by the prosecutor, so you can say something 

 21       in a certain way.  Whereas, if you were 

 22       hired by the defense attorney, you might say 

 23       the same thing a slightly different way, but 

 24       to throw the slant or to change the focus.

 25             Experts do this all the time, so 



                                                             381
  1  

  2       there's constant discussion on these ethics, 

  3       but I think what we can do or what we try to 

  4       do, is to get students tuned into these 

  5       questions, to get them thinking about this 

  6       stuff, to make them realize there are ethics 

  7       in this profession.  

  8             And John Thornton put it best once 

  9       when I heard him say, you know, what he says 

 10       to lawyers is, "If my ethics and your ethics 

 11       collide, mine are going to prevail."  And 

 12       he's right, and you've got to get that 

 13       across to them because they don't have any 

 14       ethics by our standards.

 15             They can't or they couldn't do their 

 16       jobs.  They're advocates.  So things that we 

 17       just won't do, they're permitted to do. 

 18             DR. SENSABAUGH:  Let's put it more 

 19       delicately.  There's a culture context 

 20       between science and the law. But that, in 

 21       its own right, and, actually, Victor can 

 22       speak to this, because for all his jokes, he 

 23       has legal training as well as medical 

 24       training.  

 25             I think one of the key elements of a 



                                                             382
  1  

  2       forensic science core education is learning 

  3       about the culture of the law, the culture of 

  4       science, how the two conflict and how they 

  5       interact and then to make the best of it.  

  6             Many people who come into forensic 

  7       science from outside come in and are unaware 

  8       of how the works, are unaware that when a 

  9       lawyer does something in a particular way, 

 10       it's not necessarily because the lawyer is 

 11       being dishonest, which it would seem that 

 12       way to us, but rather that the lawyer is 

 13       following the legal imperative of the legal 

 14       profession.  

 15             We have to understand that, work with 

 16       it, but also try to have our ethics prevail.

 17             DR. WEEDN:  Specifically, people are 

 18       surprised to learn that law schools actually 

 19       require a course on professional 

 20       responsibility and legal ethics, and it's 

 21       part of my exam.  

 22             But I wanted to comment that this is 

 23       an issue of people, not instruments, and not 

 24       laboratory analysis and process.  I think 

 25       it's a fundamental issue that we have to 



                                                             383
  1  

  2       have faith in the integrity of the forensic 

  3       science analysts, the examiners out there.  

  4             This is a different issue than quality 

  5       control and quality assurance, and I think, 

  6       in fact, more fundamental than that analytic 

  7       process.  It goes to credibility by the 

  8       public, and so  I want to thank you for 

  9       allowing me to draw real attention to that.  

 10             I think sometimes people substitute 

 11       quality control and quality assurance for 

 12       the more fundamental issue of the integrity 

 13       of a profession.  

 14             DR. SENSABAUGH:  I think on that note 

 15       is a good point to close our session.  I 

 16       want to thank our panelists, Bob Gaensslen, 

 17       Victor Weedn, and Dave Rowley.

 18             (Applause.) 

 19             (Break.)  

 20       

 21       

 22           PANEL VI:  TRAINING-TODAY AND TOMORROW

 23             SPEAKER:  I want you to know that 

 24       there's a card on the table that has the DNA 

 25       conference that you're attending listed 



                                                             384
  1  

  2       here, and our conference on science and the 

  3       law listed over here, and I'd appreciate it 

  4       if whoever gets a card.  

  5             You may be interested in the Science 

  6       and the Law Conference which will take place 

  7       in October in San Diego.  There's some 

  8       detail on here, but it's also on our web 

  9       page.  If you get on our web page, you can 

 10       get more information on that.  In fact, 

 11       there is an outline of the conference.  

 12             MR. CONNOLLY:  Thank you.  Good 

 13       morning. I'm Ken Connolly.  I'm Deputy 

 14       Commissioner of Counsel for the New York 

 15       State Division of Criminal Justice Services.  

 16       The panel we have here today is a diverse 

 17       group.  It's training today and tomorrow.  

 18       Before getting into that.  

 19             Before we get into that, I thought, 

 20       just briefly, I'd give you an overview of 

 21       who DCJS is and what it does.  The State 

 22       Division of Criminal Justice Services is an 

 23       agency which is responsible for coordinating 

 24       a number of criminal justice programs in the 

 25       State of New York. 



                                                             385
  1  

  2             Katherine Lapp, who spoke yesterday, 

  3       is the Commissioner.  She wears two hats.  

  4       In addition to being the Commissioner of the 

  5       agency, she is also the State Director of 

  6       Criminal Justice.  She advises the Governor 

  7       on criminal justice policies and issues and 

  8       legislation.  We are the support staff for 

  9       that.  

 10             And, in addition, the agency started 

 11       out as the New York State Identification and 

 12       Intelligence Service.  We are the repository 

 13       for all the criminal history records in the 

 14       State of New York.  We have all the prints 

 15       and the criminal history records, and as far 

 16       as the DNA program goes, our agency sort 

 17       coordinates the blood collections which are 

 18       coming in hot and heavy since the law 

 19       changed the beginning or the 1st of 

 20       December.  

 21             And the way we've got our system set 

 22       up, the blood gets collected, we then, that 

 23       is, DCJS verifies the fingerprints to make 

 24       sure that person who gave the blood is the 

 25       person who was supposed to have given the 



                                                             386
  1  

  2       blood, and at the same time, we verify the 

  3       criminal history record to make sure that 

  4       that person has been convicted of an 

  5       offense, which entitles us to have the blood 

  6       in the system; and once that's done, we 

  7       notify the  State Police, and the State 

  8       Police do the analysis.  

  9             So that, basically, is an overview of 

 10       what we do here in the State of New York.  

 11       Now, as I said, we have a diverse panel.  

 12       The first speaker is Kim Herd.  Kim is  

 13       Senior Attorney and the Program Manager for 

 14       the DNA Legal Assistance Unit of the 

 15       American Prosecutors Research Institute.  

 16             In her capacity as APRI, she provides 

 17       and coordinates training for prosecutors in 

 18       the area of DNA evidence.  She also provides 

 19       technical assistance to prosecutors and 

 20       other criminal justice professionals seeking 

 21       information on DNA evidence.  

 22             She also assists in the publication of 

 23       a quarterly publication put out by the DNA 

 24       Legal Assistance Unit that addresses 

 25       forensic DNA issues.  Kim also has had some 



                                                             387
  1  

  2       background as a prosecutor in Hennepin 

  3       County, Minnesota.  She's a member of the 

  4       State Bar of Minnesota and the Bar of the 

  5       District of Columbia.

  6             She received her law degree from the 

  7       University of Minnesota and a B.A. from 

  8       William and Mary College in Williamsburg, 

  9       Virginia.  

 10             MS. HERD:  I'd like to begin by 

 11       thanking NIJ for giving me the opportunity 

 12       to come and speak with you all today about 

 13       the very important issue of training for 

 14       prosecutors.  

 15             I work for an organization called the 

 16       American Prosecutors Research Institute.  

 17       We're known commonly as APRI.  We are part 

 18       of the National District Attorneys 

 19       Association.  We're like their sister 

 20       organization, except we're entirely grant 

 21       funded, and one of the funding programs that 

 22       we have is called the DNA Legal Assistance 

 23       Unit.  

 24             We are funded by the Bureau of Justice 

 25       Assistance, and it's grant that runs on a 



                                                             388
  1  

  2       yearly basis, so we have to apply for and 

  3       receive grant money each year to do the 

  4       programs that we do for prosecutors.  

  5             The DNA Legal Assistance Unit at APRI 

  6       is comprised essentially of four people, 

  7       halves of each person, if you will.  I, as 

  8       the Senior Attorney, am in charge of the 

  9       program activities.  I devote 50 percent of 

 10       my time there to activities related to DNA 

 11       and the other 50 percent to activities that 

 12       are completely not related to DNA.  

 13             We have a staff attorney that assists 

 14       us.  She also devotes 50 percent of her time 

 15       to us.  We have the legal intern that's part 

 16       time but that does a lot of substantive 

 17       work.  And we also have an administrative 

 18       assistant that also has evolved into doing a 

 19       lot of the substantive work for us.  

 20             We received $150,000 this past year to 

 21       do training and technical assistance for 

 22       local prosecutors around the country.  That 

 23       money goes to supporting two trainings, 

 24       which I'll talk about later.  It also goes 

 25       to supporting our salaries, portions of our 



                                                             389
  1  

  2       salaries, and then to providing materials 

  3       that we can then send out to prosecutors.  

  4             We're trying to get that amount 

  5       increased.  It was increased from the year 

  6       before, which we received $125,000, which 

  7       really isn't a whole lot of money when you 

  8       think about some of the other programs that 

  9       are receiving money for training.

 10             So given the fact that so many 

 11       prosecutors use DNA evidence in their cases, 

 12       we're going to be making a real push to try 

 13       to get additional training to help them in 

 14       what they do.

 15             And what we do in the unit is, number 

 16       one, we do training for prosecutors, and 

 17       I'll talk a little bit more about that.  We 

 18       also provide technical assistance, and what 

 19       that means is that we have the capacity on 

 20       staff to assist prosecutors that will call 

 21       us for help.  

 22             We receive a wide range of calls from 

 23       different prosecutors.  We also have 

 24       materials that we send out to them.  We have 

 25       materials that are copied on different 



                                                             390
  1  

  2       issues that we have ready to go because we 

  3       get a lot of requests for the same sort of 

  4       the information.  

  5             Somebody will call up and say, "What 

  6       are STRs?  I don't understand that."  And we 

  7       have a packet that's ready for them that we 

  8       send out to them that includes information 

  9       on the science of STRs, information on the 

 10       legal opinions that are out there, briefs 

 11       that have been written, articles that have 

 12       been written, and we send that to them on a 

 13       quick basis.  

 14             We also have extensive library of 

 15       trial transcripts and briefs in DNA related 

 16       cases, and we have different publications 

 17       available.  We subscribe to Nature, 

 18       subscribe to The Journal of Forensic 

 19       Sciences, and some other publications that a 

 20       lot of times prosecutors will call us and 

 21       say, "I can't find this.  Can you please 

 22       help me?"  And we'll send it out to them.  

 23             In addition, we have a lot of contacts 

 24       with different laboratory personnel and 

 25       experts in the scientific community that we 



                                                             391
  1  

  2       regularly call to help us answer these calls 

  3       for technical assistance.  

  4             Some of the our calls for technical 

  5       assistance have increased dramatically in 

  6       the last year.  In 1999, we had about a 

  7       total of 84 requests.  Already this year, we 

  8       had 43 in the first four months of the year.  

  9             And some of the examples of types of 

 10       requests that we receive are incredibly wide 

 11       ranging.  We'll have people call and say, 

 12       "I've got a case involving mitochondrial 

 13       DNA.  I don't understand. What is it?  Can 

 14       you explain it to me?"  

 15             And, again, we will take the time to 

 16       explain some of the basic issues, and then 

 17       we'll send them out a follow-up packet of 

 18       information.  We also get very specific 

 19       requests.

 20             Recently, we had someone call and say, 

 21       "I've got a case where we have some 

 22       unexplained DNA under someone's fingernail.  

 23       Do you have any information on cases where 

 24       there has been transfer in this manner?"  We 

 25       have a lot of contacts in the scientific 



                                                             392
  1  

  2       community.  We'll call them up and say, "Do 

  3       you know of anything like this?"  And we'll 

  4       get recommendations where to search.  

  5             We'll also do our own internet search 

  6       and searches through scientific journals, 

  7       and try to come up with information to arm 

  8       these prosecutors to be able to go back into 

  9       court and fight the issues that they're 

 10       faced with.  

 11             Additionally, we'll receive requests 

 12       sometimes to review cases.  Prosecutors will 

 13       call and say, "I've got this DNA case.  I've 

 14       never had one before.   I don't know where 

 15       to begin."  And what we'll do sometimes is 

 16       have them send it to us.  We'll look it 

 17       over, kind of spot some of the issues for 

 18       them, and then we'll point them in the right 

 19       direction and tell them where they need to 

 20       follow up and how they need to get 

 21       additional information; and we'll send that 

 22       to them as well.  

 23             We receive requests from local 

 24       prosecutors, primarily.  Sometimes we 

 25       receive requests from federal prosecutors.  



                                                             393
  1  

  2       A lot of times laboratory personnel will 

  3       call us.  Again, if they have a good 

  4       relationship with their prosecutor, or if 

  5       they're concerned about the prosecutor's 

  6       knowledge, and they're about to go into a 

  7       case together, sometimes they'll call us and 

  8       say,"Is there a way you can assist us in 

  9       providing information to that prosecutor to 

 10       get them up to speed?  Do you have any 

 11       predicate questions," et cetera, et cetera, 

 12       and we do have a lot of that information 

 13       that we ultimately send out to people.  

 14             Now, with respect to training, the way 

 15       we're funded, each year, we're able to do 

 16       two regional trainings, and we open them up 

 17       to a national audience of prosecutors.  And 

 18       we do that, probably about a four-day 

 19       program.  We pick locations around the 

 20       country depending on the different 

 21       geographic areas that have been targeted in 

 22       the past, and we advertise the training and 

 23       we open it up to, primarily, local 

 24       prosecutors, although, sometimes we do get 

 25       investigators that come.  



                                                             394
  1  

  2             And we put on a fairly intensive 

  3       program for a three and a half- to four-day 

  4       period, which I'll also talk a little about 

  5       in a second.  We assist with shorter 

  6       training programs.  Sometimes we'll receive 

  7       calls from prosecuting attorneys 

  8       associations of different states.  They'll 

  9       say, "I want to put on a one-day training.  

 10       Can you help us?"  So we'll give them ideas, 

 11       pull speakers for them, help them develop a 

 12       curriculum, provide them with training 

 13       materials, and help them run the program.  

 14             In addition, NDAA and APRI sponsor  

 15       national conferences on a yearly basis, 

 16       primarily.  Sometimes we will have tracks of 

 17       those national conferences that are devoted 

 18       to DNA evidence for prosecutors.  

 19             And, finally, a great thing that has 

 20       come along for us is The National Advocacy 

 21       Center, which is a facility that's located 

 22       in Columbia, South Carolina.  It's a 

 23       facility that's pictured there.  It's kind 

 24       of a stately building that has a lot of 

 25       southern charm associated with it.  Even 



                                                             395
  1  

  2       though it's kind of out of the way, it 

  3       certainly has been a place a lot of 

  4       prosecutors have gone to receive excellent 

  5       training.  

  6             We share that with the Department of 

  7       Justice.  It opened in 1998, was the first 

  8       training that was done there, and all sorts 

  9       of different training programs occur.  

 10       There's violence-against-women training, 

 11       child abuse training, cybercrime related 

 12       training.  We do joint training with Justice 

 13       sometimes.  

 14             But we also have allocated two weeks 

 15       of training, two times a year for DNA 

 16       evidence for prosecutors.  And the great 

 17       thing about The National Advocacy Center is 

 18       that the tuition, the travel expenses, the 

 19       lodging and the training itself is all 

 20       covered for prosecutors.  So it's a 

 21       completely free experience.  

 22             And when you get there, they have 

 23       meals that are provided on campus, in the 

 24       facility.  You stay right in the facility, 

 25       so you're able to network with other 



                                                             396
  1  

  2       students, and also they give you an 

  3       allowance for dinner.  So it really is a 

  4       completely free experience.  

  5             As you would imagine, there's a lot of 

  6       people that are interested in going to those 

  7       training programs because they're free.  So 

  8       the competition is pretty stiff.  There's a 

  9       lot of applicants, and applicants are chosen 

 10       by geographic area.  There's never more than 

 11       one person chosen from a particular DA's 

 12       office.  They like to try to vary it.

 13             But those programs have been very well 

 14       received.  We've done, I think, four so far 

 15       at The National Advocacy Center since it 

 16       opened, and we're going to do another one in 

 17       June of this year.  

 18             Our target audience with respect to 

 19       who we have to train out there in DNA 

 20       evidence is very heterogenous, if you will.  

 21       We have 2,700 prosecutors offices across the 

 22       country, and they're very, very varied.  

 23       Some offices have maybe one part-time 

 24       prosecutor that comes in and does cases, and 

 25       others have in excess of 500 prosecutors.  



                                                             397
  1  

  2             I sort of put a little graph there to 

  3       show that the majority of prosecutors 

  4       jurisdictions are rural.  There's 44 percent 

  5       that represent less than 20,000 in their 

  6       jurisdiction, and, of course, they have 

  7       different and varying degrees of experience 

  8       in handling DNA cases.  So that makes it a 

  9       challenge for us to be able to target 

 10       training on a national level to prosecutors.  

 11             The way we go about convening or 

 12       developing our training programs is, we have 

 13       an advisory group of individuals that we 

 14       convene that assist us in, number one, 

 15       delivering the training, but more 

 16       importantly, coming up with a curriculum and 

 17       the materials that we actually distribute to 

 18       our students.  

 19             And on that faculty, we have -- first 

 20       of all, I should say that these people 

 21       donate their time on a volunteer basis.  

 22       They take time out of their very busy 

 23       schedules and work up lots of materials for 

 24       us.  They come and do the trainings for us, 

 25       sometimes it's a week out of their lives, 



                                                             398
  1  

  2       and sometimes we ask them to do it four 

  3       times a year.  So they're very, very busy, 

  4       but they're very, very dedicated to helping 

  5       us.  And we're very lucky to have them.

  6             Some of the individuals we have 

  7       include many different scientists from the 

  8       FBI.  We also work with Dr. Cecilia Krause 

  9       from Palm Beach in Florida.  We also have 

 10       many prosecutors that assist us, experts in 

 11       the field.  

 12             Norm Gahn is an individual that works 

 13       with us.  I know he's here.  We also have 

 14       Woody Clark, Dennis Bower, Matt Riedel.  

 15       These are individuals that have been there 

 16       in the trenches fighting the DNA wars from 

 17       the beginning, and they have a tremendous 

 18       amount of expertise in this area, and they 

 19       come and try to impart that to students.  

 20             In addition,  we've worked with 

 21       Dr. Carmody, also Dr. Bever. We've also 

 22       worked with some other individuals that have 

 23       helped and tried to come and explain the 

 24       very confusing issue of statistics that 

 25       prosecutors are very frightened of 



                                                             399
  1  

  2       sometimes.  

  3             Sometimes, we also employ 

  4       investigators to come and talk about 

  5       innovative programs they're working on, and 

  6       occasionally, we will have victims come in 

  7       and talk about how DNA has made a difference 

  8       in their lives.  So we try to have a very 

  9       well-rounded faculty that has a very strong 

 10       expertise level.

 11             Again, we meet on a yearly basis as an 

 12       advisory group to try to assess the 

 13       developments of past year and refine the 

 14       curriculum to reflect those.  Then we gather 

 15       materials for students.  We, ultimately, put 

 16       these in a huge binder, and we give them out 

 17       to students at different training programs.  

 18             We include the Powerpoints that we 

 19       have, but we also include sample briefs; 

 20       sample cases; decisions as many as we can 

 21       find on a particular topic; predicate 

 22       questions; defense attacks and how to 

 23       respond to them; different legal issues that 

 24       are novel; and we try to give them as much 

 25       information as possible and as many 



                                                             400
  1  

  2       different resources they can contact for 

  3       future assistance.  

  4             In addition, we evaluate the programs 

  5       by passing out evaluations for each of the 

  6       speakers and we ask for comments.  We look 

  7       at those really closely and try to refine 

  8       our program based on the comments.  In 

  9       addition, we send out needs assessments 

 10       before the trainings to try and get an idea 

 11       of who our audience is.  

 12             Some of the topics that we cover for 

 13       our basic training course, and, again, the 

 14       format that we've used is a week-long 

 15       training where we have a four- to a 

 16       four-and-a-half-day program.  We, initially, 

 17       start with the basics of the science of DNA 

 18       because, as many of you know, lawyers went 

 19       to law school, they're not scientists. A lot 

 20       of them are very intimidated by the science, 

 21       and they don't have any knowledge about it.  

 22             Whereas a lot of people in the field 

 23       throw out terms that they think prosecutors 

 24       should know about, most prosecutors have 

 25       very little information about DNA.  I had a 



                                                             401
  1  

  2       guy call me yesterday hat has an STR case, 

  3       and he was asking me some information.  And 

  4       he's a very, very experienced prosecutor, 

  5       and I mentioned mitochondrial DNA and he 

  6       said, "What's that?" He had no idea about 

  7       it.  

  8             So what we try to do is do a basic 

  9       course on the science of DNA, some of the 

 10       basic scientific terms:  genes, locus, 

 11       alleles.  Very basic.  We also, in our basic 

 12       course, do teach RFLP still because we feel 

 13       that that also provides a baseline of 

 14       information to get people into it, to 

 15       introduce them to some concepts that they 

 16       will later learn in other typing 

 17       technologies.  

 18             Then we go into PCR, and we have a 

 19       scientist that teaches the different 

 20       scientific principles underlying STR and 

 21       PCR, and we cover the different types of PCR 

 22       testing as well.  

 23             Of course, as we evolve, primarily, 

 24       into STR testing across this country, we're 

 25       concentrating our efforts more on that, and 



                                                             402
  1  

  2       we're trying to be able to explain that to 

  3       people.  

  4             Again, a lot of prosecutors when they 

  5       get there, they're very intimidated by the 

  6       science.  It takes them a while to warm up 

  7       to it.  So that is a real challenge to us to 

  8       try to figure out how to explain the 

  9       complicated process of STR typing.  

 10             In addition, we have a science lecture 

 11       on mitochondrial DNA, and we try to have a 

 12       lawyer that comes in and talks about their 

 13       experience in trying mitochondrial DNA 

 14       cases.  That is also a challenge.  Not many 

 15       lawyers across the country have yet been 

 16       faced with that challenge.  

 17             We're very lucky when we have 

 18       prosecutors that are able to come in and 

 19       talk about their story, but we need more.  

 20       So at the end of the presentation, I'm going 

 21       to make a pitch to anybody who is interested 

 22       in teaching or knows of somebody who is a 

 23       good teacher who has had experience in these 

 24       areas, especially prosecutors, to let me 

 25       know about that. 



                                                             403
  1  

  2             in addition, we cover the daunting 

  3       area of statistics.  A lot of prosecutors 

  4       say, "Why do we even need to learn this?"  

  5       They're very frustrated by it because it is 

  6       so complicated and involves math, which a 

  7       lot of people haven't touched since they 

  8       were in tenth grade.  

  9             When the statisticians get up and 

 10       start talking, the eyes start to glaze over, 

 11       and so that is a real challenge for us to 

 12       try to get it to a level that prosecutors 

 13       can understand and be familiar with.  

 14             We also cover evidence collection and 

 15       preservation issues.  We talk about a lot of 

 16       legal issues that are common in every 

 17       criminal case but that take on a different 

 18       meaning in DNA cases; discover; 

 19       admissibility issues.

 20             We try to teach about CODIS.  When we 

 21       start our programs, I'll ask people, "How 

 22       many of you have heard of CODIS?"  And you'd 

 23       be surprised how many prosecutors do not 

 24       raise their hands, and that was as recently 

 25       as a February training.  There are some 



                                                             404
  1  

  2       prosecutors who have no knowledge of the 

  3       benefits of CODIS and what it can do for 

  4       them.  

  5             In addition, we cover the more 

  6       traditional trial strategies, trial 

  7       techniques in working DNA cases, and we also 

  8       talk about post-conviction relief issues, 

  9       both in terms of nationally, what's 

 10       occurring and the nuts and bolts of how to 

 11       respond to them.  

 12             Also a lot of our lab personnel have 

 13       wanted us to talk about the issue of 

 14       prioritization of sample submission to the 

 15       different labs.  We've tried to include a 

 16       lecture on that in our most recent trainings 

 17       as well.  

 18              And then finally, we try to do a tour 

 19       of laboratory if we're near location that 

 20       will accommodate us, and so far we've been 

 21       lucky with that in most respects.  We were  

 22       recently out in San Francisco, and CAL DOJ 

 23       was gracious enough for us to let us go to 

 24       their facility.  As you can imagine, as you 

 25       all know, there are major issues with 



                                                             405
  1  

  2       respect to that.

  3             But we are lucky also in South 

  4       Carolina in that the laboratory there, which 

  5       is pretty much in its beginning stages, has 

  6       enabled us to come through and tour and to 

  7       see a lot of the important work that they 

  8       do.  

  9             You'd be surprised how many 

 10       prosecutors, again, have not actually been 

 11       to a lab and taken the time to do that.  So 

 12       a lot of them are very happy to have the 

 13       opportunity.  

 14             We have been doing a basic course over 

 15       the last two years, and one of our biggest 

 16       challenges is that we're finding that our 

 17       audiences are so varied in their experience 

 18       level, that we've had to diverge and go into 

 19       a more advanced training session.  

 20             So we're going to try to do that for 

 21       the first time in August.  We're doing a 

 22       session in Philadelphia, and we're going to 

 23       try to meet the needs of the prosecutor that 

 24       actually has been doing these cases for many 

 25       years, has an interest, want to hone their 



                                                             406
  1  

  2       skills and want to learn about the different 

  3       typing technologies that are out there.

  4             Again, we're going to cover in more 

  5       depth the sciences.  We're going to talk 

  6       about how to use CODIS in some of the legal 

  7       issues that are coming up with cases where 

  8       people are getting hits off of database 

  9       searches.  

 10             And, in addition, we're going to talk 

 11       about some emerging technologies.  We have 

 12       Dr. Prinze from New York coming down.  She's 

 13       going to talk to us about chromosome 

 14       testing.  We're going to have another 

 15       scientist talk to us about emerging 

 16       technologies.  

 17             In addition, we're going to cover some 

 18       of the more novel legal issues, again, Norm 

 19       Gahn's brainchild, the "John Doe" warrants 

 20       and other post-conviction issues that are 

 21       coming up on a regular basis for prosecutors 

 22       that they absolutely need to know how to 

 23       handle.  

 24             Again, I think I went over this.  We 

 25       did about five trainings at the advocacy 



                                                             407
  1  

  2       center, and we've done five regionally in 

  3       the last two years, and I want to talk 

  4       briefly about some of the challenges that we 

  5       consistently see with respect to training 

  6       prosecutors.  

  7             One of the most important things is to 

  8       be aware of the different culture that 

  9       exists in prosecutors offices with respect 

 10       to training.  For a lot of local 

 11       prosecutors, it's very, very difficult to 

 12       get out of the office to come to a week-long 

 13       training program because they have 

 14       incredible trial schedules and they have 

 15       incredible case loads.  

 16             In addition, prosecutors offices 

 17       generally don't have the funding to send 

 18       people to training or to send them for a 

 19       week out of the office.  So that's the 

 20       beauty of The National Advocacy Center, and 

 21       in our additional petitions for funding, I'm 

 22       going to ask for more scholarships for 

 23       prosecutors to be able to get them into this 

 24       training.  

 25             It's very challenging to be able to 



                                                             408
  1  

  2       impart to prosecutors that don't have any 

  3       knowledge about this a comprehensive 

  4       workable level of understanding to actually 

  5       get out there and handle these cases when 

  6       they get back to their offices.  That's very 

  7       challenging, as you can imagine, to expose 

  8       them to the science, to teach them the 

  9       different concepts that they need to know.  

 10       So we try to do that as best we can, but 

 11       that's always a challenge.  

 12             Again, diffusing the fear of science.  

 13       A lot of evaluations will say, "Too much 

 14       science."  And, again, we try to cover just 

 15       the very basics, but for prosecutors, they 

 16       want to get beyond the science and learn how 

 17       to try the cases without actually learning 

 18       the science that they need to learn.  

 19             Again, statistics is always a 

 20       challenge, and as I indicated earlier, 

 21       accommodating the different levels of 

 22       knowledge and experience is becoming more 

 23       and more of a challenge for us.  

 24             Something else that I'd like to try to 

 25       branch into is the concept of awareness 



                                                             409
  1  

  2       training.  Prosecutors have training 

  3       conferences on an annual basis; summer 

  4       conferences, fall conferences.  There's 

  5       usually a two-hour time frame that they 

  6       allot for speakers, and we'd like to try to 

  7       go out and give prosecutors an awareness 

  8       training on some of the issues that are out 

  9       ther with respect to DNA, such as CODIS and 

 10       post-conviction relief issues to try to 

 11       target, at least, the ones that can't come 

 12       for our longer trainings but to give them 

 13       more of a broader knowledge of what's out 

 14       there.  

 15             It's also harder for us to secure 

 16       faculty members that are experienced and 

 17       qualified.  Again, we have an excellent core 

 18       group of faculty members, but they're very 

 19       busy.  We can't keep tapping into them, and 

 20       it is hard to find prosecutors, in 

 21       particular, that have the knowledge and 

 22       expertise for handling these cases.  

 23             Again, it's always a challenge to 

 24       reach the rural prosecutors, to be able to 

 25       bring them in and meet their needs as well, 



                                                             410
  1  

  2       since they have different trial schedules 

  3       and different needs than a lot of the urban 

  4       prosecutors do.  

  5             And, finally, there's just the sheer 

  6       number of prosecutors out there that we have 

  7       to train that are using DNA but don't really 

  8       know anything about it.  I hear it time and 

  9       time again from the laboratory personnel 

 10       that they're very frustrated when they go 

 11       into court.  The prosecutor hasn't even 

 12       called them and reviewed the case with them.  

 13       That's amazing to me, but it does happen a 

 14       lot.  

 15             But, again, there are many other 

 16       prosecutors that are very dedicated and work 

 17       hard at this as well, and we want to help 

 18       them and that's the mission of our unit.  

 19             If I could have a wish list for 

 20       training for the future, again, it would be 

 21       to have additional funding for our 

 22       particular unit to have a full-time staff to 

 23       able to meet the needs and to be able to 

 24       advertise what we do.  

 25             A lot of prosecutors will call us and 



                                                             411
  1  

  2       say, "I didn't know you were out there.  I 

  3       didn't know you existed." We try to 

  4       advertise ourselves, but, sometimes, we 

  5       don't hit the mark.  

  6             Again, I mention the issue of 

  7       scholarships, the ability to assist other 

  8       prosecutors in their training endeavors.  We 

  9       get a lot of requests for that, and we can't 

 10       do it because we're too small of a staff.  

 11             We also publish a newsletter on a 

 12       quarterly basis where we highlight a certain 

 13       DNA issue that's a hot topic.  We recently 

 14       did one on Y-chromosome testing.  We did one 

 15       on the post-conviction relief 

 16       recommendations of the National Commission, 

 17       and we try to get that out to a wide range 

 18       of prosecutors and that generates responses 

 19       and questions from individuals.  

 20             In addition, we'd like to explore 

 21       other training mediums and technical 

 22       assistance mediums such as web-based or 

 23       video conferencing, and that's in the 

 24       future; and we'd like to try to continue our 

 25       unit's ability to get out and network in the 



                                                             412
  1  

  2       community and to become educated ourselves 

  3       and to keep up on all the different issues;

  4       and, finally, to continue the coordination 

  5       and cooperation that we have with different 

  6       members of the forensic community and to 

  7       make sure that we're all on the same page 

  8       with respect to the training what we're 

  9       doing.  

 10             I think that for a long time we've all 

 11       been sort of in different factions and not 

 12       really knowing what each other's doing or 

 13       not coordinating as much as we should.  

 14             And, I guess, my final pitch would be 

 15       to say that prosecutors, of course, are the 

 16       end users of this evidence, and they really 

 17       desperately need the training and the 

 18       assistance, the interaction with the 

 19       different lab personnel, and so we always 

 20       welcome the opportunity for assistance; and 

 21       we appreciate the hard work that lab 

 22       personnel perform every day, but we want to 

 23       continue to work together because we have to 

 24       work together and we have to work with law 

 25       enforcement as well, and everybody 



                                                             413
  1  

  2       desperately needs training on how to handle 

  3       this evidence and these issues that come up.  

  4       I think that's about it.  Thank you.

  5             (Applause.)

  6             MR. CONNOLLY:  Thank you.  Keith 

  7       Coonrod, our next speaker is Director of 

  8       Toxicology and Drug Chemistry Services for 

  9       the New York State Police Laboratory System.  

 10       He's been in the forensic business for 23 

 11       years.  

 12             He served on the board of ASCLD and 

 13       served as a Team Captain for numerous ASCLD 

 14       inspections, and he currently is President- 

 15       Elect of ASCLD.  

 16             Keith received his Bachelor's degree 

 17       in Criminology and Forensic Chemistry for 

 18       Indiana State University, and he has 

 19       Master's degree in public administration 

 20       from Marist College.  Keith Coonrod.  

 21             

 22             MR. COONROD:  Thank you, Ken.  First 

 23       of all, this morning, I find it very 

 24       refreshing to come here and listen to past 

 25       panel speakers talk about the same needs 



                                                             414
  1  

  2       that I'm going to addressing here in my 

  3       presentation, and that is the need to be 

  4       able to do something regarding our education 

  5       of forensic scientists in the United States.  

  6             Universities agree that something 

  7       needs to be done on their end.  Crime 

  8       laboratories agree that something has to be 

  9       done on our end also.  And so what we're 

 10       saying is, obviously, we have to work 

 11       together in order to face this challenge in 

 12       the future.  

 13             The problem that faces forensic 

 14       laboratories is, how do we educate and train 

 15       our new forensic scientists in the future?  

 16       Initially, what we've done is we've dealt 

 17       with the mentoring whereby somebody comes 

 18       into our laboratory, let's say if it's 

 19       question documents or if it ends up being 

 20       firearms, and we can end up spending 

 21       sometimes one to three years in doing that.  

 22             And that's not really very practical 

 23       to do that.  It takes a lot of time for a 

 24       laboratory.  Laboratories do not have the 

 25       resources to be able to do that.  We're 



                                                             415
  1  

  2       faced with significant case loads, not 

  3       enough people to be able to do this 

  4       particular training or the education of 

  5       forensic scientist, and here, again, it's a 

  6       one- to three-year commitment.  We heard Bob 

  7       Gaensslen say before, the minimum training 

  8       period is one to three years in a 

  9       laboratory.  

 10             What ends up happening is, doing the 

 11       old mentoring, which I'm not saying has to 

 12       go out, there still is a need to do 

 13       mentoring, but what happens is, by following 

 14       the past practices of mentoring for one to 

 15       three years, we end up having both the 

 16       trainee and the qualified trainer being 

 17       non-productive.  

 18             So now, if we're doing a one-to-one 

 19       scenario, you've got two people being paid 

 20       by the laboratory which you're getting 

 21       really no production out of.  This has to 

 22       change.  What happens is you're going 

 23       through this period of time.  What it 

 24       results in is the increase of backlogs.  

 25       Cases are not being done during the training 



                                                             416
  1  

  2       phase.  

  3             Customers still remain dissatisfied 

  4       during the training phase, which, as I said, 

  5       can go one to three years.  Also what 

  6       happens is, at the end of one to three 

  7       years, laboratories will experience a 

  8       certain loss of newly trained staff that end 

  9       up going to other agencies.  

 10             I talked with one lab director last 

 11       week that spent two years training a new 

 12       firearms examiner, and what happened within 

 13       a couple of weeks after finishing the 

 14       person's training, out the door they went to 

 15       another laboratory.  Two years worth of 

 16       resources gone. 

 17             The bottom line is, what this does is 

 18       this leads to inefficiency of the system, 

 19       and what it comes down to is there's no bang 

 20       for the buck.  What we have to do is, like 

 21       we've heard before in our previous panel 

 22       discussion, is we have to work with 

 23       universities.  We have to work with other 

 24       agencies, NCFS, NFTC, to be able to solve 

 25       this problem.  



                                                             417
  1  

  2             What I want to do is present to you, 

  3       what it ASCLD doing.  As President-Elect of 

  4       ASCLD, we have, first of all, we have a 

  5       strategic plan.  The strategic plan deals 

  6       with, ASCLD wants to be a participant, they 

  7       want to be an organizer, they want to be 

  8       coordinator of forensic science related to 

  9       training programs.  

 10             What we have is we want to work with 

 11       organizations like NCFS, NFSTC, which Bill 

 12       will talk about, and also with different 

 13       universities and colleges and programs 

 14       different programs that are out there.  

 15             We also have a task force which is 

 16       made up of Sue Narvison and Jay Siegal that 

 17       are put together to assist in the 

 18       development of basic criteria for forensic 

 19       education programs.  So ASCLD is taking a 

 20       proactive response to this need by making it 

 21       part of our strategic plan.  

 22             Also, as President-Elect of ASCLD, one 

 23       of my responsibilities is I have to put 

 24       together the 28th Annual Symposium on Crime 

 25       Laboratory Development.  In the past, the 



                                                             418
  1  

  2       lab or the symposium always has a certain 

  3       percentage of management courses that deal 

  4       for crime laboratory directors, assistant 

  5       directors, those people that are involved in 

  6       management of crime laboratories.  

  7             This year, in addition to that, what  

  8       I'm doing is I'm having workshops on the 

  9       front end, actually, on Saturday and Sunday 

 10       that are going to address those basic needs 

 11       of laboratory directors, but at our 

 12       symposium, which is in Buffalo, New York, 

 13       the week of September 11th and the 14th, I 

 14       have a segment that's going to be dedicated 

 15       to the education of our forensic scientists.  

 16             What I am doing is putting together a 

 17       program that's actually going to explore new 

 18       and unique programs that are going to be 

 19       designed to educate the forensic scientists 

 20       in specific disciplines.  We're going to 

 21       take a look certain things like the FBI's, 

 22       the New Distance Learning Initiative that's 

 23       going to be due to be implemented this fall.  

 24             We'll be looking at programs from 

 25       NCFS, also NFSTC.  Dr. Paul Ferrara will be 



                                                             419
  1  

  2       involved, and he'll be discussing the  

  3       Forensic Institute that was, in part, funded 

  4       by funds from Patricia Cornwell, in which 

  5       people that want to be scientists, in other 

  6       words, scientists that want to work in the 

  7       forensic laboratory, are trained in the 

  8       institute, and then that becomes a direct 

  9       pool for the Virginia system to be able to 

 10       hire and bring into the laboratory.  

 11             Also, we're going to explore 

 12       innovative university programs like, for 

 13       instance, as I said, some of the programs 

 14       that we've already heard, of how we're going 

 15       to train our forensic scientists in the 

 16       future, not just the classical getting a 

 17       Bachelor's degree in Chemistry, or like what 

 18       I did, in Forensic Chemistry, but how can we 

 19       better take and mold the person to be a pool 

 20       or a source in which they can move into 

 21       laboratories and not to spend this one to 

 22       three years in mentoring; and instead of 

 23       doing that, maybe only spending three or six 

 24       months of mentoring and fine tuning the 

 25       person learning some of the SOPs and 



                                                             420
  1  

  2       uniquenesses of the agency and, therefore, 

  3       not drawing down those limited resources of 

  4       the agency to get a person on-line.  So 

  5       these are some of the things that, actually,  

  6       we're going to be taking and looking at our 

  7       28th Annual Symposium.  

  8             The other thing that I want to make 

  9       everybody aware of is that there's a 

 10       consortium.  The Consortium is a group of 

 11       laboratory, or not laboratory, but actually 

 12       directors of various different or presidents 

 13       of different forensic organizations 

 14       throughout the United States.  

 15             It includes ASCLD.  It includes 

 16       ASCLD/LAB.  It includes the American Academy 

 17       of Forensic Sciences.  I know that NCFS, 

 18       NFST are involved, and what it does is, it 

 19       identifies the need that we have to do 

 20       something regarding forensics.  

 21             And in order to do that, we have to 

 22       have a common unified voice.  We cannot be 

 23       fragmented in our approach.  So the 

 24       Consortium was put together of the various 

 25       different leaders of the forensic community 



                                                             421
  1  

  2       to come together to voice the opinion of the 

  3       forensic science community and say, Hey, 

  4       look.  Listen to us.  We need funding.  We 

  5       need certain resources that we're very, very 

  6       short on in the forensic community.  

  7             Two of those areas:  One deals with 

  8       personnel staffing and the other one is  

  9       training, amongst other areas.  So the 

 10       Consortium is working to actually gain funds 

 11       to promote the need for the forensic 

 12       community that's out there, to actually be 

 13       recognized as a unified, common voice.  

 14             The Consortium also is supporting a 

 15       National Forensic Commission which can 

 16       actually take over that responsibility and 

 17       be that unified voice so we get the funding 

 18       that we need for education, training, 

 19       amongst other needs in the forensic 

 20       community.  

 21             The Consortium also supports certain 

 22       initiatives like the NFSIA, Eclipse, and 

 23       those types of programs in order to get that 

 24       funding.  

 25             The bottom line is, we must try to 



                                                             422
  1  

  2       seek alternative methods for learning, and 

  3       we must do that in a cooperative manner, 

  4       work with the universities.  Universities 

  5       cannot do it on their own.  They need the 

  6       laboratories.  The laboratories cannot 

  7       afford to do it on their own anymore.

  8             We need the universities.  We need the 

  9       NCFSs, The National Forensic Science 

 10       training Center, those organizations to be 

 11       able to work together to achieve our goal.  

 12             The outcome is going to be better 

 13       utilization of limited resource for the 

 14       laboratory to achieve our goals, and that 

 15       will also provide an improved educational 

 16       quality of our forensic applicants, the pool 

 17       from which we can draw from.  It will also 

 18       greatly increase the efficiency and 

 19       effectiveness of the laboratory.  

 20             The bottom line is, it will improve 

 21       customer satisfaction, which is really what 

 22       the laboratories are there for, to provide a 

 23       better service if we take and we work 

 24       smarter in educating and training our 

 25       forensic scientists.  And, pretty much, 



                                                             423
  1  

  2       that's it. 

  3             (Applause.)

  4             MR. CONNOLLY:  Thank you, Keith.  

  5       Terry Fenger serves as Director of the 

  6       Forensic Science Program and Chair of the 

  7       Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular 

  8       Genetics at Marshall University School of 

  9       Medicine in Huntington, West Virginia.  

 10             Dr. Fenger also serves as the Director 

 11       of Marshall University component of the West 

 12       Virginia CODIS under the authority of the 

 13       West Virginia State Police.  He received his 

 14       Ph.D. in Microbiology from Southern Illinois 

 15       University in Carbondale, and then he 

 16       conducted post-doctoral research at LSU 

 17       Medical Center in New Orleans.  Terry 

 18       Fenger. 

 19             DR. FENGER:  I'd like to thank the  

 20       NIJ and the various New York agencies for 

 21       allowing me to present this material on the 

 22       Marshall University Forensic Science 

 23       program.  We have one of the newer programs 

 24       in the area of higher education in forensic 

 25       science, and I'd just like to highlight a 



                                                             424
  1  

  2       little bit about how we got started and 

  3       where we think we're going with the program.  

  4             Actually, we got our footing back in 

  5       1990.  There was a trial in Huntington, West 

  6       Virginia where they exonerated an individual 

  7       who was in the prison system using DNA 

  8       technologies.  

  9             Dr. Bing and Dr. Blight came to West 

 10       Virginia, and they participated in a habeas 

 11       corpus appeal.  This was really our first 

 12       introduction as a microbiologist and a 

 13       forensic biologist to the forensic side of 

 14       things.  

 15             During 1992 through 1994, we offered, 

 16       supposedly, it was going to be one course, 

 17       but it turned out to be seven graduate-level 

 18       courses to the criminalists at the West 

 19       Virginia State Police as part of their 

 20       continuing education program.  

 21             At that time they realized it was very 

 22       costly to go to various places throughout 

 23       the United States for continuing education.  

 24       There was a backlog in the subscription to 

 25       courses at the FBI and Quantico.  Some of 



                                                             425
  1  

  2       the courses, they had to wait on the order 

  3       of a couple of years.  So this was the 

  4       setting in which our program began.  

  5             The forensic science program was 

  6       approved by the Board of Trustees in '94, 

  7       and just about that same time, we were 

  8       becoming interested, we meaning the West 

  9       Virginia State Police and Marshall, in 

 10       CODIS; and Senate Bill 252 allowed West 

 11       Virginia CODIS to start.  

 12             And in that law or in that bill, it 

 13       stated that Marshall University would do the 

 14       DNA testing for CODIS under the supervision 

 15       of the West Virginia State Police.  

 16             This one aspect has, I think, had a 

 17       major impact on the development of the 

 18       program because not only do we participate 

 19       in the educational process, but we also have 

 20       the CODIS lab right there next to the 

 21       forensic science program, its facilities, 

 22       and this allows our students to see what an 

 23       active DNA lab for forensic purposes is all 

 24       about; and it shows them a little bit about 

 25       database management and so forth.  So 



                                                             426
  1  

  2       there's a number of practical aspects that 

  3       stem from that decision to allow Marshall to 

  4       do this.  

  5             So classes began in '95, and our first 

  6       graduating class in '97.  Just last week, we 

  7       graduated our fourth class of 23 students.  

  8       Four of those graduates, over the years, 

  9       have come from the west Virginia State 

 10       Police.  

 11             A number of them that started taking 

 12       courses between '92 and '94 continued their 

 13       education during the period of the 90s, and 

 14       they had enough credits to qualify for a 

 15       Master's degree.  

 16             Now, I tried to assess how we 

 17       developed this program, and, really, there 

 18       was no formal structure by which we could 

 19       utilize for the development of the courses 

 20       and the curriculum, in general.  So a lot of 

 21       the courses developed out of our 

 22       interactions with the West Virginia State 

 23       Police and federal agencies.  

 24             We would ask experts in the field, 

 25       "What do you need, or what do you view as 



                                                             427
  1  

  2       the potential for a particular course?" 

  3       And they gave us a lot of feedback which 

  4       helped us develop our curriculum.  

  5             The guest speakers, when they came 

  6       into Marshall, and many of which came from 

  7       the FBI and other federal agencies, these 

  8       individuals would give us their opinion 

  9       about what courses were needed.  

 10             We attended national meetings, and we 

 11       looked at established programs and looked at 

 12       their curricula to help us format ours.  At 

 13       about that time TWGDAM was developing its 

 14       core curriculum, and they suggested 

 15       biochemistry, cellular-molecular biology, 

 16       genetics and statistics, so we included 

 17       those courses in our curriculum; and we 

 18       looked to the ABC just to determine what 

 19       type of questions were being asked on the  

 20       general knowledge exam, and that helped us.  

 21             Other things that were transpiring 

 22       about that same time were occurring in the 

 23       legal system so far as the O.J. Simpson 

 24       Trial and other trials which pointed to the 

 25       direction of evidence collection as being 



                                                             428
  1  

  2       extremely important and other investigative 

  3       processes.  And, of course, new technologies 

  4       were developing, and we had to incorporate 

  5       that, especially, into our DNA courses.  

  6             I'd just like to briefly go through 

  7       our curriculum.  This is a Master's level 

  8       course or curriculum, so most of our 

  9       students come in with a Bachelor's degree in 

 10       either Chemistry, Biology, Geology.  One had 

 11       Chemical Engineering from John Hopkins.  So 

 12       it was a variety of different individuals.

 13             These individuals must have the 

 14       following courses:  a year of physics, 

 15       chemistry, biology, and a year of organic, 

 16       all with labs; they have to have a 1500 on 

 17       their graduate record exam; a B average; and 

 18       three letters of recommendation pointing to 

 19       their integrity.  We do not do any 

 20       background checks of these individuals.  

 21             The first year, first semester, they 

 22       take biochemistry, which satisfies one of 

 23       the criteria for what was TWGDAM, now 

 24       SWGDAM; fingerprints; crime scene and death 

 25       investigation; and a multiple topics course.  



                                                             429
  1  

  2             The crime scene and death 

  3       investigation, we think, is rather unusual  

  4       because the students who participate in this 

  5       on an alternative basis actually wear a 

  6       pager and are called out on crime scenes.  

  7       So they actually get to see what a crime 

  8       scene looks like.  

  9             We have one of the faculty members in 

 10       our program, is also the Coroner of Cabble 

 11       and Wayne County, and he calls these 

 12       students out on death investigations.  

 13             We have a close association with the 

 14       West Virginia Fire Marshal.  Those 

 15       individuals that are interested in arson and 

 16       explosives, they wear pagers and they go out 

 17       to these crime scenes.  

 18             So these are firsthand training, and 

 19       we're the believers that many of the things 

 20       that we talk about in class need to be 

 21       amplified and supplemented with hands-on 

 22       training in the field by experts who have 

 23       done this their whole lives.  So we have a 

 24       very close association with these other 

 25       agencies.  



                                                             430
  1  

  2             The multiple topics course.  This is a 

  3       hodgepodge of different topics, but we 

  4       emphasize one area in particular.  We talk 

  5       about IR spectroscopy, and we utilize that 

  6       for analysis of paint and other polymers.  

  7             But we also include explosives, arson, 

  8       firearms, glass fractures, and a number of 

  9       other topics, and seminar, which the 

 10       students are require today give.  

 11             Second semester, first year, the 

 12       genetics DNA technology course.  This is one 

 13       of the core courses, again, for TWGDAM.  We 

 14       have a microscopy course where they learn 

 15       scanning electron microscopy as well as 

 16       polarizing light microscopy.  These two 

 17       areas, of course, can be used for gunshot 

 18       residue as well as fiber analysis.  

 19       Statistics is another core course for 

 20       TWGDAM.  

 21             A critical part of the our program is 

 22       a summer internship, and this is mandatory.  

 23       It's critical, but at the same time it's a 

 24       bottleneck for the program because the 

 25       students are required to go into a forensic 



                                                             431
  1  

  2       lab between June 10th and August and work 

  3       eight-hour days, five days a week.  

  4             So it's our responsibility to find 

  5       laboratories willing to accept these 

  6       students, and sometimes, especially for 

  7       those students who come to us from out of 

  8       state, it's difficult to make appropriate 

  9       matches.

 10             In-state students often go to our 

 11       CODIS lab at Marshall, the West Virginia 

 12       State Police in various capacities.  Some 

 13       have gone to question documents, 

 14       fingerprints, the DNA lab, trace, and so 

 15       forth.  The medical examiners have taken 

 16       some of our students.  

 17             And then, of course, the out-of-state 

 18       agencies.  Who encourage students that come 

 19       to our program from out of state to go back 

 20       to their home state and try to establish a 

 21       network with the state that they'll probably 

 22       ends up working with, so this is strongly 

 23       encouraged.  But as our program has 

 24       increased in number, we have faced the 

 25       obstacle of finding the appropriate and 



                                                             432
  1  

  2       enough internships for our students.  

  3             The second year, first semester:  

  4       toxicology, cellular-molecular and other 

  5       TWGDAM.  Bioterrorism.  With our background 

  6       in microbiology, we offer this course as 

  7       what started out to be elective, but now 

  8       it's a mandated course in our series.

  9             Seminar and electives.  Electives, 

 10       especially, during the second year are 

 11       important in customizing the student's 

 12       experience.  One students wants to work at 

 13       the ATF.  It requires more chemistry than 

 14       what she had, so while she was at Marshall, 

 15       she also got a Bachelor's degree in 

 16       Chemistry to augment the Forensic Science 

 17       degree.  

 18             Final semester, we require digital 

 19       imaging; a legal issues course; electives, 

 20       again; and at the end of the last semester, 

 21       they're required to take a comprehensive 

 22       examination.  This is an in-house 

 23       examination on all of the courses that 

 24       they've taken in forensic science.  

 25             It serves for us the monitor our 



                                                             433
  1  

  2       educational process, but it also gets the 

  3       students ready for their next task, and 

  4       that's going out and looking for a position.  

  5       They are keyed at that point.  They have 

  6       reviewed all the information in the forensic 

  7       science courses, and we think this allows 

  8       them to present themselves well when they 

  9       look for jobs.  

 10             This indicates how the program has 

 11       developed over the years.  We took our first 

 12       class in '95, which constituted about seven 

 13       students, 23 for the graduating class that 

 14       just graduated last week, and the one we 

 15       took last fall has about 17.  The rise and 

 16       decline of the numbers does not reflect the 

 17       number of applications.  

 18             We found that because of the 

 19       bottleneck at the internship level, 23 was 

 20       just more than we could handle.  We could 

 21       identify internships for those students, 

 22       and, therefore, we dropped back down to 17.  

 23             Also noted in the slide is the fact 

 24       that females apply to the program almost 2:1 

 25       compared to males, and this is a trend we've 



                                                             434
  1  

  2       seen, not only in forensic science, but in 

  3       higher education, in general.  

  4             It was reported at a meeting a couple 

  5       of weeks ago, that about ten years ago, the 

  6       college population at the undergraduate 

  7       level, 51 percent were male and 49 percent 

  8       were female.  Now, the trend is that 41 

  9       percent are male, and the rest are female in 

 10       colleges throughout the country.  So this is 

 11       a trend that we see in a number of different 

 12       areas.

 13             This is a depiction of the location 

 14       from which the various students come from; 

 15       green being in-state students, red being 

 16       out-of-state, and blue being out of country.  

 17       And whereas, when we first started the 

 18       program, a good proportion of the students 

 19       came from instate, now it's shifted that a 

 20       good proportion of the students come from 

 21       out of state.  

 22             We have a number of individuals that 

 23       come down to the program from Canada, and 

 24       this last year, we just graduated one of the 

 25       medical examiners from Bucharest, Romania, 



                                                             435
  1  

  2       who came and participated in our program 

  3       over the last two years.  

  4             This takes the data from the last two 

  5       classes, and, again, it shows the overall 

  6       application numbers.  We get about a hundred 

  7       or so applications for the slots that I 

  8       indicated before.  We're going to probably 

  9       level off at about 17 positions.  

 10             Most of these, again, come from out of 

 11       state at this point in time.  We accept, 

 12       again, about 17.  A number of these 

 13       students, apparently, are applying to other 

 14       programs, though there's always a number 

 15       that drops off every year from those that we 

 16       accept.  

 17             On your far right, these, again, 

 18       indicate, these bars, again, indicate the 

 19       number of females versus males.  It's 

 20       important for a new program such as ours to 

 21       monitor where our graduates go, how easy 

 22       they get jobs, and how well they're accepted 

 23       by the forensic science community.  

 24             In the first year, we graduated seven 

 25       students plus one state police criminalist.  



                                                             436
  1  

  2       So a number of them stayed in West Virginia.  

  3       One went to Utah, Ohio, Indiana in question 

  4       documents, and another one is actually an 

  5       instructor in the program.  

  6             And we're located in a medical school, 

  7       and we predict that this will continue to be 

  8       the case, there's at least one student in 

  9       every class that decides to go to medical 

 10       school, but we don't look at that as a 

 11       detriment.  We look at it as, now, somebody 

 12       entering into the medical field who has an 

 13       understanding of forensic science, and if 

 14       they have some impact on the way evidence is 

 15       handled in emergency rooms or child abuse 

 16       cases, we feel that that's a positive 

 17       effect.  

 18             Again, the second year, this is for 

 19       West Virginia CODIS, Georgia Bureau of 

 20       Investigations, Cellmark.  We have two at 

 21       the FBI, one in trace evidence, one in 

 22       fingerprints.  

 23             I think the fingerprint story points 

 24       out an aspect of the program.  Even though 

 25       we do not stress fingerprints at all, it's a 



                                                             437
  1  

  2       one-hour course, first semester, four of our 

  3       graduates have been hired into fingerprints.  

  4             And how that appears to have developed 

  5       is that the students become interested in 

  6       fingerprints, they do their summer 

  7       internship at the West Virginia State Police 

  8       in fingerprints, and that internship is what 

  9       gives them the direction in working in a 

 10       fingerprint laboratory.  And we have a 

 11       number that are off to law school.  

 12             And this is our third class.  Again, 

 13       fingerprints, and as you can see, two have 

 14       gone into the Ph.D. program at Marshall 

 15       through the biomedical science program.  So 

 16       it's a number of the courses that we require 

 17       at the forensic science level are also 

 18       requirements for the Ph.D. and M.D. 

 19       programs.  So they do not have to retake 

 20       many of these core courses, and they can 

 21       move into the research slots at the Ph.D. 

 22       level.  

 23             Needs.  This echoes many of the needs 

 24       that have already been discussed by the 

 25       previous presenters.  We feel like there 



                                                             438
  1  

  2       should be some national guidelines to help 

  3       in the development of forensic science 

  4       programs; there should be an accreditation 

  5       process for forensic science courses; a 

  6       standardized comprehensive exam covering the 

  7       courses that a committee would develop.

  8             We also feel that there needs to be 

  9       more of a distance learning or distance 

 10       education network that develops off of the 

 11       forensic science programs to fulfill the 

 12       needs of the local law enforcement, the  

 13       prosecutors, and so forth; and we need grant 

 14       support, and I think this has been echoed by 

 15       a number of presenters today. 

 16             So far as the Marshall program 

 17       expanding it scope into other areas, we view 

 18       several different directions, One of which 

 19       is to try to present the formal courses to 

 20       the West Virginia State Police as well as 

 21       other law enforcement agencies through a 

 22       distance learning modality.  We have some 

 23       courses at the undergraduate level that 

 24       could also be transmitted through distance 

 25       learning.  



                                                             439
  1  

  2             And we have recently had a focus group 

  3       at our facility where we asked 

  4       representatives from the judiciary, the 

  5       legal profession, the law enforcement, fire 

  6       marshal; and we've asked them the question, 

  7       "What do you need from us?  What can we 

  8       provide either through formal courses 

  9       in-house or courses that we can transmit 

 10       using the distance learning mode?"

 11             And so we're in a process of surveying 

 12       their needs and developing courses through 

 13       distance learning.  This, again, is 

 14       addressed to those people who are already 

 15       out there practicing, but they need 

 16       additional continuing education credits or 

 17       they may decide that they want to proceed 

 18       for the Master's degree.  

 19             One thing that we've been developing 

 20       in association with Bell Atlantic is the ATM 

 21       System.  One of the judges in Huntington has 

 22       been instrumental in the developing of a 

 23       process called "Courtroom of the Future."  

 24       Eventually, all 55 County courthouses will 

 25       be linked, will be networked together, and 



                                                             440
  1  

  2       the original intent of this network was 

  3       deposition of arrestees.  

  4             However, we look at it as our ability 

  5       to transmit courses throughout the state and 

  6       to various audiences, including, like I 

  7       mentioned, the prosecutors, law enforcement, 

  8       fire marshal, and so forth.  

  9             And so we've had experience on certain 

 10       levels with distance learning.  We have 

 11       webcast-based learning programs that we've 

 12       developed.  We've developed some through 

 13       Marshall, some through the state government, 

 14       and some through the elementary system.  

 15             I should point out that three of the 

 16       four graduates who obtained Master's degrees 

 17       from the program, obtained much of the 

 18       course work through distance learning.  We 

 19       had a room set up in Huntington.  The State 

 20       Police are located in Charleston about 50 

 21       miles away, and we have another campus in 

 22       Charleston; and we were able to transmit the 

 23       course and cause minimal disruption of their 

 24       day.  

 25             So in summary, the forensic science 



                                                             441
  1  

  2       program at Marshall is relatively new.  

  3       We've developed a curriculum that we think 

  4       is still evolving.  

  5             Courses that we want to include in the 

  6       curriculum are those dealing with 

  7       cybercrime, which is an extension of our 

  8       digital imaging course.  We want to expand 

  9       on our offerings in bioterrorism and really 

 10       keep track of what current areas are of 

 11       importance to the forensic science community 

 12       and develop courses along those lines.  

 13       Thank you very much.

 14             (Applause.)

 15             MR. CONNOLLY:  Our last, but certainly 

 16       not least, presenter is William Tilstone.  

 17       He was appointed as Executive Director of 

 18       the National Forensic Science Center in 

 19       1986, and since that time has been 

 20       responsible for establishing the Center as a 

 21       key contributor to the enhancement of 

 22       quality forensic services nationally.  

 23             He is a member and Fellow of the Royal 

 24       College of Pathologists, received his B.S. 

 25       degree and Ph.D. both from the University of 



                                                             442
  1  

  2       Glasgow, Scotland.  William Tilstone.

  3             DR. TILSTONE:  Before I begin, I 

  4       wanted to ask if there are any lawyers left, 

  5       apart from my two fellow panelists.  There's 

  6       either two lawyers or two lawyers and three 

  7       cowards left.  

  8             I just wanted to try and redress the 

  9       balance a little bit.  You folks have taken 

 10       it in the chin from many sources, and you 

 11       may wonder why you come to these meetings 

 12       and get assaulted and insulted and, 

 13       generally, beaten up.  

 14             And the answer is a serious one, and 

 15       it goes back to the question I asked of the 

 16       education people about the values of 

 17       forensic science and values, in the sense 

 18       that the previous panelists were talking 

 19       about, are the kind of things they would 

 20       like to see forensic scientists hold dear.  

 21             But, in fact, values that people 

 22       really have, the things inside them that 

 23       drive the way that they behave, the way that 

 24       they do things right here are a bit 

 25       different, and one of the fundamental values 



                                                             443
  1  

  2       in forensic science is seeing if you ever go 

  3       into a lab and have a coffee with someone, 

  4       there's a distinct distaste for lawyers; and 

  5       we tell lawyer jokes like, the lawyer who 

  6       stood on a cowpad and screamed, help, help.  

  7       I'm melting.

  8             So what are you doing to do about it?  

  9       And one of the things that you can do about 

 10       it is, you can ask yourself, or not ask 

 11       yourself, ask the forensic scientists who 

 12       are saying nasty things to you, well, how 

 13       did you get to be a forensic scientist?  

 14             And they will tell you, I had to get a 

 15       degree and I had to get a job and I applied 

 16       and I got it.  And you'll say, well, like 

 17       me, did you have to take any board exams to 

 18       qualify you for doing this job?  And they'll 

 19       say, no.

 20             Then you can say, like me, do you have 

 21       to continually demonstrate your competency 

 22       by continuing education?  And they'll say, 

 23       no.  So if you get that retaliation in the 

 24       first of these things, maybe it will stop 

 25       lawyer jokes.  My fee's $500, and your bill 



                                                             444
  1  

  2       will be in your mail by monday.  

  3             So let's look at what I'm going to 

  4       talk about.  I'm going to talk about 

  5       training and assessment in forensic science 

  6       that's going to deal with some of these 

  7       things.  

  8             But before I get to there, I have some 

  9       acknowledgments, like everyone.  I'd like to 

 10       thank NIJ and their co-sponsors for the 

 11       invitation to speak.  I'd like to thank my 

 12       friends and colleagues at the University 

 13       Strathclyde Forensic Science Unit, the 

 14       Forensic Science Center in South Australia 

 15       where I was Director for 12 years, NFSTC, 

 16       and the many others who discussed, argued, 

 17       and maybe even occasionally persuaded me of 

 18       views on the subject of training and 

 19       education.  

 20             I would also like to acknowledge the 

 21       support of NIJ to the NFSTC.  As of April of 

 22       this year, there's an NIJ supported Forensic 

 23       Science Center, and I put that in, not just 

 24       to be polite and acknowledge it, but as 

 25       objective proof that things are changing.  



                                                             445
  1  

  2       There are more resources being into the 

  3       support of forensic science than there were 

  4       a few years ago.  

  5             So just to go back a little bit and 

  6       look at and define the difference between 

  7       education and training.  Of course, we were 

  8       talking of the training side. But I see 

  9       education as primarily learning oriented.  

 10       So it's all about learning.  

 11             I find it difficult to see how you can 

 12       claim any credibility in education as a 

 13       learning institution if you do not conduct 

 14       research, which is contributing to the 

 15       advancement of knowledge.  

 16             It usually has a broad basis.  It's  

 17       not terribly specific and narrowly defined.  

 18       It's delivered from educational 

 19       institutions, so you know where to go to get 

 20       education.  

 21             It usually takes a long time.  We saw 

 22       some examples up to ten years.  And very, 

 23       very, significantly, it's examined.  So you 

 24       cannot leave your educational institution 

 25       with your degree without passing some sort 



                                                             446
  1  

  2       of examination.  And once you've passed that 

  3       examination, you have some sort of 

  4       qualification which is, to some degree or 

  5       another, transportable.  

  6             Now, how does training differ?  Well, 

  7       it's outcome orientated.  So to begin with, 

  8       there's a purpose to it, which is of a 

  9       narrow focus and is not present in 

 10       educational programs because it's intended 

 11       to improve or create some degree of 

 12       competency in some defined area.  

 13             It's generally short.  You won't go in 

 14       a training program for ten years.  Ten hours 

 15       if you're lucky or unlucky, in some cases.  

 16       It's often delivered at the workplace, so 

 17       you don't have to travel for it.  It comes 

 18       to you sometimes.

 19             It's also an integral part of 

 20       technology transfer.  The things you're 

 21       going to hear about this afternoon will be 

 22       of absolutely no use to you in your 

 23       workplace or beneficiaries of forensic 

 24       investigations without appropriate training 

 25       to transfer the understanding of the basis 



                                                             447
  1  

  2       of that technology and how to make it work, 

  3       and that's a very important part of 

  4       training.  

  5             Now, I snuck in the word "assessment" 

  6       in the title, and I just want to talk a 

  7       little bit now about why I did that.  First 

  8       of all, assessment provides some objective 

  9       proof of the effectiveness of training or 

 10       education, coming back to a comment made 

 11       about education, about how there is an 

 12       examination in it.  

 13             It can be the basis of lifetime 

 14       learning, and by that, I mean that you can 

 15       build up an objective portfolio of how you 

 16       have learned new skills through your  

 17       lifetime because of assessment or a 

 18       continuing assessment as you've gone through 

 19       training programs.  

 20             It can be related to the maintenance 

 21       of some degree of professional 

 22       certification, and, as I said in the 

 23       introduction; hairdressers and attorneys, 

 24       yep, forensic scientists, nope.  There is 

 25       not that maintenance of professional 



                                                             448
  1  

  2       certification and competence for us, but 

  3       there is for hairdressers and these people 

  4       that we make jokes about.  

  5             So let's go now to have a look at some 

  6       of the determining influences in training.  

  7       These are certification, we're going to look 

  8       at them one by one; accreditation; DNA; and,  

  9       of course, we have to have another category.  

 10             Certification.  The key issue in 

 11       certification we're facing just now is the 

 12       growth of certification boards in forensic 

 13       science, we heard about it in medicine, but 

 14       we also had a little bit in the education 

 15       field about the American Board of 

 16       Criminalistics and the work that it does.  

 17             And the boards of certification are 

 18       seeking to demonstrate and retain proof of 

 19       some undercutting theoretical knowledge and 

 20       practical ability in the applied field.  So 

 21       certification should bring with it a degree 

 22       of confidence to the user of the services 

 23       that the people doing things at least have 

 24       some ability.  Unfortunately, for forensic 

 25       science, is voluntary.  



                                                             449
  1  

  2             Accreditation.  Another voluntary 

  3       situation most of the times, but programs 

  4       such as the one delivered by ASCLD/LAB have 

  5       in them requirements for objective proof of 

  6       qualifications of the practitioners and 

  7       their continuing development.  

  8             But, probably, the major influence in 

  9       the last ten years to formalize, 

 10       institutionalize, and, I guess, just 

 11       generally beef up and make relevant and 

 12       significant training programs has been 

 13       what's happened in DNA, and, in particular, 

 14       the DAB standards which require proof of 

 15       education in key areas and of continuing 

 16       education.  

 17             The scientific working groups parented 

 18       by TWGDAM but now on to SWGMAT, Swig drugs, 

 19       swig beer, swig everything. (Laughter.)  You 

 20       are awake.  Good.  Scientific working groups 

 21       also have built into their standards for 

 22       most of the sub-disciplines in forensic 

 23       science, education, continuing education, 

 24       and training requirements.  

 25             The other influences.  Just one little 



                                                             450
  1  

  2       word.  They're not insignificant, for 

  3       example, Dauber (phonetic.)  The question, 

  4       is the subject matter covered by recognized 

  5       training and education programs?  If it 

  6       ain't, then there's a question as to whether 

  7       it's admissable as scientific evidence.  

  8             Economics.  I've often overheard the 

  9       plaintive cry yesterday and today, if only 

 10       we had more money.  Gee, there ain't no 

 11       money.  Gee, ain't it tough.  But the fact 

 12       of the matter is forensic science is not a 

 13       rich field, never has been, and never will 

 14       because it's very, very small, and it's 

 15       going to take its place in the grand scheme 

 16       of things.  So there's never ever going to 

 17       be a lot of money.  

 18             There are things that you can do to 

 19       try to compensate for the lack of funding, 

 20       and one of these is to take the training or 

 21       education to the  student.  The other thing 

 22       you can do is to make it needs orientated, 

 23       and I think it was Victor who showed the 

 24       report from the summit of a couple of years 

 25       ago that NIJ sponsored.  



                                                             451
  1  

  2             And part of that is to say, yes, 

  3       training is important, but that training has 

  4       to be needs orientated so there's value in 

  5       it, and the little resources available is 

  6       usefully used.  

  7             Another example, and this is one of 

  8       the workshops that NFSTC has produced for 

  9       the community based on needs, and that's 

 10       "Hair Examination for DNA Analysts."   

 11       Comments were made a few times about how old 

 12       skills are dying and being replaced by new 

 13       skills and new attitudes.

 14             But, guess what, I've wondered around 

 15       in labs and asked them, "What do you do in 

 16       here?"  And they tell me they do DNA.  And I 

 17       say, "Do you do trace?"  And they say, "No, 

 18       we don't."  And the first thing you see is a 

 19       DNA examiner looking down a microscope at 

 20       hair.

 21             I say, "What are you doing?"  They 

 22       say, "Well, I'm looking at hair.  Isn't it 

 23       obvious?  Are you blind?"  And I say, "Well, 

 24       what are you going to do with it?  Are you 

 25       going to do a hair examination?"  They say, 



                                                             452
  1  

  2       "No, no.  I'm just looking to see what the 

  3       racial origin is or the body origin is."  

  4       Hey, folks.  That's hair examination, and 

  5       these skills are being lost.  

  6             So we produced a very successful 

  7       workshop last year to reintroduce and 

  8       reinforce the basic skills in hair 

  9       examination for DNA analysts.  

 10             The other thing about training is that 

 11       it is a significant key in performance 

 12       development, career development, getting 

 13       better jobs, more well-paid jobs, or 

 14       whatever; but the really significant thing 

 15       there is 20 years of experience could be 20 

 16       years of doing the same thing wrongly, and 

 17       that's why training is significant and has 

 18       to take its place with education and 

 19       experience.  Experience by itself is no 

 20       indication of competence or developing 

 21       competence and skills. 

 22             A slight digression here.  I want to 

 23       just quickly run through some things about 

 24       web-based programs, and examples I'm going 

 25       to give here are educational rather than 



                                                             453
  1  

  2       training, but we have, in fact, applied the 

  3       same orientation to a couple of training 

  4       developments that we'll be releasing fairly 

  5       soon.  

  6             Web-based education, which Jack and I 

  7       have been involved in for three years now, 

  8       is, in fact, extremely successful.  The 

  9       feedback from the student says, "This is 

 10       tougher than I thought it would be, I've 

 11       learned more than I thought I would learn, 

 12       and, hey, this is for real."  

 13             But it's based on different principles 

 14       to stand-up-and-talk academic programs. And, 

 15       in particular, it's based on the concept Of 

 16       creating asynchronous learning networks, and 

 17       those of you who can write quickly can go to 

 18       www.2Hawaii.edu.lalantext.htm.  If you 

 19       really wanted it.  I'll reiterate it later.  

 20             And the point about these are that 

 21       these aren't simply programs that take 

 22       text-based material and put it up on a 

 23       website, but they are tutorial and learning 

 24       outcome-based, and successful web-based 

 25       programs begin by saying, what are the 



                                                             454
  1  

  2       learning outcomes and then create a network 

  3       where people learn from each on a tutorial 

  4       basis like some of the best and most highly 

  5       regarded academic institutions do.  

  6             And the two examples are the Master's 

  7       in DNA, which Jack Ballantyne is here as a 

  8       program director for, and a new degree that 

  9       we've been involved in with the Junior 

 10       College in St. Petersburg for an Associate's 

 11       degree in Crime Scene Technology.

 12             Coming to the last leg of my 

 13       presentation which is returning to this 

 14       theme of education, I want to put to you the 

 15       concept that training without some sort of 

 16       the assessment is useless, and I want to 

 17       produce some information to about a scheme 

 18       we have produced which provides that 

 19       assessment in the form continuing education 

 20       credits.  

 21             We designed this about two and a half 

 22       years ago, and it's been taking off across 

 23       the country.  What we do is we use as a 

 24       yardstick what you have to go into achieving 

 25       one credit at the Junior college level.  So 



                                                             455
  1  

  2       that's the base measuring point or the 

  3       reference point.  

  4             And we look at the programs and 

  5       workshops that are being offered; we review 

  6       the faculty, their experience, their CVs; we 

  7       look at the course curriculum; and we look 

  8       at the facilities.  And we require that the 

  9       workshop has the compulsory test.  We don't 

 10       say what it should be.  We're not looking 

 11       for anything terribly stringent, but it's an 

 12       absolute necessity that a workshop does have 

 13       some sort of test.  

 14             And I'd like to share our experiences 

 15       over two years of this.  Firstly, most of 

 16       the programs taking up the scheme have been 

 17       in the field of DNA.  Examples would be 

 18       Promega, who chose it for the workshops in 

 19       the program last year and they're going to  

 20       do it again this year; the Cambridge Health 

 21       Technologies, their program last year and 

 22       again this year; the Florida STR Program, 

 23       two years ago and again this year.  

 24             Guess what we found from that 

 25       experience?  Some students choose not to 



                                                             456
  1  

  2       take the test.  I have to say I think that's 

  3       appalling.  I just cannot fathom why anyone 

  4       with any sense of integrity would take their 

  5       employer's money to go to a workshop where 

  6       there's some test, some simple test and 

  7       choose not to take it.  Maybe it's because 

  8       they were in the bar or Mickey Mouse lives 

  9       in Orlando.  I don't know.  I find it's an  

 10       astonishing thing.  

 11             What's even more astonishing and of a 

 12       greater concern is that some faculty have 

 13       declined to teach if their workshop is going 

 14       to be tested and subject to continuing 

 15       education credits, and I think we should all 

 16       walk out of here very perturbed by that.  

 17             What are my conclusions?  First of 

 18       all, without question, training is one of 

 19       the key factors in operational competency 

 20       and successful technology transfer.  When 

 21       we're talking today about education and 

 22       training, we're not talking about an 

 23       either/or.  We're talking about two things 

 24       that go hand in hand to give users, the 

 25       justice system, the public, victims, 



                                                             457
  1  

  2       everyone, the confidence that forensic 

  3       science is, in fact, working.  

  4             Training, unfortunately, is not 

  5       mandated for anyone to practice as a 

  6       forensic scientist, but there are several 

  7       factors which we talked about like 

  8       accreditation and DAB, which are making 

  9       training become a requirement.  

 10             And, finally, for it to really work 

 11       and work well, program evaluation and some 

 12       degree of participant assessment with the 

 13       consequential continuing education units 

 14       have to be key factors in the success of 

 15       training.  

 16             The last thing I wanted to share with 

 17       you is just to reinforce that point about 

 18       what the difference between education and 

 19       training is.  I would invite you to think 

 20       about two things.  I would invite you to 

 21       think about sex, and I would like you to 

 22       think about children; and I'd like to think, 

 23       in particular, how you would feel if your 

 24       children came home from school and said, we 

 25       had sex education today as compared to if 



                                                             458
  1  

  2       they came home from school and said, we had 

  3       sex training today.  (Laughter.) 

  4             (Applause.)

  5             MR. CONNOLLY:  Thank you.  I think one 

  6       of the things I've gotten, at least, out of 

  7       the program for the last day and a half, and 

  8       certainly this morning's programs, are that 

  9       training and education, clearly, are not 

 10       mutually exclusive.  I think they're 

 11       extremely complementary to each other.  

 12             Secondly,  just as sort of outsider, 

 13       my observation is that the whole field of 

 14       forensic science is sort of a growth 

 15       industry, and because of that, it continues 

 16       to be a work in progress.  

 17             I want to thank the panel.  Are there 

 18       any questions?  Thank you all.  Enjoy lunch.  

 19             DR. FORMAN:  Lunch today is going to 

 20       be a boxed lunch, which will be served out 

 21       at the table next to the registration table.  

 22       It will be then brought back in here to 

 23       enjoy the lunch and to enjoy the awards that 

 24       we're going to present.

 25              LUNCHEON / AWARDS PRESENTATION  



                                                             459
  1  

  2             MR. BOYD:  I'd like to interrupt you 

  3       for just a minute.  We're now going to take 

  4       the opportunity to present some awards to 

  5       some outstanding people and to give them a 

  6       chance to come up to the front of the 

  7       audience and talk to you while they still 

  8       have lettuce stuck in their teeth.  

  9             Yesterday at noon, we gave out the 

 10       first of these awards, and we did that 

 11       because Dawn couldn't be with us, but today 

 12       we want to go through the formal part of it 

 13       and begin to recognize those people that we 

 14       think have really made the big difference 

 15       and made the contribution.  And I want to go 

 16       through a couple of things here to give you 

 17       an idea of exactly what we want to do and 

 18       also to make sure that we give the 

 19       photographers time to get set up.  

 20             Throughout its involvement in the 

 21       development of forensic DNA, the National 

 22       Institute of Justice has had the privilege 

 23       of working with and learning from many 

 24       extaordinarily talented and insightful 

 25       individuals within the criminal justice and 



                                                             460
  1  

  2       scientific communities.  

  3             Indeed, there are far too many to 

  4       mention them all during the brief 

  5       presentation that we're going to make here, 

  6       but we would like, however, to take a minute 

  7       to talk about just a few of these colleagues 

  8       that have made significant and 

  9       ground-breaking contributions to the use of 

 10       DNA in the criminal justice system over the 

 11       past 15 years.  

 12             Were it not for courageous efforts of 

 13       these individuals, the science of DNA would 

 14       not be where it is today nor would the 

 15       criminal justice system have reaped the 

 16       benefits of this science to the extent that 

 17       it has.  In fact, as all of you are aware, 

 18       DNA has become the model for how the 

 19       forensic sciences should be handled.  

 20             Each of these awards reads, "Profiles 

 21       in DNA Courage, May 8-9, 2000" and then the 

 22       name of the individual is located underneath 

 23       it.  

 24             Then what I'd like to do is to ask 

 25       these people to come up.  Let me give you a 



                                                             461
  1  

  2       couple of instructions.  The award is in two 

  3       pieces.  It is also very heavy.  So I want 

  4       to caution you.  Be careful.  It is very 

  5       heavy, and it is in two pieces.  

  6             First, if I could ask Dr. Thomas 

  7       Caskey to come forward.

  8             (Applause.) 

  9             (Presentation of award.)

 10             I'd like to tell you a couple of 

 11       things about Dr. Caskey, if I could.  He's 

 12       currently the Chief Operating Officer and 

 13       President of Cogen Biotech Ventures, Ltd. as 

 14       well as an Adjunct Professor at Baylor 

 15       College of Medicine in Houston, and that's 

 16       interesting because we've been talking a bit 

 17       about working both in industry and in the 

 18       university setting.  

 19             He's made a number of contributions to 

 20       the development of DNA for forensic uses.  

 21       Among those are that he chaired the 

 22       Congressional Office of Science and 

 23       Technology Policies Advisory Panel, which 

 24       assessed forensic DNA back in 1989-1990, and 

 25       he holds a membership on the National 



                                                             462
  1  

  2       Academy's National Research Counsel on DNA 

  3       and held that from 1989 to 1991.  

  4             And we're especially pleased to honor 

  5       him today, particularly, for his pioneering 

  6       research on STRs.  The markers embraced by 

  7       the forensic community today were developed 

  8       under his direction, and they now lay a firm 

  9       foundation basis for STR validation in 

 10       providing this community with sets of 

 11       sensitive, powerful, and amplifiable 

 12       markers.  So congratulations, Dr. Caskey.

 13             (Applause.)

 14             DR. CASKEY:  First of all, thank you 

 15       very much for the honor, and I would like to 

 16       make a few comments about some of the people 

 17       who have contributed to this work.  I'm 

 18       going to give you a two or three minute 

 19       blitz on the technology that finally emerged 

 20       as an identification system through STRs.  

 21             It had its roots with an M.D./Ph.D. 

 22       student, Al Edwards, who we shipped off to 

 23       Heidelberg to work with Wilhelm Ensorge 

 24       where we sequenced for the first time with a 

 25       automated sequencer, a human disease gene, 



                                                             463
  1  

  2       HBRT.  

  3             In the midst of that gene was a 

  4       tetrameric repeat, which when we looked at 

  5       it by PCR, was highly polymorphic.  We 

  6       immediately flipped to a database, which was 

  7       pretty limited at that point, identified 

  8       every triplet and tetrameric repeat that was 

  9       available, tested the parameters of those 

 10       for their polymorphism, found them to be 

 11       highly polymorphic, and we were off and 

 12       running at that point adding multiplex 

 13       amplification, internal markers, and, 

 14       finally, were given funding for a 377, and 

 15       we moved on to fluorescence testing.  

 16             So it's been a pleasure to see this 

 17       interface of genome science and a practical 

 18       applications area in the forensic science.  

 19       I think without the instrumentation, without 

 20       the background of knowledge that came 

 21       through the genome project, this could not 

 22       have accelerated as rapidly as it has.  

 23             I'd like to close, though, with one 

 24       comment.  It's win thing to develop a 

 25       technology that has new insights.  It is 



                                                             464
  1  

  2       still another to take that new knowledge and 

  3       to turn it into something that is robust, 

  4       has high fidelity, high reproducibility, 

  5       and, in fact, public acceptance.  

  6             So the work that we did at the basic 

  7       science level never would have hit the 

  8       streets and never would have hit the courts 

  9       without the expertise of the people in this 

 10       audience, and I'm ever so grateful that it 

 11       has been done in a fine style; and I've had 

 12       a fine time working with it.  Thank you.

 13             (Applause.) 

 14             DR. BOYD:  I'd like to get Dr. James 

 15       Crow to come up.  I know most of you know 

 16       Dr. Crow who is a pre-eminent population 

 17       geneticist, and his work has influential in 

 18       the scientific community for more than five 

 19       decades.  It's amazing for somebody who 

 20       looks so young.  

 21             Over the last six years, Dr. Crow has 

 22       bestowed upon the forensic community a clear 

 23       and thoughtful leadership in the arena of 

 24       population genetics.  

 25             First, wading into the mire of the 



                                                             465
  1  

  2       1992 NRC Ceiling Principle, which I'm sure 

  3       all of you remember, as Chairman of the 1996 

  4       NRC, he was able to provide forensic 

  5       scientists with reasonable, sound and 

  6       scientifically defensible methods, sometimes 

  7       defensive as well, for estimating the rarity 

  8       of a DNA match.  

  9             Dr. Crow currently serves as 

 10       Commissioner on the DNA Commission where he 

 11       chairs the Commission's Research and 

 12       Development Working Group, and he uses his 

 13       considerable skills there at bringing 

 14       together diverse opinions so that the 

 15       forensic community will have kind of 

 16       information they need to successfully 

 17       analyze case.

 18             What I have to tell you, as a brand 

 19       new guy in this whole new forensic arena 

 20       inheriting the 1992 NRC report and trying to 

 21       figure out what we were going to do and 

 22       being pressed on all sides by a variety of 

 23       agencies, including some with three letters 

 24       that I won't mention, it was really 

 25       refreshing that Dr. Crow managed to pull 



                                                             466
  1  

  2       that together and produce something that 

  3       everybody now is genuinely comfortable with.  

  4       So congratulations.

  5             (Applause.) 

  6             (Award presentation)  

  7             DR. CROW:  I thank you for those kind 

  8       words about my appearance having lived 

  9       through most of the 20th century and 

 10       survived it, but you only see the facade; 

 11       and I won't go into the details of what's 

 12       inside.  

 13             I never cease to enjoy talking about 

 14       being -- I'm sure that I'm the oldest member 

 15       of this program, so I'm going to make the 

 16       most of it.  A fellow octogenarian once said 

 17       that they tell you that as you get older, 

 18       you're going to lose your mind, but what 

 19       they don't tell you is that you're not going 

 20       to miss it very much. (Laughter.)  

 21             Of course, I thank you very much for 

 22       this honor.  I accept any honor that has no 

 23       attendant responsibilities to it no matter 

 24       how small.  However, this is a big honor, a 

 25       high honor, and I am very pleased to receive 



                                                             467
  1  

  2       it.  

  3             I am also pleased to be in the midst 

  4       of a group of company starting with Tom 

  5       Caskey, people that I know and known for a 

  6       long time and whom I admire very much.  

  7             I want to talk just a little bit, 

  8       after all, at my age, I have to talk about 

  9       history, genetics and forensics all started 

 10       in the year 1900.  That was the year 

 11       Mendel's laws were rediscovered.  That was 

 12       the year that Landsteiner discovered the ABO 

 13       blood groups, and within a year or two, he 

 14       pointed out that these ought to be useful 

 15       for human identification or parentage 

 16       studies.  

 17             Actually, the first 85 years of this 

 18       century, that was the predominant technique, 

 19       and then for ten years, the NTRs became the 

 20       leading ones, and then for the last five 

 21       years, it's been STRs.  

 22             The trend here is one of tremendous 

 23       acceleration, and it would be very 

 24       surprising if that acceleration didn't go on 

 25       into the next ten years or the next century.  



                                                             468
  1  

  2       And so there, clearly, are exciting times 

  3       ahead.  There are going to be surprises.  

  4       The only surprise will be if there aren't 

  5       any surprises.  But we can certainly expect 

  6       fancy and beautiful new techniques.  

  7             On the other hand, although you can't 

  8       predict surprises, I think there are some 

  9       things that we can predict with some 

 10       confidence.  One of them is that the 13 core 

 11       STR loci are going to be around for a while, 

 12       not necessarily because they're the best 

 13       that can be done, but because they're 

 14       institutionalized and it would be very 

 15       difficult to change them, and there's no 

 16       good reason to.  

 17             On the other hand, we can expect 

 18       modifications to the technique, we'll hear 

 19       much about it this afternoon; speed; 

 20       automation; miniaturization; and especially 

 21       for database work.  

 22             But for case work, I think you can 

 23       expect markers to come quickly into the 

 24       system, and I would predict that it's not 

 25       going to be very long until we can identify 



                                                             469
  1  

  2       differences among even the very close 

  3       relatives.

  4             And brothers and sisters, or brothers, 

  5       usually, have a very nice property that 

  6       population geneticists love, and that is 

  7       that the probability of identify of have 

  8       brothers has a factor of one fourth in it 

  9       that dwarfs most of the other components; 

 10       and that one fourth depends only on 

 11       Mendelism, no assumptions of absence of 

 12       population structure, no assumptions of 

 13       Hardy-Weinberg and latent equilibrium.  

 14             So I suspect, within my lifetime even, 

 15       that we will be able to make individual 

 16       human identifications without having to 

 17       worry about whether there was a brother 

 18       involved somewhere.  Thank you very much.

 19             (Applause.) 

 20             MR. BOYD:  My staff tells me I have to 

 21       step up to the podium.  Dr. Henry Erlich.  

 22       Dr. Erlich is currently the Director of the 

 23       Human Genetics Department at Roche Molecular 

 24       Systems.  And his early interest in 

 25       molecular evolution and population variation 



                                                             470
  1  

  2       led him to search for methods that would 

  3       allow scientists ways of tracing genes 

  4       through time.  

  5             And this ultimately led to the 

  6       development of easy-to-use tests using HLA 

  7       and other markers that catapulted the 

  8       forensic into the PCR age. 

  9             Between 1996 and 1998, NIJ witnessed 

 10       an explosion of public laboratories seeking 

 11       funds, that's not unusual at NIJ, to fulfill 

 12       the mandate of the DNA Laboratory 

 13       Improvement Program, the Crime Act 1994.  

 14             And from his thoughtful development of 

 15       a robust controlled amplification-based 

 16       system, the reverse-dye block, massive 

 17       technology transfer of PCR and DNA testing 

 18       could a occur in the forensic community. 

 19             And so we appreciate this enormous and 

 20       creative contribution as well as the many 

 21       hours on the witness stand in those early 

 22       RFLP DNA cases.

 23             (Applause.) 

 24             (Award presentation.)

 25             DR. ERLICH:  Thanks very much, David.  



                                                             471
  1  

  2       On behalf of my colleagues at SDIS and Roche 

  3       Molecular Systems who are involved in 

  4       develope PCR and apply it to genetic typing, 

  5       I would like to thank the National Institute 

  6       of Justice for this great honor.  

  7             I'd also like to acknowledge, in 

  8       particular, Randy Saiki, who was involved in 

  9       amplifying the first specific gene from 

 10       human genomic DNA and also who developed the 

 11       first immobilized probe array format, which 

 12       became the basis for the first PCR test 

 13       which was the HLA DQ output forensics typing 

 14       system.  

 15             And also I'd like to acknowledge the 

 16       contributions of Becky Reynolds who extended 

 17       his initial test to a large panel of a PCR- 

 18       based test for forensics typing, and, in 

 19       fact, you'll be here later this afternoon 

 20       from Becky about the recent work that she 

 21       and her colleagues have been doing on 

 22       mitochondrial DNA typing.

 23             But on a personal note, I'd just like 

 24       to say that the application of PCR to 

 25       forensics testing that started in 1986 with 



                                                             472
  1  

  2       the Pennsylvania versus Pestanikas case, has 

  3       been very satisfying to me because it 

  4       combined my research interests in molecular 

  5       and population genetics with a long-standing 

  6       commitment to social justice.  

  7             When Ed Blake, who rented a lab and 

  8       office space in our building, first asked me 

  9       for help in this case, I had to tell him 

 10       that the DNA that we extracted from the 

 11       formaldehyde-preserved specimens in this 

 12       case was far too degraded for RFLP analysis.  

 13             So I suggested to him that, given this 

 14       level of degradation, perhaps, we could try 

 15       a new technique that we were just working on 

 16       in the lab, PCR; and this was PCR with a 

 17       newly isolated intact polymerase.

 18             So, fortunately, we were actually able 

 19       to amplify and type the DQ alpha locus on 

 20       these very degraded DNA samples.  And in 

 21       this initial case where the genetic test was 

 22       requested by the prosecution and the result 

 23       favored the defense, we were all spared the 

 24       adversarial confrontation of an 

 25       admissibility hearing.  



                                                             473
  1  

  2             In that more innocent time, we thought 

  3       that validation had to do with self-esteem 

  4       and that Tellig Fry was a cooking technique.  

  5             In subsequent cases, however, 

  6       including the first post-conviction review, 

  7       the Gary Dodson case in 1988, we were 

  8       confronted with the adversarial nature of 

  9       our legal proceedings, and with a 

 10       realization familiar to most viewers of TV 

 11       legal dramas, that in the courtroom, winning 

 12       often seemed more important than 

 13       establishing truth or arriving at justice.  

 14             Obviously, disagreements and disputes 

 15       occur within the scientific community, these 

 16       are usually resolved over time by looking 

 17       over more data or in O.J. parlance, by 

 18       playing the evidence card.  

 19             In the courtroom, however, the 

 20       arguments about the reliability of DNA 

 21       typing, presumably based on scientific 

 22       issues, often seem to be structurally 

 23       required by an adversarial system with 

 24       lawyers playing out their assigned roles in 

 25       the legal drama.  



                                                             474
  1  

  2             Granted, several important and 

  3       interesting scientific issues, primarily 

  4       involving population and statistical 

  5       genetics, have been clarified over the past 

  6       years, notably by Jim Crow and others, but 

  7       this valuable work has been carried out 

  8       within the scientific community, not in the 

  9       courtroom.  

 10             Looking back over the history of DNA 

 11       testing in the U.S., it seems to me that new 

 12       technology could be evaluated better by a 

 13       panel of knowledgeable scientists working 

 14       for the court rather than as adversarial 

 15       scientific experts working for the 

 16       prosecution or the defense.  

 17             In the fourteen years since 

 18       Pennsylvania versus Pestanikas, DNA forensic 

 19       testing has clearly made an enormous 

 20       contribution to justice within the U.S. 

 21       legal system helping to convict the guilty 

 22       and free the wrongly accused or convicted.  

 23             The use of criminal databases for 

 24       investigative work, the potential for 

 25       post-conviction review, and the possibility 



                                                             475
  1  

  2       of revising the statute of limitations for 

  3       certain crimes all reflect the degree to 

  4       which DNA testing is transforming our 

  5       criminal justice system.  

  6             The marriage of science and the law 

  7       remains a somewhat uneasy alliance of 

  8       partners with different cultural values, but 

  9       for the sake of justice, it is critical that 

 10       this partnership, like DNA itself evolve and 

 11       endure.  Thank you very much.

 12             (Applause.) 

 13             MR. BOYD:  I'll even avoid the jokes 

 14       this time and ask Norm Gahn if he'll come 

 15       up.  Mr. Gahn is currently an Assistant 

 16       District Attorney for the Sexual Assault 

 17       Unit in Milwaukee in the Milwaukee District 

 18       Attorney's office.  

 19             He was nominated by the National 

 20       District Attorneys Association to serve on 

 21       the National Commission on the Future of DNA 

 22       Evidence where he now serves with 

 23       distinction.  Since 1989, he has tirelessly 

 24       pursued the best forensic analysis for each 

 25       of his cases.  So thorough is his approach 



                                                             476
  1  

  2       to his cases, that Mr. Gahn now holds a 

  3       Master's degree in the Forensic Sciences.  

  4             I used to tell a joke, I'll have to 

  5       revise it now, that people become attorneys, 

  6       specifically, so they can avoid the science.  

  7       Obviously, Norm is not one of those, and we 

  8       honor him today for the excellent, thorough, 

  9       and thoughtful example that he's established 

 10       and which I think is highlighted by his very 

 11       creative application of a "John Doe" warrant 

 12       based on a DNA profile.

 13             If imitation is the sincerest form of 

 14       flattery, Mr. Gahn should be blushing.  His 

 15       John Doe DNA profile warrant has been copied 

 16       across the country and has stopped the 

 17       statute clocks for countless victims.  So 

 18       his application is an important 

 19       contribution, and we thank him.

 20             (Applause.) 

 21             (Presentation of award.)

 22             MR. GAHN:  I simply would like to 

 23       state that I have had some successes in the 

 24       courtroom with this technology, but I think 

 25       the successes that I've had are reflective 



                                                             477
  1  

  2       of the sexual assault detectives that I work 

  3       with in Milwaukee County and the crime lab 

  4       personnel at the Wisconsin State Crime 

  5       Laboratory.  

  6             I've been doing sexual assault cases 

  7       for many years, and I go back to the days 

  8       when we did the ABO PGM sub-type one and 

  9       those things that sort of send a chill down 

 10       my spine when I think about those trials.  

 11             But, you know, this DNA has done an 

 12       awful lot. I think it's not only energized, 

 13       I think, a lot of prosecutors, but the crime 

 14       lab analysts that I used to work with in the 

 15       PGM sub-types and all the ABO enzymes, 

 16       they're different today.  They're different 

 17       when you walk into the crime lab.  There's a 

 18       greater enthusiasm.  

 19             And I see it also with police 

 20       detectives, the detectives on the street.  

 21       This DNA, their knowledge of what it can do 

 22       when they properly, collect, look for, and  

 23       preserve this evidence.  

 24             So the terrific job that all police 

 25       detectives and all crime lab people do makes 



                                                             478
  1  

  2       my job very easy, and I just enjoy jumping 

  3       into the battle of the courtroom a couple of 

  4       times a month with this technology, but, 

  5       probably, if I reflect back over the years 

  6       of all the times I've used this technology, 

  7       or before it, I look back at the sexual 

  8       assault cases that I tried when the only 

  9       evidence we had was a victim who said, "I 

 10       picked him out of a line up," and what she 

 11       went through under the cross-examination.  

 12             DNA and what all of you do out there 

 13       today has taken so much fire power away from 

 14       the defense attorney today because that 

 15       woman now is followed by a forensic 

 16       scientist who says that when she did pick 

 17       him out of a line up, she was correct 

 18       because the chances are one in so many 

 19       trillion or quintillion, whatever those 

 20       numbers are today.  

 21             So, terrific work.  I want to thank 

 22       all of you.  If no one's thanked you today 

 23       for all the wonderful work that all of you 

 24       do, I do, and I thank you for this honor.

 25             (Applause.) 



                                                             479
  1  

  2             MR. BOYD:  Dr. Kenneth Kidd.  Dr. Kidd 

  3       is currently a Professor of Genetics and 

  4       Psychiatry at Yale University, and he's been 

  5       a renowned researcher in human population 

  6       genetics for several decades.  

  7             He's a Fellow of the American 

  8       Association for the Advancement of Science 

  9       and many other professional societies.  

 10       Early on in the numerous admissibility 

 11       hearings often referred to as the RFLP wars,  

 12       Dr. Kidd brought his considerable expertise, 

 13       knowledge, and data into courtrooms to 

 14       provide a foundational basis that permitted 

 15       DNA to be permitted into the courtroom.  

 16             Most importantly, Dr. Kidd allowed yet 

 17       to be published, extremely difficult to 

 18       obtain genetic data on inbred populations, 

 19       the equivalent of academic gold, to be used.  

 20             Showing the strength of DNA as a 

 21       powerful discriminator, even in the most 

 22       closed populations, is his most important 

 23       contribution to this field, and we thank 

 24       him.

 25             (Applause.) 



                                                             480
  1  

  2             (Presentation of award.)

  3             DR. KIDD:  I want to thank you very 

  4       much for this award.  It's a great honor and 

  5       somewhat unexpected.  Going from the 

  6       research laboratory and academia into the 

  7       court systems as an expert witness is an 

  8       extremely stressful occurrence.  

  9             I, in fact, however, ended up enjoying 

 10       it because I think, as a citizen, I learned 

 11       a great deal about our legal system, though 

 12       I always testified for the prosecution, I 

 13       occasionally consulted for the defense, but 

 14       they always decided they didn't want to put 

 15       me on the stand because I think the science 

 16       should serve the courts, not the 

 17       prosecution, not the defense, and I agree 

 18       very much with Henry Erlich.  

 19             But I also want to apologize for 

 20       inflicting upon the courts, the Queretiana 

 21       Indians.  Thank you, again, very much.

 22             (Applause.) 

 23             MR. BOYD:  Dr. Joshua Lederberg.  

 24       Dr. Lederberg is Professor-Emeritus and 

 25       Sackler Foundation Scholar at the 



                                                             481
  1  

  2       Rockefeller University here in New York.  

  3             As a pioneer in the field 

  4       recombination in bacteria, Dr. Lederberg won 

  5       the Nobel Prize in 1958 for his work on 

  6       microbial genetics and evolution.  He has 

  7       also won the National Medal of Science for, 

  8       in part, his scientific advice to public 

  9       interests and to governments and 

 10       international organizations.  

 11             It is Dr. Lederberg's willingness to 

 12       advise the forensic community on ways to 

 13       improve, enhance, and protect future DNA, 

 14       forensic DNA for which we honor him today.  

 15             Dr. Lederberg served as the first 

 16       chair of the DNA Advisory Board where he led 

 17       a diverse group of scientists, criminal 

 18       justice professionals, and practitioners to 

 19       develop quality assurance, guidelines, 

 20       practices, and foundations that have become 

 21       standards in the community and which are now 

 22       required by the courts.  

 23             He also served to monitor the 

 24       Congressionally mandated queries into the 

 25       utility of blind proficiency testing, and he 



                                                             482
  1  

  2       serves as a member of the DNA Commission's 

  3       Research and Development Working Group which 

  4       is providing a vision of the future of 

  5       forensic DNA.  We thank him for helping to 

  6       shape this vision.

  7             (Applause.)

  8             (Presentation of award.)  

  9             DR. LEDERBERG:  I'm very happy to have 

 10       the occasion to talk to you about the 

 11       emerging social contract.  It's been a real 

 12       privilege for me to attend this conference 

 13       and to be a bystander, more generally of 

 14       observing the development of the art.  

 15             As you know, I don't do forensics, but 

 16       I have been following DNA very closely since 

 17       the publications from Oswald Avery at the 

 18       Rockwell Institute on February 1, 1944.  

 19             Every new technology offers special 

 20       opportunities and challenges to the social 

 21       fabric and DNA is hardly an exception, but I 

 22       am pleased to note how carefully DNA 

 23       forensics is being tended, acknowledging the 

 24       adversarial frictions that Henry eluded to 

 25       as a premier example of technology 



                                                             483
  1  

  2       assessment and I wish that could go on so 

  3       well, so effectively, and with such 

  4       important scientific as well as public 

  5       input, as has been the case here.  

  6             Perhaps, it's precisely the centrality 

  7       of DNA forensics and legal systems that has 

  8       led to this kind of oversight, but I think 

  9       the net is a very positive role.  The 

 10       battles have been fought.  It's quite clear 

 11       what the outcomes are, and I think we have a 

 12       lot to thank for the labors of people like 

 13       Henry and other people on the panel here for 

 14       having accomplished it.  

 15             But one has to say in thinking about 

 16       the social contract, that's our 

 17       relationships with our community and state, 

 18       there are trade-offs between the very, very 

 19       important values of law enforcement and 

 20       other personal values.  

 21             DNA technology has the virtue of 

 22       tending to support the truth, which as a 

 23       scientist, I wholeheartedly support.  Social 

 24       acceptance of the new contracts emerging, 

 25       what degree of privacy will we submit to; 



                                                             484
  1  

  2       how much will we pay for these new systems; 

  3       and all the rest; will be very sensitive to 

  4       how the technology is used in the current 

  5       interval.  

  6             Reliability is, of course, the main 

  7       touchstone, and this has been greatly 

  8       advanced by proficiency testing and 

  9       laboratory accreditation.  One flawed apple 

 10       could upset the cart, and we must not allow 

 11       enthusiasm, demonization of alleged 

 12       culprits, or sheer sloppiness to compromise 

 13       this marvelous tool.  

 14             As for the work of the DNA Advisory 

 15       Board, I have to single out Bruce Spidoli 

 16       (phonetic.) well known to most of you as the 

 17       person who really did most of the work. 

 18             In a more general sphere about that 

 19       contract, most of what I wanted to be said 

 20       has been covered by others, but I'll just 

 21       recapitulate a few cautions mentioned by 

 22       many; the importance of the quality of the 

 23       physical evidence and its preservation for 

 24       reassessment, especially, in a case of cold 

 25       hits; not to relax the quest for supporting 



                                                             485
  1  

  2       evidence, and there's a real danger of 

  3       complacency on account of the sheer 

  4       technical power of the DNA tool.  

  5             If you have a hit against the 

  6       database, you may really want to have an 

  7       opportunity to re-check what went into the 

  8       database in the first place, and if the 

  9       original evidence is gone, truth will be 

 10       denied that possibility, and the defendants 

 11       may be unfairly treated or there may not be 

 12       the possibility of an appropriate 

 13       confrontation.  

 14             And I have to say that we may be at 

 15       the peak of the capability and effectiveness 

 16       of DNA because the counters to it are just 

 17       gradually emerging.  

 18             Watch out for spoofs.  We've already 

 19       heard of some that outdo fictional 

 20       imagination.  The story of the person what 

 21       while he was incarcerated in prison managed 

 22       to concoct another rape with his own semen 

 23       outside.  Folks who do that are going to be 

 24       thinking of all kinds of other ways of 

 25       beating the system.  



                                                             486
  1  

  2             There may be a black market someday in 

  3       diversionary DNA that perps might leave at a 

  4       crime scene and point to high officials, 

  5       perhaps, even the highest, and defense 

  6       attorneys will learn how to befog the 

  7       identification.  

  8             And as a couple of people said, we 

  9       must strive to keep the system honest and 

 10       fair, enhance poor defendants' access to 

 11       objective analysis and interpretation, and 

 12       with sometimes incompetent defense counsel, 

 13       the court may have recourse to third parties 

 14       and then to be sensitive to the fallout in 

 15       criminal procedure.  

 16             We heard eloquent remarks about the 

 17       utilities, and they're undeniable, about 

 18       collecting profiles from every arrestee, but 

 19       arrestee profiling, with all the advantages 

 20       that that may offer for effective law 

 21       enforcement, greatly enhances the incentive 

 22       for police to make ill-founded arrests.  

 23             Will this backfire?  How will courts 

 24       deal with matches that are the fruit of an 

 25       arrest deemed tainted?  And some courts have 



                                                             487
  1  

  2       gone very far in their zeal to curb the 

  3       police power, and defense counsel are likely 

  4       to rise to that occasion as well.  

  5             So the introduction of such a profound 

  6       change of procedure as routine arrestee 

  7       profiling really has to be accompanied with 

  8       a broader view of what ripples that will 

  9       generate and the precautions that need to be 

 10       taken to ensure that this is done in an 

 11       appropriately just and socially acceptable 

 12       manner.  Thank you very much. 

 13             (Applause.) 

 14             MR. BOYD:  We also have a message from 

 15       Dawn Herkenham, who we awarded yesterday, 

 16       and she wants to thank us for the lovely 

 17       award and for the words that were spoken on 

 18       the occasion, but she also wants everybody 

 19       here to know that the only DNA in her life 

 20       right now is a diaper that needs adjusting.  

 21             Too often those who do the critical 

 22       work, not just in the forensic community, 

 23       but in the law enforcement world, in 

 24       general, are overlooked and their 

 25       contributions sort of go by, in part, 



                                                             488
  1  

  2       because we're all so busy trying to work 

  3       real problems in real courts against real 

  4       crimes out there in the real world, and 

  5       because we're so busy we don't pause long 

  6       enough to do that.

  7             We hope that these small tokens 

  8       reflect, at least, some part of our 

  9       appreciation in NIJ for the contributions 

 10       they've made to victims and to justice in 

 11       the United States, and we hope they also 

 12       further reflect on all of the rest of you 

 13       who have been toiling out there to make 

 14       their gifts so important to justice in the 

 15       United States today.  So I'd like to ask you 

 16       to give them a round of applause.

 17             (Applause.)  Thank you, and we have a 

 18       remarkable deal on a $35 book.  I want to 

 19       thank all of you.

 20             (Applause.)

 21                              

 22                              

 23                              

 24              PANEL VII: TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS 

 25                      PART I - MARKERS



                                                             489
  1  

  2             DR. LEDERBERG:  I just have a couple 

  3       of slides as a small sequel to my remarks a 

  4       few minutes ago.  This is just to remind 

  5       you, which you all know very well, of the 

  6       social fallout and the ripples that the  

  7       further extension of precise, truthful DNA 

  8       identification can generate.  

  9             One of them is in the realm of family 

 10       secrets uncovered.  Not every truth is 

 11       crying out to heard, and what's our role, 

 12       making sure that they are is just something 

 13       to keep in mind.  

 14             Victor Weedn, I have something that 

 15       you would remember.  I think you will all 

 16       recall the headlines that attended this 

 17       example that the Vietnam representation in 

 18       The Tomb of the Unknowns.  

 19             I call that a holy place, but there 

 20       are different idealogies and different 

 21       concerns, and here are the interests of a 

 22       family in recovering an identified set of 

 23       bones.  It really has unalterably changed a 

 24       piece of our mythology in how we have dealt 

 25       with those kinds of circumstances.  



                                                             490
  1  

  2             Again, there's a truthful outcome.  We 

  3       can be grateful for that, but there are a 

  4       lot of ambiguities associated with insisting 

  5       on the truth.  

  6             Finally, this is probably a 

  7       repercussion of what I've seen in the press 

  8       about the identification of who was 

  9       purportedly the man in the iron mask, but 

 10       there could be political revolutionary 

 11       dynastic upheaval.  So here the caption is 

 12       "After months of DNA testing, our scientists 

 13       have concluded that you are the rightful 

 14       King of France.  Congratulations, your 

 15       Majesty."  Well, all of this is just to say 

 16       that you drop the acorn into the pond and 

 17       big oaks can come out of the river.  

 18             We'll go on now to our proceedings.  

 19       You've all had the biographies.  You've had 

 20       a chance to look at them, and I won't repeat 

 21       them again.  So we'll just go right on with 

 22       our program, this is on technology 

 23       solutions, markers, and the first of our 

 24       panelists is Mark Batzer from Louisiana 

 25       State University in New Orleans.  



                                                             491
  1  

  2             DR. BATZER:  Well, it gives me a great 

  3       deal of pleasure to be here today, and I 

  4       think you can sum up the next few talks as 

  5       newer types of genetic systems that may be 

  6       quite useful to the forensic community.  

  7             And, in fact, I'd say that my system 

  8       probably the least known of the bunch but 

  9       hopefully over time will prove to be a 

 10       useful tool for investigative forensics.  

 11             So I have to confess, this is my first 

 12       Powerpoint presentation ever, and, clearly, 

 13       there are reasons not to do these things.    

 14       So today, I'm going to tell you a little 

 15       about a mobile element insertion 

 16       polymorphism.  

 17             And, in particular, I'm going to tell 

 18       you about a family of mobile elements that 

 19       are termed SINES, or short interspersed 

 20       elements.  So these elements, by definition, 

 21       are interspersed.  So rather than the NTRs 

 22       are many satellite types of repeats that are 

 23       tandemly arrayed, these elements are 

 24       haphazardly dispersed throughout the human 

 25       genome.  



                                                             492
  1  

  2             They're small.  They're typically less 

  3       than 70 to 300 bases in length, and they 

  4       exist in very high copy numbers in excess of 

  5       100,000 copies within our genomes.  

  6             Now, these are mobile elements, so the 

  7       fossils that I'll tell you about today are 

  8       actually what we call selfish DNA fossils.  

  9       These are pieces of DNA that have moved 

 10       around the genome and have duplicated 

 11       themselves.

 12             Now, in particular, my favorite type 

 13       of SINE Alu element.  Alu elements are 300 

 14       nucleotides long.  They're dimeric in 

 15       structure with a left and a right half.  

 16       They have an internal RNA polymerase-3 

 17       promoter that's involved in their 

 18       mobilization.  

 19             They're typically flanked by short, 

 20       direct repeat sequences that I haven't shown 

 21       you here in this cartoon.  They have a 

 22       middle A-rich region, a 3-prime oligo 

 23       DA-rich tail, and these elements are rather 

 24       recent inhabitants of our genome.  

 25             So if, in fact, you have an Alu 



                                                             493
  1  

  2       element, you're a primate.  These elements 

  3       are a mobile element family, and they've 

  4       only been in genomes for about 65 million 

  5       years.  

  6             Now, because of their high copy 

  7       numbers, these elements, there about half a 

  8       million in our genome, they comprise about 

  9       ten percent of the mass of human genome by 

 10       weight.  

 11             Now, these elements move around in a 

 12       process that's termed "retroposition."  And 

 13       the way that this works is, initially, an 

 14       RNA polymerase 3-derived transcript is made, 

 15       and then that transcript can self-prime on 

 16       itself for reverse transcription by an 

 17       exogenous reverse transcriptase, or it can 

 18       prime right in the chromosome at the 

 19       staggered chromosomal breaks that form where 

 20       these elements integrate in the genome.  

 21             Now, of course, you need to ask me, 

 22       where do the elements get this enzyme,  

 23       reverse transcriptase from?  And the answer 

 24       is, they borrow it either from retroviruses 

 25       like HIV or from long interspersed repeats, 



                                                             494
  1  

  2       elements that do encode a functional reverse 

  3       transcriptase.  

  4             Now, even though there are half a 

  5       million of the elements in the genome, we 

  6       can actually come up with two dramatically 

  7       different models for how they've expanded as 

  8       a repeated sequence family.  

  9             In the first of these models, what we 

 10       call a transposable element model, each and 

 11       every element is capable of duplicating 

 12       itself, so across time there's an 

 13       exponential increase in the number of the 

 14       elements within the genome.  

 15             By contrast, Prescott Dyninger and I 

 16       put forward what we call the "Master gene 

 17       Model," and in this scenario of limited 

 18       amplification, only a single copy from over  

 19       half a million can duplicate itself.  

 20             Gradually, throughout time, as that 

 21       copy accumulates new mutations, they then 

 22       give off more copies that are marked by 

 23       those mutations, and they comprise what we 

 24       call a sub-family or a clade or a group of 

 25       related sequences.  



                                                             495
  1  

  2             So as it turns out, this became a 

  3       testable hypothesis as more and more of the 

  4       human genome was sequenced, and what we were 

  5       able to do was actually to detect sub-family 

  6       structure, a hierarchal relationship between 

  7       these sequences in the genome.  And that 

  8       then led us to the idea that this master 

  9       gene model would, in fact, be relatively 

 10       appropriate for the amplification of these 

 11       elements.  

 12             This is a Louisiana eye test chart for 

 13       everybody.  In fact, what this is is a 

 14       multiple alignment of different sub-families 

 15       of Alu elements.  The sub-families are 

 16       aligned from the oldest up at the top down 

 17       to the more recent inhabitants in the 

 18       genome.  

 19             The dots down below the bases 

 20       represent the same base that's in the 

 21       consensus sequence.  The mutations are 

 22       denoted by the appropriate base and color 

 23       coded with the sub-families, and insertions 

 24       and deletions are denoted by dashes.  

 25             And what I want you to see is, as we 



                                                             496
  1  

  2       go to older types of Alu repeats to younger 

  3       ones, we see a hierarchical sequential 

  4       accumulation of more and more diagnostic 

  5       mutations.  

  6             So for instance, the YA8 sub-family 

  7       has all the mutations of YA5 along with 

  8       three new green color-coded mutations that 

  9       denote it as a sub-family of elements, and 

 10       I'll show you in a moment exactly how large 

 11       that sub-family is and what the approximate 

 12       time scale for when these elements have 

 13       moved within our genomes is.

 14             Now, here I'm showing you a schematic 

 15       diagram of when these elements have moved 

 16       within primate genomes, and what I want you 

 17       to notice is that actually 85 percent of all 

 18       these mobile elements moved within primate 

 19       genomes greater than 25 million years ago, 

 20       so forensics they will have no utility.  

 21             But what I want you to focus on for 

 22       the rest of my talk, are these elements at 

 23       the top of this tree, which have actually 

 24       largely moved within the human genome after 

 25       humans and African apes had diverged from 



                                                             497
  1  

  2       each other.  

  3             And so what I'll show you then are 

  4       some studies about this last percent or 

  5       tenth of a percent of Alu repeats that are 

  6       unique to humans and absent from non-human 

  7       primates and how they can be employed then 

  8       to study forensics and population genetics.  

  9             Now, my own laboratory has made a 

 10       dramatic shift in how we find these elements 

 11       in the genome.  Suffice it to say that given 

 12       the sequence structure of the sub-families, 

 13       we can quite rapidly mine the human genome 

 14       sequence database in order to identify these 

 15       elements.

 16             And so using this informatics-based 

 17       approach, we searched Genbank to find these 

 18       elements; annotate the sequences with 

 19       programs that annotate repeat content; with 

 20       repeat master of sensor, we can predict PCR 

 21       primers adjacent to each locus; search the 

 22       PCR primers to make sure that they reside 

 23       within unique sequences in the genome; and 

 24       then, eventually, identify new elements that 

 25       have different levels of polymorphic 



                                                             498
  1  

  2       information content.  

  3             So to give you an idea, I mentioned 

  4       earlier, the YA8 family.  This group of Alu 

  5       repeats is actually comprised of only 50 

  6       members from half a million.  So that's 

  7       actually a tremendous amount of selection 

  8       that we can make to sort through half a 

  9       million elements to find 50 that are very 

 10       recent in terms of their origin in the 

 11       genome.  

 12             To date, we've found 14 of these loci 

 13       in the genome; 7 of which were polymorphic; 

 14       1 of which was a high frequency 

 15       polymorphism; 6 were intermediate in 

 16       frequency, and I'll show you a bit what that 

 17       means in just a minute; and none were low 

 18       frequency polymorphisms.

 19             None of these elements were found in 

 20       non-human primate genomes; 3 had inserted 

 21       into previously unidentified repetitive 

 22       elements; and 4 were monomorphic for the 

 23       presence of the Alu element in the different 

 24       human genomes that we surveyed.  

 25             We've also employed these tools to 



                                                             499
  1  

  2       look at bigger sub-families of Alu repeats.  

  3       So here is what we call YB8 sub-family.  

  4       This sub-family has about 2,000 members in 

  5       the human genome, and at the time I made 

  6       this slide, we had analyzed a little more 

  7       than a hundred of these elements, and out of 

  8       those 123 that we analyzed, 31 were 

  9       polymorphic; 15 had inserted into other 

 10       repetitive elements; 1 was found in a 

 11       non-human primate genome; and 76 were fixed 

 12       for the presence of the element.  

 13             So how do we use these for forensics?  

 14       Well, the whole idea is to study different 

 15       types of variation that are in our genome 

 16       and to use those pieces of variation to tell 

 17       the difference between individual genomes or 

 18       different populations.  

 19             So here what we've devised is an Alu 

 20       insertion PCR assay.  Up at the top of this 

 21       schematic, it doesn't project so well, but 

 22       there's actually an Alu insertion here.  

 23       Down below it is a chromosome, and what we 

 24       do in our assay is predict unique sequence 

 25       primers in the 5-prime and 3-prime flanking 



                                                             500
  1  

  2       regions.

  3             So in this assay, individuals who are 

  4       homozygous for the presence of an Alu 

  5       element amplify a 400 base pair fragment, 

  6       heterozygous individuals amplify a 400 base 

  7       pair fragment and a 100 base pair fragment, 

  8       and individuals who do not have the Alu 

  9       insertion amplify a 100 base pair DNA 

 10       fragment.

 11             So this is a rapid assay to look for 

 12       the presence or absence of each of these 

 13       mobile element insertions in the genome, and 

 14       in the last part of my talk, I just want to 

 15       show a preliminary survey of the human 

 16       variation associated with a number of these 

 17       elements.  

 18             So what we've done is surveyed 27 

 19       different, diverse human populations for the 

 20       absence or presence of 21 Alu insertion 

 21       polymorphisms across 1,300 unrelated 

 22       individuals.  

 23             Now, the populations that we surveyed 

 24       span the globe.  You'll see there are a 

 25       number of new-world populations shown here; 



                                                             501
  1  

  2       a quite a high density of populations in 

  3       Europe, in particular, I'll point out 

  4       populations from the Caucasus that we've 

  5       analyzed; a number of African populations; 

  6       and then a few populations from Samoa as 

  7       well.  

  8             Now, three things to ask about any 

  9       type of genetic marker.  The first one is, 

 10       what's the level of heterozygosity that's 

 11       associated with the marker?  So here, what 

 12       you'll see is that across our 21 Alu 

 13       insertions, we have an average 

 14       heterozygosity of 29 percent.  

 15             That doesn't mean like a lot when we 

 16       compare that to the VNTRs and STR type of 

 17       loci.  But keep in mind, these are biallelic 

 18       loci, just like SNPs, there are only two 

 19       potential states.  So the maximum 

 20       heterozygosity is 50 percent, and, in fact, 

 21       I want to point out that we have several 

 22       loci that approach the theoretical maximum 

 23       in this survey.  

 24             Secondly, we can ask how much of the 

 25       variation within this data were between 



                                                             502
  1  

  2       populations as opposed to within 

  3       populations?  And we can do that using an 

  4       FST statistic or GST statistic.  

  5             So, in this case, I'll show you the 

  6       FST statistic, and what you'll see is, is 

  7       that actually about 13 percent of the 

  8       variation is between populations as opposed 

  9       to within populations, and, again, that's 

 10       the variation that we're trying to utilize, 

 11       not just to study evolution, but also in 

 12       forensics.  

 13             This is a principle components 

 14       analysis of those data, and here I've chosen 

 15       to show this as opposed to a tree just to 

 16       give you a global picture of how this 

 17       variation sorted out amongst the human 

 18       populations we studied.  And two important 

 19       points to make:  The first one is that 

 20       across this principle components analysis, 

 21       we actually captured about 82 percent of the 

 22       variation in the first two principle 

 23       components, and you can think of this as a 

 24       tool that's akin to an analysis of variance; 

 25             secondly, you'll see that there's a 



                                                             503
  1  

  2       very good agreement between geography and 

  3       the clustering amongst different 

  4       populations.  

  5             So here you'll see African groups in 

  6       one part; groups from the Caucasus in 

  7       another part that are spread out; other 

  8       European groups here; groups from the 

  9       Americas; from Asia, etc.  

 10             So there's a good concordance between 

 11       the clustering of these populations and 

 12       their geographic origin.  Secondly, we can 

 13       ask in our data set by entering in zero for 

 14       the absence of the Alu insertion what the 

 15       root of this particular plot is, and you'll 

 16       see the root is shown here, and the root is 

 17       actually in Africa.  So using these Alu 

 18       insertion polymorphisms, we able to support 

 19       an African origin for these particular 

 20       markers.  

 21             Now, I wanted to go back to this issue 

 22       of the Caucasus populations because there 

 23       are two important points to make.  The first 

 24       one is that, actually, there is a bit more 

 25       genetic diversity within the Caucasus than 



                                                             504
  1  

  2       in the other European groups, and you can 

  3       reemphasize that here where I'm showing you 

  4       the average heterozygosity across the 27 

  5       populations plotted out by the origin of the 

  6       populations.  

  7             And so let me get you to focus in then 

  8       on the Caucasus groups and then the other 

  9       European groups.  Across the board, it 

 10       appears that the Caucasus groups have a 

 11       higher amount of diversity than the other 

 12       European groups.  

 13             So if we assume the same effective 

 14       population size for the Caucasus and for the 

 15       other European groups, then one can argue 

 16       that the Caucasus are actually the ancestral 

 17       Caucasian population.  

 18             Now, what makes Alu insertions unique?  

 19       They're typed by simple PCR assays.  As my 

 20       colleague, Mark Stoneking puts it, "We're 

 21       the low-tech guys."  We don't need ABIs to 

 22       genotype our loci, a PCR machine and a gel 

 23       box.  

 24             They're stable polymorphisms that are 

 25       rarely delighted from the genome, and 



                                                             505
  1  

  2       they're identical by descent.  So say, for 

  3       instance, Henry Erlich and I share an Alu 

  4       insertion polymorphism, we inherited that 

  5       polymorphism from a common ancestor.  

  6             By contrast, all other types of 

  7       polymorphisms beyond simple lineal 

  8       relationships are merely identical by state.  

  9       That means they look the same, but we cannot 

 10       always infer that they are identical by 

 11       descent.  

 12             And lastly, the ancestral state of 

 13       these polymorphisms is known.  So, for 

 14       forensics, how do these fit in?  Well, I 

 15       don't actually think that we'll ever beat 

 16       the CODIS loci in terms of their utility in 

 17       forensic case work.  

 18             However, I think these types of 

 19       systems, along with the Y-chromosome and the 

 20       mitochondrial DNA have a unique niche, and 

 21       that is that they're a rich source of 

 22       population-specific alleles.  They afford us 

 23       the ability for individual identification.  

 24             They also afford us the ability to 

 25       infer geographic affiliation and ethnic 



                                                             506
  1  

  2       affiliation upon an unknown DNA sample.  So 

  3       I think that they have a niche in terms of 

  4       criminalistics and that, ultimately, they'll 

  5       be quite useful.  

  6             So, in conclusion, our analysis has 

  7       supported an African origin for modern 

  8       humans.  I've given you the sales pitch for 

  9       what makes this a unique type of variation 

 10       for studying forensics and human population 

 11       genetics.  

 12             About 28 percent of these Alu 

 13       insertions are polymorphic for presence and 

 14       absence and that these elements are novel 

 15       identical-by-descent markers for the study 

 16       of human evolution.  

 17             And, lastly, I'd like to say that a 

 18       lot of people contributed to these studies.  

 19       In particular, I'll acknowledge my long-time 

 20       tag team partners, Mark Stoneking and 

 21       Prescott Dyninger who I've interacted with 

 22       for well over a decade, and then also the 

 23       people in the lab that have done this work, 

 24       my and post-doctorals, Abdel Salem and Steve 

 25       Sherry, along with a number of my students, 



                                                             507
  1  

  2       Jeremy Myers; Marion Carroll; Mimi Semarco; 

  3       Bethany Vincent; and Sun Wen.  And also many 

  4       people have contributed DNA samples to these 

  5       analyses, and we really appreciate that.  

  6       Thank you.

  7             (Applause.)

  8             DR. LEDERBERG:  Next on is Michael 

  9       Hammer from the University of Arizona.

 10             DR. HAMMER:  Well, first of all, I'd 

 11       like to thank the organizers for inviting 

 12       me.  I've learned a lot.  I've never seen so 

 13       many excellent presentation in one meeting, 

 14       and I was truly inspired by the Scovilles 

 15       and Debbie Smith.  

 16             I'd like to say that I also 

 17       acknowledge NIJ for funding my lab for two 

 18       years, and this project that I'm going to 

 19       talk about is sort of a progress report for 

 20       a project that we've been doing jointly with 

 21       Sue Narveson at the Phoenix Police 

 22       Department.  

 23             Like I said, it's work in progress and 

 24       I'll try to get through to some of the 

 25       results.  In the first part of the talk, 



                                                             508
  1  

  2       I'll try to give you some of the basics 

  3       about the Y-chromosome.  

  4             All of the markers we've heard about 

  5       in the meeting to date, up to this moment, 

  6       have been on these 22 pairs of autosomes.  I 

  7       don't believe there are any markers on the 

  8       X-chromosome that people have mentioned.  I 

  9       may be missing something.

 10             The markers that I'm going to talk 

 11       about now are strictly limited to the 

 12       Y-chromosome, which is inherited from father 

 13       to son.  The objectives of our study were to 

 14       develop a DNA typing system that targets the 

 15       male-specific portion of the human genome, 

 16       which I'll refer to as the NRY, and I'll 

 17       explain why in a moment, it stands for 

 18       non-recombining portion of the Y.  

 19             We wanted it to identify a set of 

 20       informative NRY markers that are robust in 

 21       forensic analysis, both Y-STRs and Y-SNPs, 

 22       and to generate detailed protocols for 

 23       multiplex genotyping of these markers using 

 24       an ABI platform.  So we may not be as 

 25       low-tech as Mark, but we don't want to go 



                                                             509
  1  

  2       too high-tech because we'd like for this 

  3       system to be utilized in forensic labs.  

  4             And, finally, we wanted to establish a 

  5       database of U.S. population groups.  The 

  6       rationale for doing this is, first of all, 

  7       the vast majority of violent crimes are 

  8       committed by males; cases of sexual violence 

  9       currently comprise approximately 75 percent 

 10       of forensic case work in which there is 

 11       biological evidence for examination.  

 12             The extraction steps necessary to 

 13       isolate male genomic DNA from mixed samples 

 14       are time consuming, and there are often 

 15       problems associated with yield and degree of 

 16       separation male and female cells, therefore,   

 17       we have to deal with mixed profiles and 

 18       enhanced risk of contamination.  

 19             We may not want to avoid that step, 

 20       but there are few cases where there may be 

 21       few sperm heads and difficult to extract 

 22       male cells away from female cells, and often 

 23       times the female cells will swamp out a male 

 24       signal in a PCR reaction.  

 25             The cases where we envision this 



                                                             510
  1  

  2       system would be especially useful would be 

  3       in rape cases where the assailant semen is 

  4       mixed with cells from the victim and perhaps 

  5       at very low frequency.  In fact, cases 

  6       involving no sperm at all because the male 

  7       is aspermic for one reason or another, this 

  8       would provide the opportunity to get 

  9       male-specific genotypes.  

 10             Other kinds of mixtures where 

 11       differential lysis cannot be performed, for 

 12       example, blood/blood, blood/saliva, and Jack 

 13       Ballantyne, mentioned some of those, and, in 

 14       fact, didn't mention the Y-chromosome, but 

 15       he mentioned, specifically, some of these 

 16       applications.  

 17             Now, let me get back to the NRY.  

 18       Essentially, it's the portion that doesn't 

 19       undergo recombination with the X, which is 

 20       about 95 percent of the entire chromosome.  

 21       The entire chromosome is about 60 megabases 

 22       or 60 million base pairs.  

 23             It, obviously, carries the gene called 

 24       SRY which triggers male differentiation in 

 25       development, and the NRY, again, corresponds 



                                                             511
  1  

  2       to the strictly paternally inherited portion 

  3       of the chromosome.

  4             Now, the inheritance pattern is as 

  5       follows, and most of you are fully aware of 

  6       this, but if we have a male here, and I'm 

  7       showing a single autosomal pair, his 

  8       Y-chromosome and his mitochondrial DNA, his 

  9       Y-chromosome will trace back to a single 

 10       male in each generation, back to his father, 

 11       his father, his great-grand father without 

 12       undergoing any change, barring the 

 13       occasional mutation, of course.  His 

 14       mitochondrial DNA, obviously, would go to 

 15       his mother and traces a maternal lineage all 

 16       the way back in time.  

 17             In contrast, the autosomes, because of 

 18       recombination, are going to trace to any of 

 19       these previous ancestors in each generation.  

 20       So an Alu element that you find polymorphic 

 21       on this autosome, for example, you can't be 

 22       sure if it traces to this great-grandmother 

 23       or this great-grandfather up here.  It 

 24       traces to any of these above individuals 

 25       there, and without their DNA, you couldn't 



                                                             512
  1  

  2       tell which individual it was.  

  3             So it certainly has implications for 

  4       evolutionary studies.  We can trace male 

  5       lineages back in time to single common 

  6       ancestors in the past, but I think because 

  7       of this largely non-recombining unit, we 

  8       have the ability with the Y-chromosome work 

  9       to combine the utility of many kinds of 

 10       markers.  So I'm not going to sit here and 

 11       advocate one kind of marker, I'm going to 

 12       advocate the use of a combination of 

 13       markers.  

 14             And this is a little more background 

 15       for you.  The euchromatin region, which is 

 16       the region we focus on, 30 megabases of DNA, 

 17       different kinds of DNA compositions; there 

 18       are single copy regions, there are regions 

 19       of homology with the X, and there are 

 20       Y-specific repeats.  These light blue areas 

 21       are regions we thought had many repeats 

 22       within just the Y-chromosome.

 23             And those are interesting because we 

 24       can design primers to those regions and 

 25       amplify many different portions of the Y in 



                                                             513
  1  

  2       one experiment, and I'll explain why that's 

  3       important in a second.

  4             So, again, we're going to be using 

  5       many different kinds of markers along the 

  6       entire 30 million base pairs of the Y, 

  7       including point mutations or SNPs; 

  8       insertion/deletion polymorphisms, a great 

  9       example Mark just reviewed for you in Alu 

 10       elements; and, of course, microsatellites.  

 11             These two classes here and these two 

 12       columns have very different mutation rates.  

 13       Mutation rates are point mutations on the 

 14       order ten to the minus eighth per site per 

 15       generation, for Alu insertions on the order 

 16       of ten to the minus tenth, and about five to 

 17       seven orders of magnitude higher mutation 

 18       rate in the microsatellite.  So we can 

 19       combine information from different kinds of 

 20       mutation systems in one Y-chromosome system.  

 21             Now, here's an example of an Alu 

 22       polymorphism that was discovered on the 

 23       Y-chromosome a number of years ago called 

 24       Y-Alu polymorphism or YAP.  And, in this 

 25       case, I forgot to bring the slide, but I 



                                                             514
  1  

  2       just made this up yesterday very quickly, I 

  3       have a gel that looks almost as perfect as 

  4       this gel, which I drew, these are primers 

  5       around the Alu, as Mark has just described.  

  6             And so this kind of hits home because 

  7       you have one male who has allelic state 1, 

  8       and another male has allelic state 2, and 

  9       when you amplify female DNA, you get nothing 

 10       not matter how much DNA you put into the 

 11       reaction.  

 12             Now, the next point that I wanted to 

 13       make, again, hitting home on this idea that 

 14       we can use many markers on the single 

 15       system, here's the entire NRY, and this is 

 16       supposed to indicate different markers along 

 17       the non-recombining portion of the 

 18       chromosome, SNPs, indels, STRs, by looking 

 19       at a single individual, across his 

 20       chromosome, we can build what's called a 

 21       haplotype.  

 22             So that's the combination of allelic 

 23       states genotyped at polymorphic sites 

 24       anywhere on the NRY of each male, and this 

 25       is referred to as a haplotype.  So this 



                                                             515
  1  

  2       individual is a G minus 12, this individual 

  3       is G plus 13, and so on and so forth.  

  4       That's the general idea.  

  5             Now, moving from theory to practice, 

  6       we undertook a study to identify several of 

  7       these different markers in different 

  8       population systems.  The first system I want 

  9       to talk about is a diversity panel, what we 

 10       call the YCC diversity panel.  

 11             It's 74 cell lines for which we have 

 12       DNA isolated.  It represents almost an 

 13       infinite source of DNA for us, so we can 

 14       continue to type markers and provide these 

 15       as a resource to the community.  In this 

 16       panel there are 74 chromosomes from Africa, 

 17       Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Australia, 

 18       and I'll refer to some of the results that 

 19       we typing that panel of cell lines.

 20             In addition, we've typed U.S.   

 21       population groups, about 529 individuals, 

 22       African-Americans, European-Americans, 

 23       Southwest Hispanics, Southwest Native 

 24       Americans, and we didn't have a sample of 

 25       East Asian Americans, so we used East Asians 



                                                             516
  1  

  2       from Asia and made a composite group for 

  3       that group.

  4             And, finally, we also typed 

  5       Y-chromosome markers for this study and 612 

  6       chromosomes, additionally, of Americans, 

  7       Europeans from Europe, and North Asians; and 

  8       we were kind of interested in the idea of 

  9       how much population structure, to get back 

 10       to this Queratiana problem, we're going to 

 11       kind of revisit in a way and ask how much 

 12       variation and how much substructuring do we 

 13       find in Native American populations which 

 14       have a tribal, sort of, population structure 

 15       that often times is characterized by 

 16       isolated populations.  

 17             And we worry about how the genotypic 

 18       content of one sub-population may be 

 19       represented by another, and so if you have a 

 20       database for one, how well does that 

 21       represent another.  

 22             And we were interested in that 

 23       question, and so we used North Asians, 

 24       Siberian populations as sort of a control 

 25       comparison for Native Americans given that 



                                                             517
  1  

  2       they also have a similar lifestyle.  

  3             The markers genotyped so far, and this 

  4       is work in progress, so it's ongoing, the 

  5       YCC diversity panel has been typed for 20 

  6       Y-STRs and 101 Y-SNPs.  

  7             U.S. population groups and world 

  8       groups, N equals 1141, were typed for five 

  9       Y-STRs and 31 SNPs, and we're going to 

 10       compare that also with U.S. population 

 11       groups typed for another set of Y-STRs, 

 12       Pentaplex 1 and 2, which I'll describe now.  

 13       I guess in a second, I'll describe the two 

 14       pentaplexes.

 15             This is result of typing 20 Y-STRs in 

 16       the YCC panel.  These are the different 

 17       markers that we used.  Notice that the top 

 18       three markers here have a very high number 

 19       of alleles in this panel, 19, 36, and 39; 

 20       whereas, these other markers, 9, 8, and so 

 21       on down the load, have a much smaller number 

 22       of alleles.  

 23             The reason we have so many allele 

 24       patterns for these markers is they are 

 25       primer pairs that fall into this region of 



                                                             518
  1  

  2       the Y that's repeated, so a single primer 

  3       pair will amplify many different markers 

  4       along the Y, and, in a sense, each single 

  5       primer pair in a PCR reaction gives you 

  6       almost a fingerprint for that individual.  

  7       So what we're interested then is to how we 

  8       can best combine these different markers to 

  9       get a very highly informative system of 

 10       polymorphic markers.  

 11             So we designed two, five-plex PCR 

 12       reactions, each, actually, looking at six 

 13       markers, because each contained one of these 

 14       markers that was duplicated on the Y.

 15             So this is Pentaplex 1, Pentaplex 2.  

 16       These are the different loci in Pentaplex 1.  

 17       This one is duplicated.  It's a high 

 18       resolution haplotype.  This one is 

 19       duplicated here.  You can see there's 49 

 20       different alleles at this marker, and 16, 

 21       when I say "alleles," I really mean 

 22       patterns.  

 23             This just shows you a gene scan image 

 24       of Pentaplex 1 run out, these five different  

 25       markers for a panel of different 



                                                             519
  1  

  2       individuals, and you can see each lane 

  3       represents the genotypes of those 

  4       individuals at those five different markers.  

  5             This is one of those hypervariable 

  6       markers, and you can see how much variation 

  7       there is.  A single pair of markers is 

  8       amplifying more than one marker across the 

  9       chromosome.  

 10             Now, here's our U.S. and world 

 11       population data for just Pentaplex 1.  I 

 12       don't have time to go through all of this, 

 13       but here you have your U.S. population 

 14       groups, and here you have some world 

 15       population groups.  

 16             Notice that here is the sample size, 

 17       the number of chromosomes.  Here are the 

 18       number of different of haplotypes, 

 19       combination haplotypes that identified.  

 20       This is the discrimination capacity, so it's 

 21       just the number of haplotypes divided by the 

 22       total sample size.  And you can see, in most 

 23       cases, it ranges between 75 and 80 percent 

 24       with just five markers, which is pretty good 

 25       discrimination, except in the case of Native 



                                                             520
  1  

  2       Americans where it was only 37 percent.  

  3       Interestingly, it was true for North Asians, 

  4       the Siberian groups with similar lifestyles 

  5       and population structure.  

  6             So how do we increase the resolution?  

  7       We need to look at additional 

  8       microsatellites.  So here's results from 

  9       just the YCC panel where we looked at 

 10       Pentaplex 1 and 2, and you can see Pentaplex 

 11       1 gave us a discrimination capacity of 

 12       almost 80 percent.  

 13             Pentaplex 2 by itself was higher, 

 14       86.5.  The two together brought us to 92 

 15       percent discrimination capacity.  The 21 

 16       STRs was all the way up at 97.3 percent 

 17       discrimination capacity.  So that gives us 

 18       some hope that by adding more and more 

 19       markers on Y, we can get up to more 

 20       discrimination.  

 21             Now, let me just spend a couple of 

 22       minutes talking about Y-SNPs, another 

 23       polymorphic marker system on the same set of 

 24       chromosomes.  This sort of gives you an 

 25       overview of the features of these markers.  



                                                             521
  1  

  2       They provide higher resolution than STRs 

  3       alone; they provide a very high degree of 

  4       geographic specificity, already reviewed by 

  5       Mark for the Alu markers between different 

  6       populations; and they give good indications 

  7       add-mixture between different populations. 

  8             And this is the structure of a 

  9       haplotype tree.  This is looking at 

 10       something like 65 SNPs across different 

 11       populations in the world.  This entire 

 12       cluster here is found only in sub-Saharan 

 13       Africa.  

 14             This cluster here is found only in the 

 15       new world in Native American populations.  

 16       This marker here is at a very high frequency 

 17       in Northern European populations.  The point 

 18       I'm trying to make is these markers can 

 19       provide us not so much with 

 20       individualization of the chromosome of each 

 21       male, but a good indication of geographic 

 22       specificity.  So the nice thing about the Y 

 23       is that we can combine these two aspects.

 24             Now, this shows you some U.S. 

 25       population groups, profiles for 



                                                             522
  1  

  2       Y-chromosomes haplotypes in different groups 

  3       based on these Y-SNPs.  You can see Native 

  4       Americans have a very high frequency of this 

  5       magenta haplotype.  This is truly a Native 

  6       American-specific haplotype.   

  7             African-Americans have a very high 

  8       frequency of these green haplotypes, and we 

  9       know from our surveys of the world that 

 10       these are African haplotypes, and the fact 

 11       that we find them in African-Americans is no 

 12       surprise, but you can see that these blue 

 13       haplotypes which are found in Europeans and 

 14       also in Caucasians from the southwest are 

 15       also prevalent or present in 

 16       African-American populations giving us some 

 17       indication of add-mixture European Y 

 18       chromosomes flowing into the 

 19       African-American gene pool.  

 20             Here we see Asian Y-chromosomes, and 

 21       they form a completely different set of 

 22       haplotypes there.  Notice that Europeans 

 23       have a set of haplotype, and the profile is 

 24       very similar to southwest Caucasian 

 25       Americans and very similar to Southwest 



                                                             523
  1  

  2       Hispanics.  So with respect to the 

  3       Y-chromosome, Southwestern Hispanics have a 

  4       profile that's very similar to Europeans and 

  5       Caucasian Americans.  

  6             We don't know what means with respect 

  7       to other markers in the genome, for example,  

  8       mitochondrial DNA may give us a very 

  9       different picture.  But also notice that 

 10       this magenta haplotype found in Native 

 11       Americans only is found also at some low 

 12       levels in Caucasian Americans from the 

 13       Southwest as well as Southwest Hispanics 

 14       indicating there are Native American 

 15       chromosomes, again, flowing across 

 16       populations systems.  

 17             I think these are important 

 18       considerations for forensic work, and we 

 19       need to consider them further to understand 

 20       the impact they may have on statistical 

 21       analyses.  

 22             Now, just to get at this question of 

 23       how much structure is there, Mark already 

 24       nicely introduced the idea of FST, which is 

 25       the measure of the between group amount of 



                                                             524
  1  

  2       variation relative to the total amount of 

  3       genetic variance in the system.  

  4             I just quickly want to point out that 

  5       when we look at STR haplotypes, the FST 

  6       numbers are pretty low, lower than the 13 

  7       percent that Mark alluded to in most 

  8       populations.  

  9             Our worldwide sample, it was .069 or 

 10       6.9 percent, however, it was highly 

 11       statistically significant.  For U.S. groups 

 12       it was lower, and for Native Americans, it's 

 13       quite high, about 5.3 percent, almost as 

 14       high as the world populations together.  

 15             But notice for SNP haplotypes, these 

 16       numbers are much, much higher, so 35, 36 

 17       percent of the total variance is explained 

 18       by a variation between groups, and this 

 19       reflects, again, their geographic 

 20       specificity.  

 21             The STR haplotype numbers being lower 

 22       reflects the fact that we're starting to get 

 23       a lot of individualization of Y lineages in 

 24       each group.  Therefore, that lowers the 

 25       amount of between group variance.  For 



                                                             525
  1  

  2       Native Americans we have a lower amount of 

  3       individualization, and we also have a lower 

  4       amount of between group variation.  

  5             Notice, very interestingly, that North 

  6       Central Asians, the Siberians also have high 

  7       levels of FST like Native American groups 

  8       do.  

  9             And this is just a different measure, 

 10       I won't go into it, to measure FST.  I'm 

 11       going to cut to the chase here because I 

 12       don't want to take too much more time.  

 13             So, essentially, the number of known 

 14       Y-STRs is greater than 40 right now, and so 

 15       there's great hope that we can develop the 

 16       Y-chromosome as a system with high 

 17       individualization by looking at many STRs.

 18             The number of SNPs is greater than a 

 19       hundred, and they exhibit geographic 

 20       specificity, so the different properties of 

 21       Y-STR's individualization and Y-SNPs 

 22       geographic specificity in combination are 

 23       especially useful for DNA forensics.

 24             Some U.S. population groups may be 

 25       subdivided with respect to NRY haplotype 



                                                             526
  1  

  2       variation, and that needs to be further 

  3       investigated.  

  4             Varying degrees of paternal 

  5       add-mixture between U.S. population groups, 

  6       again, we need to reassess or assess the 

  7       influence that may have on forensic 

  8       analysis.  And, therefore, I think we need 

  9       to say at this point that we'll need larger 

 10       databases of Y-STR and Y-SNPs for individual 

 11       U.S. population groups and their parental 

 12       groups in other parts of the world to really 

 13       understand how to best analyze these data.  

 14             And future directions are to identify 

 15       additional hypervariable STRs, we're already 

 16       doing so and have found some; for the fewest 

 17       number of PCR reactions to give the largest 

 18       number of haplotypes; genotype U.S. 

 19       populations with several informative SNPs 

 20       using fluorescent space technology, 

 21       everything that you can do in your forensic 

 22       lab, it's no more high-tech than that; and 

 23       increase our sample size in the number of 

 24       U.S. population groups in the database.  

 25       I'll leave it there.  Thank you very much.



                                                             527
  1  

  2             (Applause.)

  3             DR. LEDERBERG:  Next is Terry Melton 

  4       from the State College of Pennsylvania and 

  5       Microtyping Technologies.  

  6             DR. MELTON:  I'd like to first thank 

  7       Dr. Lisa Forman and the NIJ for asking me to 

  8       come here and talk to you today about 

  9       mitochondrial DNA.  

 10             We've heard briefly only in passing a 

 11       couple of references to mitochondrial DNA, 

 12       and I got the impression that some people 

 13       think of it as a little bit of a mystery 

 14       molecule still.  So I'm here to tell you 

 15       that there's quite a lot going on in the 

 16       mystery molecule world of mitochondrial DNA, 

 17       and it shouldn't be a mystery anymore to 

 18       you.  

 19             All of the laboratories that I'm aware 

 20       of are sequencing hypervariable regions 1 

 21       and 2 in the noncoding control region.  

 22       Mitochondrial DNA is a circular molecule.  

 23       It's about 15 Kb long and it does have some 

 24       genes in it that code for various things 

 25       having to do with cellular respiration.  The 



                                                             528
  1  

  2       region we're interested in tends to be 

  3       highly variable among individuals, and it's 

  4       quite useful for forensic identification.  

  5             In our laboratory, as in most 

  6       laboratories, we're sequencing these two 

  7       hypervariable regions, as I mentioned, HV1 

  8       and HV2.  We build in quite a bit of 

  9       redundancy in our analysis by actually 

 10       amplifying several different PCR products 

 11       which overlap each other.  

 12             And I should mention that there is a 

 13       move afoot to doing some of the region in 

 14       between HV1 and HV2, and downstream of HV2 

 15       these are called the VR regions, and they're 

 16       extremely useful for resolving some of the 

 17       differences between people who have some of 

 18       the more common types that are more 

 19       difficult to discriminate with respect to 

 20       these two regions.  

 21             And I should also tell you that in our 

 22       laboratory we're doing quite a bit of work 

 23       with very degraded samples where we amplify 

 24       even smaller fragments, that is 100 to 140 

 25       base pairs, and we're having quite a bit of 



                                                             529
  1  

  2       success applying this approach which has 

  3       heretofore only been used by the Armed 

  4       Forces Laboratory in their work with the 

  5       degraded remains from Korea and Vietnam. So 

  6       we're actually able to get some very 

  7       valuable data out of forensic samples in 

  8       these regions by using an ancient DNA 

  9       approach.  

 10             In our laboratory, we're mostly typing 

 11       shed hairs, usually hair fragments or hairs 

 12       with telogen roots.  Of course, if there is 

 13       a root bulb, we would always want to 

 14       preserve that for nuclear testing.  

 15             Our second most common kind of sample 

 16       is aged skeletal material, usually teeth.  

 17       Occasionally, we get long bones.  We like to 

 18       get teeth if we can get them.  

 19             And, occasionally, we'll do a degraded 

 20       stain, but what we're finding with stains is 

 21       that we have such a sensitive assay, 

 22       mitochondrial is about ten to a hundred 

 23       times more sensitive than nuclear DNA 

 24       typing, so with degraded stains, we will 

 25       recover not only the type of stain itself, 



                                                             530
  1  

  2       but the type of anyone who has handled the 

  3       fabric prior to the stain being there.  

  4             So Stains are very problematic.  I 

  5       like to say, we can always clean a hair, 

  6       clean a bone before we test it, but we 

  7       cannot clean a stain.  

  8             I want to point out too, one of the 

  9       very useful attributes of mitochondrial DNA 

 10       is that it's maternally inherited.  It's 

 11       inherited in a haploid mode.  

 12             This is particularly useful in cases 

 13       where the individual in question who may 

 14       have left the sample is not available, you 

 15       can go to any living maternal relative and 

 16       ask for a blood sample or a buccal sample to 

 17       get the type of the missing individual.

 18             So a missing persons examination can 

 19       be done.  It's very useful in a no-body 

 20       homicide kind of case where a sample has 

 21       been left behind, where you believe a murder 

 22       has occurred and you'd like to test a hair 

 23       or a stain left at a crime scene.  

 24       Occasionally, we have some exhumations that 

 25       are done in shallow grave cases and that 



                                                             531
  1  

  2       sort of thing.  And, occasionally, too, we 

  3       do maternity and sibling analysis.  These 

  4       are quite useful because of this maternal 

  5       mode of inheritance.  

  6             We will hear, of course, there are 

  7       disadvantages to using mitochondrial DNA.   

  8       Certainly, it's not nearly as discriminatory 

  9       as nuclear DNA testing, but, of course, it 

 10       is absolutely as satisfactory as a nuclear 

 11       marker for doing exclusions.  

 12             And as an inclusionary marker, we're 

 13       actually seeing some very good statistics 

 14       now with the current database which is in 

 15       use, such that the probability overall of 

 16       selecting any two individuals at random from 

 17       the population of Caucasians is only about 

 18       1:255.  

 19             And I often mention too, that 

 20       mitochondrial DNA is sort of the end of the 

 21       road for testing for most DNA cases.  People 

 22       are not happy with these numbers compared to 

 23       nuclear testing, but, again, in addition to 

 24       other information that you derive about a 

 25       case, it can be extremely helpful and also 



                                                             532
  1  

  2       very compelling in addition to that other 

  3       information.  So I always say it's sort of 

  4       part of the puzzle of a case.  

  5             The numbers are similar to other 

  6       groups, and I'll talk a little bit more 

  7       about statistics in a little while.  Current 

  8       issues have remained virtually the same 

  9       since the beginning of this science.  

 10             Heteroplasmy was originally considered 

 11       sort of the scare idea in mitochondrial 

 12       testing.  This is a situation in which an 

 13       individual has more than one type of 

 14       mitochondrial DNA in their body.  

 15             It's actually true that we're probably 

 16       all heteroplasmic at some level, and, in 

 17       fact, over the last few years, because of 

 18       some very excellent studies being done by  

 19       Dr. Reynolds at Roche Labs and by the Armed 

 20       Forces Laboratory in Rockville, Maryland, 

 21       we're actually beginning to understand 

 22       heteroplasmy quite well.  

 23             So the biology is better understood.  

 24       This is a picture, actually, on the right 

 25       here, of a heteroplasmic sample.  What you 



                                                             533
  1  

  2       see is that this individual -- this is 

  3       looking at the light and the heavy strands 

  4       which, of course, are always both sequenced 

  5       in a case -- this person has a G and an A at 

  6       that position.  That's a site heteroplasmy.

  7             Down here, this is what we would call 

  8       a link heteroplasmy where this person 

  9       actually has a population of molecules with 

 10       seven Cs followed by a T and a population of 

 11       eight Cs followed by a T.  This results in a 

 12       very characteristic sort of messy looking 

 13       sequence downstream.  So it always entails 

 14       extra work when you have this situation in a 

 15       case.  

 16             We are also converging on some 

 17       estimates of frequencies of heteroplasmy in 

 18       various tissues.  We know it's quite high in 

 19       the brain and in muscle tissues.  It's very, 

 20       very low in blood samples, usually, and we 

 21       are seeing about 15 to 20 percent in hairs.  

 22             In our laboratory, we've seen in about 

 23       six percent of our case work samples a site 

 24       heteroplasmy, and we've seen a link 

 25       heteroplasmy in about 21 percent of our case 



                                                             534
  1  

  2       samples.  Fortunately, the methods for 

  3       detection are increasingly more sensitive.  

  4       With most instrumentations in most 

  5       laboratories, people can detect mixtures of 

  6       about 80 to 20 and possibly as low as 85 to 

  7       15 mixtures so it is getting easier to 

  8       detect heteroplasmy.  

  9             Understanding heteroplasmy has 

 10       certainly led to conservative 

 11       interpretations in cases in which you find 

 12       it.  Standards for all laboratories, and 

 13       these are sort of original to the FBI, is, 

 14       of course, with two or more sequence 

 15       differences, you would say you have an 

 16       exclusion.  

 17             Obviously, when you have a match at 

 18       every position, which is what we see most of 

 19       the time when we have two samples that have 

 20       come from the same individual, you cannot 

 21       exclude.  In fact, in the last year and a 

 22       half we've actually only seen two samples in 

 23       the same case where the two samples differed 

 24       by one site.  

 25             So, on average, most samples, if 



                                                             535
  1  

  2       they've come from two individuals will 

  3       provide a difference of eight sites.  So 

  4       it's rare that you'll have this problem down 

  5       here, with the one sequence difference.  

  6       That's termed inconclusive because of the 

  7       possibility that you have undetected 

  8       heteroplasmy or that you have two samples 

  9       coming from two different individuals.

 10       When there's clear evidence of heteroplasmy 

 11       with a common base in both the question, the 

 12       known samples, we also say that we cannot 

 13       exclude.  

 14             And, finally, evidence of heteroplasmy 

 15       in both samples can actually strengthen the 

 16       match, and this something that was found in 

 17       the remains of the Tsar and his brother; and 

 18       this was a published paper a few years ago.  

 19             Contamination is the ongoing bug-a-boo 

 20       of mitochondrial DNA laboratories.  Of 

 21       course, good laboratories that conform to 

 22       very high standards of contamination 

 23       prevention will see it only rarely, 

 24       fortunately, and this usually takes the form 

 25       of a sporadic contamination.  



                                                             536
  1  

  2             It really requires for minimizing 

  3       contamination to type your personnel, deep 

  4       internal databases, and my soap box is 

  5       always absolutely minimizing the number of 

  6       samples that are being handled concurrently.  

  7             However, we do rare contamination 

  8       events, as I said, especially, sporadic 

  9       events, and it's becoming clear among all 

 10       the laboratories that do this that each of 

 11       these cases must be evaluated in its own 

 12       context and the sporadic contamination 

 13       events, especially, should not necessarily 

 14       invalidate the results of the testing.  

 15             And I think Mitch Holland and Tom 

 16       Parsons really said it best in their 

 17       Forensic Science Review paper from 1999, and 

 18       I would certainly urge any of you who are 

 19       interested in mitochondrial DNA analysis and 

 20       the specifics of it to get a copy of this 

 21       paper because it's a very comprehensive and 

 22       excellent review of the science.  

 23             They, basically, say that despite all 

 24       the precautionary measures to minimize 

 25       contamination, it will be observed 



                                                             537
  1  

  2       occasionally in some PCRs, and there should 

  3       be approaches developed in every laboratory 

  4       to decide how to analyze this sort of result 

  5       without losing authentic results from the 

  6       testing.  And I think it's a very, very good 

  7       approach to take and sort of a common sense 

  8       approach, which I think everybody should be 

  9       aware of.  

 10             Ongoing, of course, is the database 

 11       and population genetics issues, which are 

 12       really not so much issues as much as to me 

 13       that they are an indication that we are 

 14       beginning to get a very, very good 

 15       understanding of what the variation is like, 

 16       particularly, in North American populations.  

 17             The database, which is maintained by 

 18       the Armed Forces and FBI laboratories in 

 19       Quantico.  Is growing steadily.  The last 

 20       issue had over 4,300 human mitochondrial 

 21       sequences of North American forensic 

 22       significance, and the next issue of this 

 23       database will be out in July; and I expect 

 24       it to be quite a bit larger at that point.  

 25             There are plans, of course, for a 



                                                             538
  1  

  2       number of more samples, 5 to 10,000 more 

  3       samples, and the current issue contains over 

  4       a thousand sequences of African or 

  5       African-American origin, around 700 Hispanic 

  6       sequences, 240 Native American sequences 

  7       from the Navajo and Apache groups, 414 Asian 

  8       sequences, and around 2,000 sequences. 

  9             Presenting the courtroom statistics, 

 10       this is sort of an evolving thing, I think, 

 11       there have been several ways to present the 

 12       context for inclusion in the courtroom.  The 

 13       earliest method was to describe the number 

 14       of times a sequence that had been seen in a 

 15       case had been seen in the current database.  

 16       So you'd just say, oh, we've seen it three 

 17       times out of these 4,360 individuals, and 

 18       it's broken down by ethnic group under that.  

 19             The method I prefer is actually 

 20       something that gives you a little bit more 

 21       information.  Actually, since we cannot go 

 22       out and type everyone in the population, we 

 23       can estimate the frequency of a type in the 

 24       database, but we're forced to put a 

 25       confidence interval around that frequency.  



                                                             539
  1  

  2             We can actually calculate a 95 or 99 

  3       percent confidence interval around the 

  4       frequency estimate, which is based on the 

  5       current data base.  So, for example, you can 

  6       say a 95 percent confidence interval is that 

  7       the true frequency lies somewhere between 0 

  8       percent and 0.15 percent.  

  9             And this is the kind of number you get 

 10       when you have one instance in the database 

 11       as it exists now, and, in fact, the 

 12       corollary to that is that, by extension, you 

 13       can exclude well over 99 percent of the 

 14       population as being potential contributors 

 15       of that sample.        

 16             So the numbers are quite useful and 

 17       quite good for at this point for actually 

 18       going to court, and it has been proposed 

 19       that likelihood ratios could be used in case 

 20       work, although, to my knowledge, it has not 

 21       been used in court.  

 22             Just a little bit about where we're 

 23       doing our case work.  About half or maybe 55 

 24       percent of our work is in the area for law 

 25       enforcement and prosecutors.  This always 



                                                             540
  1  

  2       includes, of course, criminal cases, missing 

  3       persons cases, and there is a lot of 

  4       interest in doing cold cases where people 

  5       are going back and looking at hairs that 

  6       have been stored away for a number of years, 

  7       and these are actually very good samples and 

  8       work quite well.  

  9             Along the same lines, of course, we do 

 10       testing and confirmatory testing for the 

 11       defense.  We're also quite involved in doing 

 12       post-conviction testing.  Very often on 

 13       hairs that were deemed microscopically 

 14       consistent with someone resulted in their 

 15       being convicted, and now someone's actually 

 16       going back and doing DNA testing on those 

 17       hairs.  

 18             On a rare occasion prosecutors and 

 19       defense attorneys will get together and pay 

 20       for a test together, which is really nice, 

 21       and that's a very small fraction of what we 

 22       do.  And about a quarter of the time, we're 

 23       actually working on some less criminal type 

 24       cases, of course, relationship studies; the 

 25       occasional historical case where someone has 



                                                             541
  1  

  2       dug up a body that they believe belonged to 

  3       some famous person and they want 

  4       confirmatory testing of that.  

  5             We actually believe we have done the 

  6       very first NAGPUR case where we helped in 

  7       repatriating some Native American remains 

  8       found in a dig site in California, and we 

  9       did confirm that the skeleton from that site 

 10       was probably an individual of Native 

 11       American origin.  

 12             And because of the geographic history 

 13       of mitochondrial DNA and its evolutionary 

 14       history, we can also be useful in doing some 

 15       asylum cases, looking for geographic origins 

 16       of someone who is looking for political 

 17       asylum.  

 18             And, finally, a very small fraction of 

 19       our cases is what I call "vanity" cases.  

 20       This is the occasional person who calls  you 

 21       and says, "I'm the convinced I'm the 

 22       Lindbergh baby," or "I'm another Romanov 

 23       descendant."  So we get a few cases like 

 24       that from time to time.  We have Anastasias 

 25       about once a month.  



                                                             542
  1  

  2             These statistics come from my friends 

  3       Kevin Miller, who's an analyst at the FBI  

  4       Mitochondrial Unit.  I think they're fairly 

  5       up to date.  Right now we know testimony has 

  6       been given in 33 cases in at least 22 states 

  7       and American Samoa.  

  8             And there have been five states with 

  9       recorded admissability hearings; five 

 10       appeals to date, all have been upheld.  In 

 11       Florida in 1997, there was an admissability 

 12       hearing which failed to pass.  This was 

 13       based on some statistical issues.  It has 

 14       since passed in Florida.

 15             And there is an upcoming admissibility 

 16       in New York State in June.  There's also, 

 17       apparently, an ongoing admissability hearing 

 18       here in Manhattan this week, which I was not 

 19       aware of until yesterday.  

 20             Federal testimonies.  There have been 

 21       testimonies in six federal jurisdictions; 

 22       two recorded admissability hearings, three 

 23       appeals to date, two have been upheld, and 

 24       there's one pending.  

 25             Finally, I'd like to share with you 



                                                             543
  1  

  2       something that I found in a local book store 

  3       about six weeds ago.  I think it's an 

  4       excellent commentary and I'm now the proud 

  5       owner of a first edition which has this as 

  6       the cover.  Thank you.

  7             (Applause.)

  8             DR. LEDERBERG:  We'll go on now to 

  9       Rebecca Reynolds from Roche Molecular 

 10       Systems.  

 11             DR. REYNOLDS:  I wanted to first, of 

 12       course, thank Dr. Lisa Forman for her 

 13       invitation to speak here and also to thank 

 14       Dr. Terry Melton for introducing the 

 15       mitochondrial genome to you and also 

 16       explaining why it's such a valuable source 

 17       of information for both forensic and human 

 18       identification.  

 19             And Lisa asked asked me to focus the 

 20       development of our rapid simple method for 

 21       analyzing sequence variation in the control 

 22       region and comparing it to sequencing as 

 23       opposed to discussing our heteroplasmy 

 24       studies, and I have honored her request, at 

 25       least, as best as I can.  So I will be 



                                                             544
  1  

  2       focusing on this technology that we've 

  3       developed.

  4             As Terry told you, most laboratories  

  5       doing mitochondrial DNA analysis are using 

  6       DNA sequencing, and in Terry's lab and our 

  7       lab, we use the Genetic Analyzer 310 for 

  8       analysis; and as you can see with sequencing 

  9       as she described, we're basically getting 

 10       information about every position within the 

 11       control region.  

 12             However, it's important to consider,  

 13       though, how long does it take to get that 

 14       information, and it's also important to ask, 

 15       do you really need that much information for 

 16       ever sample that you're looking at?  

 17             The goal really is to determine as 

 18       quickly as possible and by extending as few 

 19       resources and time as possible which of 

 20       those samples really have probative value 

 21       and which of them really should get the most 

 22       amount of time and analysis.  

 23             So what we've been doing is developing 

 24       an alternative assay, but let me first 

 25       describe to you how long it does take to 



                                                             545
  1  

  2       obtain information when you're doing 

  3       sequence analysis, and I'm basing these 

  4       estimates, again, this is on the 310 

  5       Analysis because that's what most forensic 

  6       laboratories own, the instrument they own.  

  7             Plus, we've analyzed well over a 

  8       thousand sequences ourselves, and I've 

  9       talked with people who also use the 

 10       technology and so these estimates are fairly 

 11       reasonable.  

 12             You spend your first day, basically, 

 13       following extraction.  You spend your first 

 14       day setting up PCR and amplifying it.  You 

 15       then have to prep your products before you 

 16       can do the sequencing reaction, so you need 

 17       to do that and then set up your sequencing 

 18       reactions to go over night.  

 19             The next day, you can't just load 

 20       those reactions onto your sequencer 

 21       instrument, you have to prep them as well.  

 22       So you spend the morning doing that.  You 

 23       get your samples up and running on the 

 24       machine and begin collecting data.  

 25             With the 310, these are analyzed one 



                                                             546
  1  

  2       at a time, and  it takes about 55 minutes 

  3       per sample to collect data.  So what that 

  4       means is at the end of day three, really, 

  5       that's when you have some information in 

  6       hand that you can use to make some 

  7       decisions, i.e., decide if they're actually 

  8       exclusions and samples that you no longer 

  9       have to deal with, at least, in the context 

 10       of the case you were given.  

 11             So the information yielded after three 

 12       days is about 28 sequences.  You get another 

 13       26 for every 24 hours after that.  Now, 28 

 14       sequences doesn't mean 28 samples, but, as 

 15       Terry described to you, there are actually 

 16       two regions that you're analyzing, HV1 and 

 17       HV2.  

 18             Each of those is amplified into two 

 19       fragments, and then those four fragments 

 20       need to be sequenced in both directions, so 

 21       you're talking about eight sequencing 

 22       reactions per sample that you want 

 23       information on.  

 24             So, really, at the end of three days, 

 25       you're talking about information on maybe 



                                                             547
  1  

  2       three to four samples.  Given that most 

  3       cases involve a lot more than three samples, 

  4       you're really needing to spend about a week 

  5       before you can make a decision; yes, this 

  6       hair is excluded or not.  

  7             So there really is a need for 

  8       something that's more rapid and simpler that 

  9       laboratories can use for analyzing sequence 

 10       variation.  So this is the test that I was 

 11       going to describe to you.  

 12             And the approach that we've been using 

 13       is probably one that's familiar to you.  

 14       It's using the Immobilized SSO Probe 

 15       Detection technology.  These are actually 

 16       the first microarrays, granted they're low 

 17       density microarrays, but they are 

 18       microarrays, so you guys have been on the 

 19       cutting edge for about a decade.  

 20             So what are some of the advantages of 

 21       SSO probe strips -- I might just call them 

 22       probe strips at this point -- over 

 23       sequencing, and why do they become very 

 24       useful as a screening tool?  

 25             And I guess I do want to emphasize, 



                                                             548
  1  

  2       we're not saying, don't sequence.  You have 

  3       to sequence, but you don't need to sequence 

  4       every single sample that comes across your 

  5       lab bench, and one reason that this is such 

  6       a valuable screening test is that it is 

  7       significantly faster than sequencing.

  8             First, after PCR, there is no sample 

  9       preparation.  You go straight from there to 

 10       the probe strip which is where you then are 

 11       looking at sequence variation.  You can also 

 12       type up to 40 samples at a time, and it only 

 13       takes two and a half hours.  And that's 

 14       enough information to tell immediately 

 15       whether or not a sample is included or 

 16       excluded or can be associated with the 

 17       particular individual or not.  

 18             As I said, it uses established 

 19       technology that's been accepted in courts 

 20       for years, and it's also easy to implement 

 21       meaning that you really need only about a 2

 22       $2,500 water bath to do this assay as 

 23       opposed to a $60 to $70,000 instrument that 

 24       requires a $5,000 a year maintenance 

 25       contract on top of the $10,000 of additional 



                                                             549
  1  

  2       software that you need to analyze the 

  3       sequence.  

  4             So, again, you have to go that way 

  5       anyway, but the point is, you want to keep 

  6       your costs down and your time down as much 

  7       as you can, and this is one way to do that.  

  8             And, finally, again, it is easy to 

  9       interpret.  I'll be showing you an example 

 10       of some strips, and you'll see for yourself, 

 11       you can do it by eye.  You don't need any 

 12       software or anything additional to determine 

 13       whether or not you need to deal further with 

 14       a particular sample.  

 15             As Terry described to you, generally, 

 16       our laboratories are looking at HV1 and HV2.  

 17       For the first version of our assay, we 

 18       focused exclusively on the HV2 region, and 

 19       what we're doing, unlike sequencing, where 

 20       you're looking at every single position 

 21       within the hypervariable regions, what we're 

 22       doing is looking at clusters of the most 

 23       polymorphic positions within, as I said, our 

 24       first version, HV2.  

 25             And these are the five clusters, 



                                                             550
  1  

  2       labelled A through E.  What we're doing for, 

  3       again, the original version of the assay is 

  4       amplifying a 415 base pair fragment that 

  5       encompasses the entire HV2 region.  

  6             Sequencing, generally, when it's 

  7       nonreference samples, involves two separate 

  8       PCR reactions with two primer pairs then 

  9       with overlapping fragments to get 

 10       information across that region.  

 11             The next slide is an example of 

 12       results that you would get with an SSO 

 13       strip, and these are the five regions that I 

 14       just indicated to you, A through E.  And 

 15       then within each of these regions, there are 

 16       probes that are specific for certain 

 17       sequences.  

 18             So, as an example, in region A, you 

 19       see that the probe 2 is positive, it's 

 20       giving a positive signal.  What these two 

 21       probes tell you is whether or not an 

 22       individual has a G or an A at that position.  

 23       This person happens to have an A at position 

 24       73.  

 25             Similarly, in region B, you have now 



                                                             551
  1  

  2       seven probes that look at sequence variation 

  3       at these three positions.  This individual, 

  4       the B5 probe is positive.  We know that that 

  5       means that person's sequence contains a T at 

  6       146, a T at 150, and a T at 152, similar for 

  7       region C and D.  

  8             In region E, we just have one probe 

  9       there, the E2.  This is not looking at 

 10       sequence variation as it is in regions A 

 11       through D.  Here what we're looking at is a 

 12       stretch of C residues, and most populations 

 13       can divided into two groups;  those that 

 14       have seven Cs in a row and those that have 

 15       eight Cs in a row.  

 16             And we've chosen to design a probe for 

 17       eight Cs.  This individual, therefore, has 

 18       eight Cs in a row in this region.  If that 

 19       probe is absent, that means that individual 

 20       has seven Cs or there's some other issue 

 21       such as length heteroplasmy occurring.  

 22             So with this combined information you 

 23       obtain, then, a miter type about that 

 24       individual, again, with sequence information 

 25       about the most polymorphic region within 



                                                             552
  1  

  2       HV2.  

  3             What I wanted to show you here is 

  4       that, which I should mention quickly that 

  5       the amount of information that you get from 

  6       the strip, this particular strip, as Terry 

  7       was saying, with sequencing, you can exclude 

  8       about over 99 percent of the population.  

  9       With this strip in this form it's about 95 

 10       percent of the population.  So it's not as 

 11       informative, but it's not bad as an 

 12       exclusionary method, which is perfect for a 

 13       screening tool. 

 14             So then in comparing the amount of 

 15       time it does take then compared to 

 16       sequencing -- I just made this small 

 17       table --  now, we're just looking at what 

 18       happens post-PCR because for both methods, 

 19       you have to do the PCR reaction.  

 20             With the probe strips within three 

 21       hours, you can obtain information on up to 

 22       40 samples in the HV2 region.  In contrast, 

 23       again, if we're just talking about the HV2 

 24       region, it takes two to three days following 

 25       the initial PCR to get information about 



                                                             553
  1  

  2       seven samples, both directions, in HV2.  

  3             It's quite a difference, and, again, 

  4       here you could have given somebody an 

  5       answer, yes or no, you've got the right guy.  

  6       Basically, if you've got the wrong guy, get 

  7       back out on the street look for somebody 

  8       else rather than waiting three days to a 

  9       week.  So, again, it's a very valuable then 

 10       as a screening mechanism.  

 11             We've made some improvements to that 

 12       original version of the assay, and I wanted 

 13       to go through those quickly now.  We wanted 

 14       to include the HV2 region to increase the 

 15       informativeness of the assay.  So to 

 16       accomplish that, we've done a couple of 

 17       things.  

 18             First, we added in a primer pair that 

 19       we can use to co-amplify HV1 and HV2, and 

 20       what that means is that we only have to use 

 21       one portion of our DNA sample to get 

 22       information in both HV1 and HV2 as opposed 

 23       to four portions of our DNA sample if we're 

 24       going to do sequencing.  

 25             We also then added in nine probes for 



                                                             554
  1  

  2       the HV1 region, and we decided to remove the 

  3       HV2 C-stretch probe, that's seven Cs versus 

  4       eight Cs; and that's probably because the 

  5       general consensus in the community now is 

  6       that that region is ambiguous, you really 

  7       need to take a lot of time to figure out 

  8       what's going on there.  So you're going to 

  9       be doing that at the sequencing level 

 10       probably more than at a screening level, and 

 11       so we eliminated that probe.  

 12             Now, because it was such an 

 13       informative probe, overall, we haven't 

 14       increased the informativeness of the assay 

 15       greatly, but what we have done is provided a 

 16       lot more information that can be interpreted 

 17       unambiguously.  So that's actually a very 

 18       important improvement.

 19             The other thing that we've done is to 

 20       design additional primer pairs that are 

 21       compatible with the strip assays so that you 

 22       can analyze highly degraded samples as well.  

 23       And, again, here we're trying to conserve 

 24       extracted material because it generally is 

 25       very precious.  



                                                             555
  1  

  2             So, now, we do have four primer pairs, 

  3       to for HV1 andHV2, however, instead of 

  4       having four reactions, we have two 

  5       reactions, and the way we accomplish that is 

  6       in one of those reactions to amplify a 

  7       portion of HV1 and a portion HV2.

  8             In that second reaction, you take your 

  9       second Alu quad of DNA, and now you look at 

 10       the other portion of HV1 and the other 

 11       portion of HV2.  We've also determined, 

 12       because it was very important that you don't 

 13       have to go back and do additional work, you 

 14       if it's amplified here and you can test it 

 15       on the strips, you need to be able to 

 16       sequence it without doing anything else, and 

 17       in fact, that's true, you can.  

 18             So we actually are really looking 

 19       forward to the collaboration with the 

 20       Georgia Bureau of Investigation where 

 21       they'll be testing this out on "real case 

 22       work."  I should mention that we've done 

 23       this on old hairs, soft tissue, bloods, and 

 24       some bones, but we wanted this in a real 

 25       case work setting to make sure this really 



                                                             556
  1  

  2       works, and hopefully we've talked Terry into 

  3       testing this as well.  But this would be a 

  4       great saver of sample which is very 

  5       important.  

  6             And, finally, the last thing, and 

  7       Lisa, I'm sorry, I have to mention the word 

  8       "heteroplasmy" here.  We also wanted to 

  9       address heteroplasmy hot spots.  We've 

 10       looked at over 1,700 samples, blood, hairs, 

 11       bones, and soft tissue; and we've identified 

 12       a number of heteroplasmy hot spots.  

 13             As Terry told you, heteroplasmy is the 

 14       presence of more than one sequence, 

 15       mitochondrial sequence, within an 

 16       individual, and sometimes, that can just 

 17       complicate the interpretation.  So the goal 

 18       is to make the interpretation as simple and 

 19       unambiguous as possible.  

 20             Most of those hot spots, we already 

 21       had probes that covered them.  We didn't 

 22       have probes for position 189, and this is a 

 23       site that we identified, in particular, in 

 24       muscle tissues and in hairs.  Position 16093 

 25       has been reported by other laboratories, and 



                                                             557
  1  

  2       we've included it as well.

  3             So what the new version of the strips 

  4       look like now, we've added in 11 probes and 

  5       removed 1, so we've gone from 17 probes to 

  6       27 probes.  These are the new probes for 

  7       HV1, and we still have some optimization 

  8       work work to do.  I don't know if you can 

  9       see it, but there's still a little bit of 

 10       cross-high at a couple of positions.  

 11             These are the original HV2 probes, and 

 12       then, finally, these are the new probes we 

 13       added in for the heteroplasmy hot spots at 

 14       189 and 16093.

 15             So, again, you can tell immediately by 

 16       looking at these three individuals, they 

 17       have distinguishable types.  You didn't need 

 18       any software, you didn't need a lot of time.  

 19       You needed, basically, to do your assay, and 

 20       at the  end of two and a half hours, you 

 21       look in the tray, okay, these are all 

 22       different. Very easy.  

 23             From here I wanted to just mention 

 24       another reason why we decided to add 16093, 

 25       and, again, it's a comparison of the two 



                                                             558
  1  

  2       technologies, which, really, are 

  3       complementary.  I really believe they need 

  4       to be done together, not one at the 

  5       exclusion of the other.  

  6             And that's because sequencing, just 

  7       because it's sensitive to which sequencing 

  8       chemistry you use, which instrument you use, 

  9       it's sensitive to the position within the 

 10       sequence and the base at each of those 

 11       positions as to whether or not you're able 

 12       to determine a mixture of sequences, either 

 13       due to contamination or heteroplasmy.  

 14             And 16093 ended up being particularly 

 15       bad so that you actually can miss it when 

 16       you're sequencing, and I just have one 

 17       example to show you of a mixture study that 

 18       we carried out.  We mixed two sequences, one 

 19       that had a T at 16093 and one that had a C.  

 20             In this first panel 12 and a half 

 21       percent of that mixture is a C, 25 percent 

 22       C, and 37 and a half percent C.  We then 

 23       sequenced with two different chemistries.  

 24       Both of these are being used in different 

 25       laboratories.  The big dye is reported to be 



                                                             559
  1  

  2       more sensitive, and, therefore, might be 

  3       used more frequently in mitochondrial DNA 

  4       analysis.

  5             But look at what happens.  At 12 and a 

  6       half percent C with the derotamine dyes, you 

  7       see a slight C peak under the T; here at 25 

  8       and 37 and a half percent, clearly,  

  9       unambiguously, you do see that second 

 10       sequence and you would correctly interpret 

 11       acid mixture due to, most likely, to 

 12       heteroplasmy or possibly to contamination.  

 13             But look what happens with the big dye 

 14       chemistry.  12 and a half percent, 25 

 15       percent, not even a trace of a second 

 16       sequence.  You would have missed it.  Even 

 17       at 37 and a half percent, you're just barely 

 18       starting to pick up that second sequence.  

 19             With the strip typing technology, the 

 20       probes are not sensitive to any of these 

 21       variables.  It doesn't matter what the 

 22       sequence is surrounding it.  Everything is 

 23       designed to take all of that into account.  

 24             Therefore, it detects low levels of 

 25       mixtures reliably, and with the strips at 



                                                             560
  1  

  2       this position, we can get down to 10 percent 

  3       reliably, so, therefore, we think that it's 

  4       an important addition to the strip for that 

  5       reason as well.  

  6             I just wanted to finish up then with 

  7       conclusions then that we really think that 

  8       efficient analysis, if your average forensic 

  9       laboratory, if there is such a thing, if 

 10       your average laboratory is going to do 

 11       mitochondrial DNA analysis, it really is 

 12       going to be done most efficiently by using a 

 13       screening method prior to sequencing.  

 14             And if you don't like this screening 

 15       method, there might be others out there that 

 16       you should look at, but I really highly 

 17       recommend that just for efficient flow of 

 18       work within your laboratory that you look at 

 19       that.  

 20             I did forget to mention earlier, we've 

 21       been sending these strips to a forensic lab 

 22       in Sweden.  They've cut down their case work 

 23       turnaround time in the mitochondrial unit of 

 24       their lab on the order of days.  So it's 

 25       been very valuable in that way.



                                                             561
  1  

  2             We believe that the immobilized SSO 

  3       approach to assay and DNA sequencing are 

  4       complementary technologies, not competitive 

  5       technologies.  They really both have 

  6       advantages and disadvantages.  They should 

  7       be used together.  They are complementary.  

  8             In that, as I showed you, the 

  9       immobilized probes, they're more sensitive 

 10       and they give less ambiguous results than 

 11       the sequencing, however, the DNA sequence 

 12       analysis is clearly more informative.  So by 

 13       using them together, I think that's the way 

 14       to go.  

 15             I wanted to end by acknowledging 

 16       current and past members of the laboratory 

 17       who have been working on the work that I 

 18       showed you, in particular, Sandy Callaway 

 19       and Matt Gabriel, these are the two 

 20       individuals in the laboratory funded by our 

 21       NIJ grant; Karen Walker, she's been working 

 22       on immobilized probe assays for a decade.  

 23             Past members include Dr. Ellen Clark, 

 24       she's now with California DOJ DNA 

 25       Laboratory, and Joe Vallaro is now with the 



                                                             562
  1  

  2       Boston Crime Laboratory there, actually, 

  3       their new Technical Leader.  

  4             Also, I'd like to acknowledge NIJ and, 

  5       especially, Lisa Forman because she has been 

  6       incredibly supportive and enthusiastic about 

  7       this technology from the very beginning, and 

  8       we really appreciate that and it keeps us 

  9       going.  Thank you, again. 

 10             (Applause.)

 11             DR. LEDERBERG:  We're exactly on time, 

 12       but I'm going to borrow a three minutes from 

 13       our break to see if there are any  really 

 14       important questions or comments on today's 

 15       proceedings.

 16             SPEAKER:  This is for Mike Hammer.  

 17       Mike talked about SNPs on the Y, insertions 

 18       and deletions on the Y, STRs.  What about 

 19       the minisatellite, the A repeat, which is, 

 20       of course, the most reliable marker on the 

 21       Y.  

 22             Do you foresee that as having a use in 

 23       forensics? 

 24             DR. LEDERBERG:  Would you recap the 

 25       question?



                                                             563
  1  

  2             DR. HAMMER:  Yes.  Jack asked about 

  3       another type of marker called a 

  4       minisatellite.  There's one known to exist 

  5       on the Y so far.  It's highly polymorphic, 

  6       however, we have not attempted to type it in 

  7       our lab.  

  8             Mark-Job link and Lester is very, very 

  9       good at typing this marker, and I'm not sure 

 10       if the technology to type it is really 

 11       exportable or how broadly it would be 

 12       usable.  But since I haven't tried it, I 

 13       can't say for sure.  It's MVR PCR. 

 14             DR. LEDERBERG:  Okay. I think it's 

 15       time for a 15-minute break, and then we'll 

 16       resume for the panel that Henry Erlich will 

 17       moderate, Technology Solutions and Methods.

 18             (Break.)

 19             PANEL VIII:  TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS 

 20                     PART II - METHODS  

 21             DR. ERLICH:  Good afternoon.  I'm 

 22       going to introduce our panel and we will 

 23       have a brief panel discussion at the end of 

 24       the individual talks.  

 25             As you know, in the beginning of 



                                                             564
  1  

  2       PCR-based forensic typing, sequence 

  3       polymorphisms were typed using 

  4       oligonucleotide probes, and length 

  5       polymorphisms were typed using gel 

  6       electrophoresis.  

  7             But our panelists today are going to 

  8       be discussing, not only new technologies for  

  9       genotyping, but also new methods for 

 10       analysis.  So we really are looking forward 

 11       to these talks, and, as I said, I hope we'll 

 12       have time for some discussion afterwards.  

 13             The first speaker today is John 

 14       Butler.  John is a research chemist at the 

 15       Biotechnology Division at National Institute 

 16       of Standards and Technology.  John.  

 17             DR. BUTLER:  I'd like to thank the 

 18       organizers for for giving me a chance to 

 19       speak today about some of the work I've done 

 20       in the past, some of the work we're doing 

 21       now at NIST, and now some of the things that 

 22       will be going forward in the future; and, 

 23       hopefully, we'll get some discussion and 

 24       collaboration with people in the field.

 25             My presentation will cover, first, 



                                                             565
  1  

  2       some of the advantages of mass spectometry, 

  3       and then cover some of the past work that I 

  4       did when I was in California at gene Trace 

  5       Systems, the present work I'm doing now at 

  6       NIST, and, finally, how the technology can 

  7       be used in the future.  

  8             So within the steps of processing a 

  9       sample, if you first obtain a sample from a 

 10       crime scene or from a paternity testing 

 11       investigation, we have to go through 

 12       biology, technology, and genetics with that 

 13       sample.  

 14             We first have to extract, quantitate 

 15       and then PCR that sample.  In the case of 

 16       STRs, we do a multiplex reaction.  Then with 

 17       the technology side of things, we do a 

 18       separation and detection of those alleles.  

 19       We then determine the genotype, and then, 

 20       finally, under the genetic section, we 

 21       compare that genotype, we compare that 

 22       genotype to other samples, and if there's a 

 23       match, then go through the population 

 24       statistics and finally generate a case 

 25       report.  



                                                             566
  1  

  2             Well, the technology we'll be hearing 

  3       about today, and my talk, in particular, 

  4       will focus on the PCR amplification side of 

  5       things and then the technology for 

  6       separation, detection, and analysis.  

  7             So I'm going to talk about 

  8       time-of-flight mass spectometry and talk 

  9       about some of the advantages of this  

 10       technique, primarily, that it's fast and 

 11       that it's accurate.  

 12             The way it works is you take a set of 

 13       samples, and you array them onto a plate.  

 14       Each individual spot is mixed with absorbing 

 15       a matrix compound which absorbs laser light 

 16       which comes from a pulse laser beam, strikes 

 17       that sample, as I'll demonstrate here in a 

 18       moment, and then you get a very rapid 

 19       separation in the form of microsecond time 

 20       scale; and then it impacts a detector and 

 21       sends an electronic signal that you can then 

 22       analyze on a computer.  

 23             So the way it works is the laser beam 

 24       hits, ionize some of the sample, it shoots 

 25       down the flight tube, and we then get a DNA 



                                                             567
  1  

  2       separation that occurs in microseconds.  

  3             So instead of taking hours on a gel or 

  4       minutes on a capillary system or on a 

  5       microchip, we can now do things in fractions 

  6       of that on the mass spectrometer.

  7             And we also take multiple readings on 

  8       each sample and average the signal across 

  9       that, which gives us more reproducibility 

 10       there.  

 11             So some of the advantages are the 

 12       rapid analysis times, as I've alluded to 

 13       here; in less than a second, you can obtain 

 14       results.  It's very accurate without 

 15       internal sizing standards or allelic 

 16       ladders.  

 17             In other words, you can make a 

 18       measurement on a DNA sample, not have to 

 19       compare it to anything else, and very 

 20       accurately measure the mass over time and 

 21       over different instruments.  You're making 

 22       direct DNA measurements.  There's no labels 

 23       no radioactive labels, no fluorescent 

 24       labels.  You're measuring the DNA itself.  

 25             It's capable of very high throughput 



                                                             568
  1  

  2       processing with automation.  Thousands of 

  3       samples can be analyzed per day per 

  4       instrument on this type of a system and 

  5       we've demonstrated that.  

  6             It's very versatile for a number of 

  7       assays, including STRs and single nucleotide 

  8       polymorphisms, which I'll discuss briefly at 

  9       the end.  And, primarily, it doesn't use 

 10       gels.  Those who know me know that I have a 

 11       "No gels" T-shirt in a set of clothing I 

 12       have there to show that I'm really an 

 13       activist for new technology and the 

 14       advantages it can bring.  

 15             What are some of the disadvantages?  

 16       There's no technique that is ever perfect.  

 17       Number one, is the high instrument cost for 

 18       labs.  It's over a hundred thousand dollars 

 19       for an instrument up front to get into this, 

 20       and this will fit in, I think, for large 

 21       centers doing analysis, but for the smaller 

 22       labs, certainly, they can't get into this 

 23       easily.  

 24             Number two, is we have problems with 

 25       salt, with the size of the DNA we can 



                                                             569
  1  

  2       analyze, and salt inhibits the ionization of 

  3       that DNA.  We also have an upper limit, 

  4       currently, with the types of lasers that we 

  5       use, of around 120 base pairs.  So we can't 

  6       do the large STRs that we'd like to be able 

  7       to analyze, but there's ways around that.  

  8             And there's no assay kits that are 

  9       available, and that's something that we tend 

 10       to forget in the forensic community.  In 

 11       order for it to be widely used, it really 

 12       needs to be in a kit form that anybody can 

 13       buy and use and that can be routinely 

 14       operated with.  

 15             Potential solutions are the fact, and 

 16       this is really happening now, that we're 

 17       going to, in some cases, regional centers or 

 18       contract laboratories where a single lab 

 19       analyzes lots and lots of samples, and with 

 20       that type of facility, then you can handle 

 21       the high instrument cost and you have the 

 22       need for high throughput.

 23             In terms of the size and salt issues, 

 24       we have designed new primers for all of the 

 25       13 core STRs that are used in the U.S., and 



                                                             570
  1  

  2       we've, basically, moved them in closer into 

  3       the repeats, which allows us to get smaller 

  4       PCR products and still measure the repeat 

  5       content for each sample.  

  6             And we're also looking at new DNA 

  7       markers in the form of single nucleotide 

  8       polymorphisms and the advantages that that 

  9       can bring.  

 10             Now, some of the past work I did at 

 11       gene Trace Systems.  I redesigned all the 

 12       primers for the 13 core STRs to make smaller 

 13       PCR products.  We did a comparison study 

 14       with CAL DOJ where we took 88 samples and 

 15       compared them, they were amplified with the 

 16       Co-filer STR multiplex set, and then we 

 17       compared those with singleplex 

 18       amplifications that we ran on the mass spec.  

 19             We got excellent agreement with all of 

 20       the samples except for D7 where in 17 

 21       samples out of those 88, we discovered null  

 22       alleles.  The exciting thing was, in fact, 

 23       we discovered some new alleles that had 

 24       never been recorded before.  And we 

 25       generated a report for NIJ from all this 



                                                             571
  1  

  2       work that's 150 pages long, and I 

  3       understand, it will be made available in the 

  4       future for the community at large.

  5             But Gene Trace has dropped this 

  6       project about a year ago, and I subsequently 

  7       left Gene Trace and moved to NIST where I 

  8       could continue some of this work.  

  9             So we did a comparison, as I 

 10       mentioned, with CAL DOJ, and this is just to 

 11       illustrate the ABI 310 separation of the THO 

 12       allelic ladder from alleles 5 to 9.3 and 10, 

 13       which, of course, differ by one base, and if 

 14       you run that on the 310, it takes just over 

 15       a thousand seconds for those alleles to pass 

 16       the detector.  

 17             The same result, same sample, on the 

 18       mass spectrometer, as you can see, runs from 

 19       14,000 daltons up to about 20,000 daltons, 

 20       and those alleles impacted the detector at 

 21       200 microseconds.  So, actually, the 

 22       separation between 9.3 and 10 in this case 

 23       is only 1.5 microseconds.  

 24             And we, basically, made the size 

 25       smaller, as illustrated here, on the top, 



                                                             572
  1  

  2       the co-filer amplification product for 

  3       allele 10 is 187 base pairs.  We shortened 

  4       that by over a hundred bases by using these 

  5       new primers.  

  6             So if we compare these techniques in 

  7       terms of throughput, what we can do, we did 

  8       a multiplex PCR 88 samples.  It took about 

  9       54 hours to run all of those through on the 

 10       ABI 310, which comes out to about 2,000 

 11       seconds per sample; and because you're 

 12       getting multiple genotypes per sample, it's 

 13       about five minutes per genotype.  

 14             On the mass spectrometer, we're doing 

 15       singleplex reactions with these new primers, 

 16       as I mentioned.  That means that you have to 

 17       do more samples, so 616 samples, those were 

 18       completed through the mass spec in 54 

 19       minutes, which means five seconds per sample 

 20       and five seconds per genotype.  

 21             So that we have, basically, two orders 

 22       of magnitude increase in terms of overall 

 23       throughput, what it can do.  Now, this work 

 24       was all done before the ABI 3700 was 

 25       available.  Now that exists and that allows 



                                                             573
  1  

  2       you the capability of doing multiplexes, and 

  3       as Dave Coffman mentioned yesterday, you can 

  4       get very high throughputs with that.  

  5             The other advantage with mass spec is 

  6       accuracy.  This is a set of data collected 

  7       from TPOX alleles, one collected in March of 

  8       1999, the other October of '98, so six 

  9       months apart; and we compared the masses.  

 10             You can see the red line is a 

 11       theoretical, if you have the exact mass, and 

 12       you can see that these all fall on top of 

 13       one another, very tightly grouping for each 

 14       allele, and you wouldn't be able to do this 

 15       on a gel because of electrophoretic mobility 

 16       differences with temperature and the time 

 17       and voltages that you run.  

 18             But on the mass spec that's very 

 19       steady, and you can get very accurate 

 20       results over time.  So we have excellent 

 21       precision and accuracy in the mass 

 22       spectrometer for STR allele sizing, and  

 23       this allows us to get by without any 

 24       internal standards or allelic ladders in 

 25       order to do accurate genotyping.  



                                                             574
  1  

  2             So the summary of our results with CAL 

  3       DOJ that we hope to write up in the future 

  4       is that we able to get excellent agreement 

  5       with these particular STRs, which are the 

  6       ones used in the co-filer kit, and we had 

  7       some null alleles which showed up on D7 

  8       because of one of the primers.  

  9             Now, this is the mass spectrometer at 

 10       gene Trace Systems that we used.  We had a 

 11       very high throughput system, and we could 

 12       routinely analyze in 45 minutes about 384 

 13       samples.  Our very best was 96 samples in 

 14       two minutes by using some really fast 

 15       algorithms for data processing.  

 16             We were able to do, in one day, 4,000 

 17       samples on a single instrument.  It took 

 18       three robots to keep up with the mass 

 19       spectrometer.  We averaged around 2,000 

 20       samples a day the last eight months I was 

 21       there at Gene Trace, just showing that this 

 22       was continuous.  It's not just one day, and 

 23       then you're recovering for two weeks on your 

 24       analysis.  Most samples were run in 

 25       singleplex reactions, but we were table to 



                                                             575
  1  

  2       demonstrate some multiplexes there.  

  3             So some of the things we got out of 

  4       this is we found that we could use new 

  5       primer sets that are smaller.  One of the 

  6       issues in forensics, of course, is dealing 

  7       with degraded DNA samples, and so, you can 

  8       see, as you get larger and larger with PCR 

  9       product size, your success rate falls of in 

 10       terms of amplification, but if you have a 

 11       primer set that amplifies as larger, you 

 12       won't get nearly as good a success rate as 

 13       if you have a smaller primer set.

 14             So what we hope to do with this is 

 15       take some of these primers that we designed 

 16       for the mass spec, put fluorescent tags on 

 17       them, and we'll be able to demonstrate that 

 18       you can pull up degraded DNA samples very 

 19       nicely with these primer sets.  

 20             Just to illustrate the differences in 

 21       the regular sets that are used with the 

 22       Amplisar kits from ABI, these are the sizes 

 23       that you would get, and you can see how much 

 24       smaller, in some cases, like D7, almost 200 

 25       bases smaller by using these new primers 



                                                             576
  1  

  2       that are closer to the repeats.

  3             So if we can develop some singleplexes 

  4       and some low level multiplexes, you can then 

  5       go back if you want to get information.  If 

  6       something's in a database for D18, for 

  7       example, your case work, because it's such a 

  8       large allele that you have, normally, like 

  9       in here, 344 bases, you could then amplify 

 10       with a smaller primer set and then pull up 

 11       that information on the case work sample 

 12       allowing you to get more probative 

 13       information for your database match.  

 14             So, now, what we're doing at NIST, I 

 15       have a post-doc, Pete Vallone is working for 

 16       me and I work under Dennis Rieder, we're 

 17       working on the biology, the technology, and 

 18       the genetics of different systems here.  

 19             On the biology side, we're looking at 

 20       STRs and SNPs; we're using capillary 

 21       electrophoresis and mass spectrometry, so 

 22       we're trying to bridge the gap as people are 

 23       working with current technologies, with CE 

 24       and expanding what we hope will be some 

 25       future things that can be used; and we're 



                                                             577
  1  

  2       working as model systems with mitochondrial 

  3       DNA and with the Y-chromosomes, which you've 

  4       heard a lot about in the last few talks.  

  5             We're also trying to improve the 

  6       capability for multiplex PCR.  We're working 

  7       on some new primer design software and some 

  8       automation and then making that all 

  9       available through Starbase, which is a 

 10       website that allows you to access 

 11       information.  

 12             So our present work at NIST is that 

 13       we're using the mass spectrometer to look 

 14       for quality control of primers, verifying 

 15       that primer sets that we get from commercial 

 16       manufacturers remain the same over time.  

 17       This will be important as more and more 

 18       samples are put into databases.  

 19              We're looking at multiplex primer 

 20       design assays and how we can develop those 

 21       rapidly; automating sample preparation with 

 22       robotics, not only with things that can be 

 23       used in the future, but with things that can 

 24       be used right now; the PCR amplification 

 25       with mass spec spotting of plates and even 



                                                             578
  1  

  2       loading 310 tubes with automation; and then 

  3       we're looking at some new chemistries for 

  4       SNP analysis using the mass spectrometry.  

  5             This is just to illustrate that with 

  6       the mass spectrometer and running a primer 

  7       set, this is the profiler kit, each primer 

  8       has a unique mass that can serve as a 

  9       signature to verify that that kit has not 

 10       been altered over time and can be used for 

 11       QC purpose.  

 12             In terms of multiplexed assays here, 

 13       we Y-chromosome sets of SNPs, as Mike Hammer 

 14       talked about, in fact, you need to have as 

 15       many markers as possible to get higher 

 16       levels of discrimination.  This is a set of 

 17       12 that we received from Stanford 

 18       University.  They provided 154 Y-chromosome 

 19       markers that we're using in developing our 

 20       multiplexed assays.

 21             This is Pete Vallone, the post-doc 

 22       who's worked with me and is designing some 

 23       of this software with visual basic that can 

 24       automatically design these multiplexes.  

 25             This is the robotic system that we 



                                                             579
  1  

  2       have in our lab now that allows us to do -- 

  3       it's kind of hard to see on the slide -- but 

  4       it will pipette individual reactions into 

  5       each tube and keep the other wells covered.  

  6             It also has an arm that will drop the 

  7       plate automatically into the thermocycler, 

  8       close that lid, and amplify, all 

  9       automatically.  So you can do all your PCRs 

 10       overnight and continuously without having 

 11       any operator intervention.  

 12             There's two types of mass 

 13       spectrometers that are commercially 

 14       available right now that can do this kind 

 15       thing.  Perceptive Biosystems has a plate 

 16       that will hold up to a hundred samples, and 

 17       Brucker sells a system that can do 384 

 18       positions, and we're working with both of 

 19       those instruments.  

 20             Now, in terms of chemistries for SNP 

 21       analysis, we're working with a primer 

 22       extension assay, so, basically, this works 

 23       by having a primer that binds next to the 

 24       site we want to look at;  we then extend by 

 25       adding to that mix the dideoxase and a 



                                                             580
  1  

  2       polymerase; we can then extend across that 

  3       site; and then measure the mass difference 

  4       between the primer and the extension 

  5       product.  

  6             And each mass base has a unique mass 

  7       that can be measured.  So, again, no 

  8       fluorescent labels are needed to measure the  

  9       direct DNA, and we can make a measurement 

 10       very quickly.  

 11             Now, this is one of the assays we 

 12       worked on for mitochondrial DNA, so you can 

 13       do a rapid screening in just a few seconds 

 14       per sample, and, of course, this would allow 

 15       you to generate large databases.  

 16             This was published last year in 

 17       Electrophoresis, but here we're able to 

 18       probe both strands of DNA simultaneously, 

 19       the heavy and light strand, and you can pick 

 20       up all four different bases.  In this case, 

 21       it was a sixplex that we analyzed.  

 22             So where is the future of this 

 23       technology going?  I think it can be used 

 24       for mitochondrial screening assays for some 

 25       of the reasons that we've heard that Becky 



                                                             581
  1  

  2       Reynolds talked about and Terry Melton, and 

  3       we've developed an assay that can do ten 

  4       sites along the D loop, five in HV1 and five 

  5       in HV2 that can be developed, basically, 

  6       into a minisequencing assay.  

  7             Along the Y-chromosome, we're 

  8       currently evaluating multiplex sets from the 

  9       150 or so markers we received from Stanford 

 10       and trying to look for the best sets that 

 11       can be used.  

 12             And then I think one of the great 

 13       advantages is you can very rapidly develop 

 14       population databases with this technology.  

 15       So as autosomal SNP markers are going to be 

 16       looked at to complement the core of 13 STRs, 

 17       this will allow us to very quickly develop a 

 18       population database for each of those SNPs.  

 19             Finally, I'd like to acknowledge Pete 

 20       Vallone, the post-doc that's worked with me; 

 21       Dennis Rieder and Lisa Forman, who have been 

 22       very supportive and encouraging of this 

 23       work; the collaborators at Transgenomics and 

 24       at Stanford and the people who have allowed 

 25       us to use their instruments while we were 



                                                             582
  1  

  2       waiting to get our own; and then the 

  3       co-workers I had at gene Trace Systems.  

  4             DR. ERLICH:  Thank you, John.  Are 

  5       there any questions?  If not, I had one very 

  6       quick one.  

  7             What are the issues that represent the 

  8       barriers to using higher molecular weight 

  9       fragments, and are there ways that you'll be 

 10       able to overcome them?

 11             DR. BUTLER:  Right now, there's two 

 12       things you have to worry about:  it's the 

 13       laser that you use and the matrix, the 

 14       compound that's used.  

 15             Currently, the available matrices that 

 16       have been discovered and the UV lasers are 

 17       used, that are simple to operate, limits 

 18       you.  As you try to increase the laser 

 19       power, which is what's needed to ionize 

 20       larger and larger fragments of DNA, you, 

 21       basically, blast the DNA to pieces, and you 

 22       then you end up with smaller fragments.  

 23       So you have to, currently, the matrices that 

 24       allow soft ionization still need to be 

 25       discovered for extending that range.  



                                                             583
  1  

  2             Now, you can use an IR laser and get 

  3       things up to about 2,000 bases in terms of 

  4       DNA, so that that would allow us to do 

  5       larger fragments, but there's no 

  6       commercially available IR laser system right 

  7       now.  So that will, hopefully, come in the 

  8       near future.  

  9             DR. ERLICH:  Thanks, John.  Our next 

 10       speaker is Dan Ehrlich who's a Director of 

 11       the BioMEMs Laboratory at the Whitehead 

 12       Institute for Biomedical Research.  Dan.  

 13             DR. DAN EHRLICH:  Thank you, Henry.  

 14       Henry and I are related, at least, Henry 

 15       denies it.  I'm going to give you an update 

 16       on the this particular chip-based approach 

 17       that's based on your standard methods 

 18       capillary electrophoresis as updated on 

 19       chips.  

 20             And I think as you come to these 

 21       meetings and you see the process that's 

 22       happening here in which the NIJ has been 

 23       organizing all this national activity, you 

 24       begin to see that a lot of progress has been 

 25       made, a lot by a small group of people, and 



                                                             584
  1  

  2       what's going to happen is kind of the trend 

  3       that Jack Ballantyne pointed out in his talk 

  4       yesterday where there's this funnel of 

  5       collected samples and potential information 

  6       which is then funneling down because of the 

  7       inefficiencies of the assay process, so that  

  8       of the many samples that might be collected 

  9       on a crime scene, the number that actually 

 10       get analyzed is a paltry few.   

 11             And what that is a testament to is the 

 12       inefficiencies of the technology that's 

 13       being applied, and what you're hearing from 

 14       the group here is that that's probably very 

 15       unnecessary; and with relatively small 

 16       investments in converting the standard 

 17       technologies, which, by the way, were all 

 18       developed genomic sequencing, modifications 

 19       of those will greatly increase the 

 20       efficiency of DNA assays applied for 

 21       forensics.  

 22             So the key mantra in this probably is 

 23       assay speed, and also this relates to the 

 24       cost of the analysis.  And it reminds me, I 

 25       don't have any lawyer jokes, but it reminds 



                                                             585
  1  

  2       me of the one Larson cartoon I can remember 

  3       about is a physicist joke in which you see 

  4       Einstein up at the blackboard and he has E 

  5       equals MC squared up there and then he has 

  6       time equals money and he's staring in 

  7       disbelief.  

  8             And I think that's very real in that 

  9       time and money are coupled when you're 

 10       dealing with people's, both law enforcement 

 11       and citizen's, time in order to get to the 

 12       bottom of an important story.  

 13             So I run a group which is involved, 

 14       primarily, in developing new tools for 

 15       genomic sequencing, but we stumbled on the 

 16       fact that a chip-based approach is very 

 17       powerful as it is applied to what is at 

 18       least the first standard approach to human 

 19       forensics, the STR analysis applied, I'm 

 20       sorry to say, on gels. 

 21             And what can happen on a chip is it's 

 22       possible to greatly improve the efficiency 

 23       of this very specific question you're 

 24       answering and to get that answer in ten to a 

 25       hundred times the speed of the current 



                                                             586
  1  

  2       standard machine, the 310 machine, and there 

  3       are a bunch of other potential consequences, 

  4       including most probably improved signal to 

  5       noise, which presumably cascades to 

  6       improvement in terms of discrimination of 

  7       some of the more complicated problems.  

  8             And then, of course, you read the 

  9       newspapers and you read about portability, 

 10       and this is probably the next twist, but in 

 11       the near term, it's just to do what you 

 12       already need to do with poorly designed 

 13       instrumentation more efficiently.  

 14             So some time ago, we quantified that 

 15       and we looked at how much improvement is 

 16       possible on a chip by comparing a slab-based 

 17       machine, capillary machine.  So the slab's 

 18       running at two and a half hours; the 

 19       capillary system for this assay was 

 20       something like 40 minutes for the CCCT 

 21       ladder, loci; and then out on the chip with 

 22       an embedded marker system running on the 

 23       same single-color system running out in two 

 24       minutes.  

 25             I'm not going to talk a lot about how 



                                                             587
  1  

  2       that's implemented.  I have one sample 

  3       system here.  It's a cascade of plates.  In 

  4       this case, this size, if you pull this thing 

  5       apart, take off some of the cover plates, 

  6       the working element is about a few inches  

  7       long, and this is actually the optimized 

  8       machine for this particular STR assay.  This 

  9       is an eight-channel system, and it's the 

 10       system which was giving the data I showed 

 11       previously in a couple of minutes with 

 12       signal to noise superior to the commercial 

 13       capillary machine.  

 14             And the key to that, if you just want 

 15       it in a nutshell, is that it employs what's 

 16       called a cross injector in which the sample 

 17       is brought in on a transverse channel and 

 18       then switched down the selection channel.  

 19             So it comes up, is switched and 

 20       brought down the conventional capillary 

 21       channel to the conventional laser 

 22       fluorescent detector, and the fact that you 

 23       can switch that teeny amount of DNA allows 

 24       you to optimize this device for short 

 25       length.  



                                                             588
  1  

  2             So that's, basically, it in a 

  3       nutshell, and, incidentally, in the process, 

  4       it consumes a minuscule amount of your 

  5       precious sample, and depending on how it's 

  6       implemented, incidentally, could conserve, 

  7       basically, 100 percent of that sample.  

  8             So I showed you a glass device.  If 

  9       you made this cheap enough, which you 

 10       probably can, then you probably could keep 

 11       it and keep 100 percent of your DNA.  

 12             I'm going to be very quick.  Here's a 

 13       two-minute assay for the CCTV, again, don't 

 14       get too confused by this.  In our early 

 15       studies, we were using a ladder buried right 

 16       in with the sample, but you can see the 

 17       signal to noise.  This was part of a 

 18       collaboration which we did with Victor Weedn 

 19       when he was at AFIP.  

 20             And I'm just going to make two further 

 21       points about this, which are where it can be 

 22       extended in the very near term, and one of 

 23       these is in the direction of multiplexing 

 24       it. And this is part of the another project 

 25       which we had in the lab but which we're also 



                                                             589
  1  

  2       going to apply to the NIJ program.  

  3             So in the area of multiplexing, we're 

  4       building full 384-lane devices for 

  5       sequencing.  This is for de novo sequencing, 

  6       so these are getting to rather large chips.  

  7       In fact, we can't call them chips anymore.  

  8             But almost certainly, I think, the 

  9       instrumentation community will agree will be 

 10       the format for what happens after the 3,700 

 11       capillary machine, either in the exact next 

 12       generation or the generation. I believe it 

 13       will be the exact next generation or the 

 14       generation after that.  

 15             So this is a high multiplex chip, and 

 16       we now have in your laboratory a full 

 17       robotic system which uses two of these chips 

 18       and recycles them back and forth and has 

 19       full automation for refresh, which I can't 

 20       say is fully operational.  It's in the lab.  

 21       We're debugging it at the moment.  

 22             But it's designed to do seven 

 23       megabases of raw DNA sequence in 24 hours.  

 24       So that's basically 10 or 20 times the 

 25       capacity of a 3700 machine.  So we're going 



                                                             590
  1  

  2       to highly multiplex operation for something 

  3       like doing very inexpensive databasing.  

  4       That well could be the format that you will 

  5       be seeing.

  6             The sequence data is very nice.  This 

  7       would be for short-read type of application.  

  8       If you're doing full sequencing for 

  9       forensics, you might be running 3 or 400 

 10       bases, and this type of data here I'm 

 11       showing would apply.  This is a 15 to 18 

 12       minutes run time on the chip format.  

 13             The last question which I want to 

 14       comment on is, how fast could it get?  And I 

 15       here we just have a projection.  This is, 

 16       again, for the electrophoresis-based 

 17       technique, but as part of a study we did, I 

 18       asked the question, "Now, if we really 

 19       optimize that little device for speed, how 

 20       fast could we do a CCTV assay?"  

 21             And the bottom scale here is reading 

 22       in seconds, so it depends on how small we 

 23       can make the injection plug, and we didn't 

 24       know that when we were doing the study, but 

 25       now we do.  We know we can move this down to 



                                                             591
  1  

  2       something like ten micron injection plugs 

  3       through a phenomenon called stacking.  

  4             So if you look at these curves, you 

  5       can run chips based on this principle in 

  6       about five seconds, and if you just wanted 

  7       the first three loci, it looks like four 

  8       seconds, three and a half seconds.  So it's 

  9       extremely fast for this step in the assay 

 10       and would be dominated entirely dominated by 

 11       the PCR process.  

 12             And then you ask, "Well, what is the 

 13       ultimate speed of the PCR process?"  And 

 14       Henry's better able to answer that than I 

 15       am.  I think it depends on a lot of 

 16       complicated chemistry issues, which probably 

 17       are still being resolved.  But our current 

 18       record, I think, with intact polymerase is 

 19       around ten minutes, something like that.  

 20             So, in the near term, what we're 

 21       trying to do is we're trying to provide a 

 22       laboratory system, this is not the portable 

 23       device in the near term, it's an improved 

 24       high-speed device to be used in a laboratory 

 25       setting.  It should speed up the rate at 



                                                             592
  1  

  2       which you could turn a sample down below the 

  3       ten minutes in electrophoresis step.  

  4             We're going to be putting the first 

  5       systems in the Virginia and Florida state 

  6       labs and testing them on real samples and 

  7       more realistic conditions, and that will be 

  8       happening, to put a time scale on that, that 

  9       will be happening towards the end of this 

 10       year.  

 11             And we will be exploring various 

 12       applications including some of these thorny 

 13       issues of mixtures and nonideal samples and 

 14       so on in that setting, and then we'll be 

 15       going on to, presumably, some of the other 

 16       assays that have been discussed this 

 17       afternoon as well.  Thank you. 

 18             (Applause.)

 19             DR. ERLICH:  Does anybody have a 

 20       question for Dan?  If not, then we're going 

 21       to move on.  The next speaker is Mark Perlin 

 22       who is the CEO of Cybergenetics.  

 23             DR. PERLIN:  Hi.  I'd like to welcome 

 24       the few of you who are still here.  We 

 25       greatly appreciate your tenacity.  Today, 



                                                             593
  1  

  2       hopefully, it will be worth it.  This seems 

  3       like a very nice session.

  4             I'd like to talk about a different 

  5       sort of the problem today, and I'll be 

  6       taking quite a bit of time to motivate why 

  7       this is an important problem.  After hearing 

  8       David Coffman's talk about how they could do 

  9       4,000 samples in nanoseconds or so the other 

 10       day, the question is, how do you actually 

 11       analyze the data?  

 12             So what I'll be talking about is when 

 13       you have STR forensic databases, the concept 

 14       of the data scoring problem, and after I've 

 15       laid out the problem, I'll describe an 

 16       expert system solution that we've developed; 

 17       and if time remains, I'll give a quick talk 

 18       about mixtures and some work that we've been 

 19       doing there.  

 20             So, the whole concept of building a 

 21       database is that you have an individual, and 

 22       for that individual, you look at 10 or 15 

 23       loci; and for each loci, you want some 

 24       information on a database.  What's the 

 25       information that you actually want?  



                                                             594
  1  

  2             Well, what you want is a pair of 

  3       numbers, sometimes the same number, which 

  4       are the actual lengths of the DNA molecule.  

  5       How do you get that?  Except for the magic 

  6       of mass spec, usually, you can't get in 

  7       there with a microscope.  So, currently, we 

  8       do a lot of processing to get that.

  9             First, we do a PCR amplification, 

 10       that's a process that generates PCR 

 11       products.  Then running gels or some other 

 12       type of technology, we do a size separation.  

 13       We get some electrophoretic bands.  And 

 14       then, once we even have that, we haven't 

 15       even detected anything yet, we still have to 

 16       acquire the data and measure something.  

 17       There's a detection at the end.  

 18             So this is not some simple process 

 19       that happens perfectly.  In fact, there are 

 20       many, many data artifacts that happen along 

 21       the way, and in anybody's quality assurance 

 22       system for QC, these are all artifacts that 

 23       people look for and know about and there are 

 24       a dozens of other ones as well.  

 25             So in context to these artifact that 



                                                             595
  1  

  2       is naturally occur in the process of trying 

  3       to find a length and having to do a lot of 

  4       experiments, in the analysis, one can 

  5       certainly ask the computer to say, well, 

  6       from the data pixels, please go back up, 

  7       recover the DNA signals, get some bands, 

  8       size, quantitate, get PCR products, and 

  9       designate the alleles.  And in a perfect 

 10       world, we'd be done.  

 11             We don't live in a perfect world, and 

 12       so, in fact, what you end up with is a lot 

 13       of human data editing; and it's  essential 

 14       for the quality assurance.  There are dozens 

 15       of artifacts that have to be checked and 

 16       looked for, and if you don't, you'll end up 

 17       with a non-data base.  This is assuming that 

 18       a database is comprised of the actual 

 19       lengths of the people you want to put onto 

 20       the database.  

 21             So this is essential for quality 

 22       assurance, and I'm not going to go into all 

 23       the steps, but people have to do this and in 

 24       the process, they have to know something 

 25       about how the data were derived.  



                                                             596
  1  

  2             How is this high quality assured?  

  3       Well, currently, what virtually every group 

  4       does is you have a first scorer, you have a 

  5       second scorer, and they sit and they look at 

  6       every piece of data that comes through 

  7       spending about a minute per locus of each 

  8       sample; and then when these two people are 

  9       done, they either have a third person or 

 10       they get together or they together with a 

 11       third person -- they have meetings about 

 12       this stuff -- and then they agree about 

 13       which 90 percent of the data is good enough 

 14       to put on, what artifacts have been 

 15       accounted for, and then some percentage goes 

 16       back to be written up in the laboratory.  

 17       And that's how you're assured very high 

 18       quality DNA database.  

 19             This is a great concept and it leads 

 20       to very high quality, but it's not free.  

 21       There's a spreadsheet you can download from 

 22       your website, and I'll tell you where to 

 23       find that later.  You can work out the 

 24       numbers almost any way you want.  

 25             What I've done here is to say, suppose 



                                                             597
  1  

  2       you only paid people $25,000, I'm trying to 

  3       give you the lowest estimate I can, and you 

  4       worked out what the fully overheaded cost of 

  5       what managing, training and retaining those 

  6       people would actually be for some period of 

  7       time; and then you said we were doing 

  8       something like CODIS which has 13 loci, and, 

  9       currently, you have to do 16 experiments to 

 10       generate thirteen loci, so to do one million 

 11       samples, you have to do 16 million data  

 12       inspections.  And if you were to do the 15 

 13       million people who comprised much of the 

 14       criminal population of America, if you 

 15       thought about doing that as a project over 

 16       five years, you'd want to do 3 million 

 17       samples a year, on average, and that would 

 18       be 48 million samples.  

 19             And to do that, you'd have to find 

 20       about 750 people, train them, retain them; 

 21       and when you looked at the cost of it each 

 22       year, it would be running about $50 million, 

 23       so that's about a quarter of a billion 

 24       dollar project, assuming underpay your 

 25       people and can even keep them.  So it's a 



                                                             598
  1  

  2       serious problem.  

  3             So a solution to maintain the quality 

  4       assurance is, instead of having people doing 

  5       this, is to have computers and expert system 

  6       that understands every step of the process, 

  7       knows what the artifacts are, knows what 

  8       it's expecting, what is being observed, can 

  9       compare the differences along dozens of 

 10       axes, fire rules that are appropriate to 

 11       that, and maintain quality scores, do the  

 12       bulk of the work instead of a person.  

 13             And the result is a system that we 

 14       hope would be a lot faster, more accurate, 

 15       far less inexpensive; and forensics, since 

 16       it really doesn't fatigue and it can 

 17       maintain detailed autotrails of everything 

 18       it does, may be useful in court at some 

 19       point.  

 20             So I'll tell you about the True Allele 

 21       system that we've developed.  It's a 

 22       flexible automated fragment analyzing 

 23       system.  We use it for many things.  We just 

 24       started with a National Cancer Institute 

 25       grant for gene expression, but most of what 



                                                             599
  1  

  2       we've been focussing on the last year or two 

  3       has been for forensic analysis.  

  4             The idea is that you can take input 

  5       from any gel or any capillary, and by the 

  6       end of the summer, we should have most of 

  7       the capillaries in the Hitachi system built 

  8       in as well as the 377s that are in there, 

  9       the data that gets put in as the raw data 

 10       automatically set up as a study, and the 

 11       computer goes through and happily does image 

 12       and signal analysis, assigns alleles, and, 

 13       most importantly, does a quality assessment.  

 14             The software runs on all three major 

 15       platforms.  I consider the Macintosh to 

 16       still be a major platform, even though this 

 17       was the only presentation that used a 

 18       Macintosh today.  Bad sign.

 19             And then when it's all done, because 

 20       the computer knows what it has, it's fired 

 21       its rules, it has quality scores, it can 

 22       focus the user review on just five to ten 

 23       percent of the suspect data before it goes 

 24       out and gets entered onto CODIS, which is an 

 25       output module that we're putting in now, 



                                                             600
  1  

  2       actually, this week.  That's True Allele.  

  3             And whether the input is from a gel, 

  4       the data come in, this is a typical ABI 377 

  5       gel, the system automatically tracks the 

  6       lanes, extracts the data, and determines the 

  7       quality of gels and puts everything into 

  8       size coordinates.  We do a lot of 

  9       mathematical transforms.  As we try to undo 

 10       each step of nature and we go back, we try 

 11       to transform it back into the right natural 

 12       setting.  

 13             Or the data can come back from 

 14       capillary.  And here we acquired the data 

 15       through signal processing, some nice 

 16       algorithms where, if you don't want any 

 17       calibrating matrices all the time, we can 

 18       dynamically compute the matrix on the fly 

 19       from just what's in that capillary; and when 

 20       we're all done, end up with extracted 

 21       profiles, again, in size coordinates.  

 22             Once that's done, we then take a look 

 23       at the allelic ladder.  One day, I hope we 

 24       won't need the allelic ladder, using John 

 25       Butler's technology, but we still do, and so 



                                                             601
  1  

  2       all the work is done relative to allelic 

  3       ladders.  Our goal is to figure out what the 

  4       lengths of the DNA molecules are, which you 

  5       cannot do from sizes, so, again, we 

  6       mathematically transform it into ladder 

  7       coordinate system.  

  8             We do a lot of quantitation.  The 

  9       system spends about half of its time 

 10       accurately modeling every peak that it finds 

 11       to get exact quantitations, not heights or 

 12       areas, but actual models, and when it's done 

 13       it calls the alleles.  

 14             For the five or ten percent of the 

 15       data where there might be a problem, a user 

 16       has an interface.  This opens up into maybe 

 17       a dozen other windows.  If you have 

 18       questions about it, I'm not going show that 

 19       all to you here today.

 20             So you see, here's the signal against 

 21       a ladder for that marker.  This is the 

 22       result of the quantitation.  If you were to 

 23       click on this, a quantitative explanation, a 

 24       picture, would come up as to how that 

 25       occurred.  And in the end, you get 



                                                             602
  1  

  2       designations, again, all shown relative to 

  3       ladders.  

  4             There's a quality score that can rank 

  5       the data, and we have about a dozen rules 

  6       and we're adding about another dozen this 

  7       month that can detect things like third 

  8       peaks, low signal, almost anything that 

  9       would be in QMS document is what we try to 

 10       write for to detect.  

 11             We have a website that supports most 

 12       of the stuff.  The spreadsheet is 

 13       downloadable from it.  You can go to 

 14       Cybgen.com if you want to take a look.  We 

 15       list many things about the technology, 

 16       including the patents.  

 17             We innovated this work.  Our patents 

 18       have filing dates going back to 1994, and 

 19       they cover almost anything you would want to 

 20       do with scoring STR data, such as quality 

 21       assessment, removing artifacts using 

 22       capillary machines, automatic lane tracking.  

 23       If it involves quality assurance, it's 

 24       probably patented, but you can take a look.  

 25             We also have software that you can 



                                                             603
  1  

  2       download on an evaluation basis.  Take a 

  3       look at it, let us know what you think.  How 

  4       do you do that?  On our support site, you 

  5       can give us feedback that gets logged onto 

  6       our database so we can read about what you 

  7       like or you don't with features and things.

  8             You can also check news.  Interesting 

  9       news a few months ago was that in the UK, 

 10       the Forensic Science Service elected after a 

 11       competitive process, to use True Allele, 

 12       basically, to avoid hiring another 3 to 400 

 13       people.  This was their goal.

 14             And the system that we're is setting 

 15       up is that you generate STR data, and then 

 16       True Allele Expert System will automatically 

 17       score the data, assess the data quality, and 

 18       then when you're done, you'll have a human 

 19       reviewer, a much smaller team, looking at 

 20       five to ten percent of the data and then 

 21       that quality check goes out onto the UK 

 22       national database.  

 23             Now, looking at five to ten percent of 

 24       the data means that instead of having each 

 25       piece of data scrutinized by two to three 



                                                             604
  1  

  2       people, it's looked at by a tenth of a 

  3       person, and that's the primary basis for the 

  4       cost savings that you would get along with 

  5       the expected quality improvement.  We expect 

  6       this to be on-line in the fall in 

  7       Birmingham, UK.

  8             Since I have one minute left, I'll 

  9       make a quick note about some intelligent 

 10       case work software we're developing.  Once 

 11       you have a database you want to use it.  

 12       It's fun spending half a billion dollars 

 13       hiring people to stare at computer screens, 

 14       or not, but once you've done that, you want 

 15       to use that database to reduce crime.  

 16             So we're working on decision support 

 17       systems for forensic experts.  It's very 

 18       different than expert system because what 

 19       you want is an intelligent tool that can 

 20       present quantitative analyses to the expert.  

 21             We're automating the graphical display 

 22       so that forensic scientists don't have to 

 23       waste their time playing with interfaces.  

 24       If you want to see any one of 50 reasons or 

 25       explanations, they'll be automated, and the  



                                                             605
  1  

  2       goal is to take days of effort and reduce it 

  3       to an hour or two; and the new system is 

  4       called JACOB and this is one example of some 

  5       new methods we've been developing. 

  6             If you look at the first row, this is 

  7       SGM plus profile, ten loci on a mixture.  We 

  8       synthesized this in our lab run out on a 

  9       310, and you're looking at the quantitations 

 10       of the heights using Gene Scan.  For 

 11       publication purposes, it's pretty standard, 

 12       and what you see is a mixture.  We've all 

 13       seen mixtures before.  

 14             Think of this maybe as a sample from a 

 15       rape or a some other crime where there are 

 16       two samples mixed before.  Here is a 

 17       reference sample of an individual such as 

 18       the victim, and that can also be acquired by 

 19       running a panel; and here's a profile.

 20             So the question is, given a reference, 

 21       how easily or accurately or quickly can you 

 22       quantitatively figure out the profile of the 

 23       person who did the crime?  The answer is, 

 24       you can do it in about a tenth of a second 

 25       if you have the data using some new 



                                                             606
  1  

  2       subtraction algorithms we have, and it 

  3       recovers what the weights are, what the 

  4       profile is; and that profile, of course, 

  5       matches the profile of the synthesized 

  6       mixture of what the actual component is.  

  7             And the point is, in a day when you 

  8       have 15 million people on a criminal 

  9       database, and you have methods who will 

 10       automatically find out who that person is, 

 11       people might be able to walk out of a 

 12       hospital knowing that their attacker has 

 13       actually been identified. In fact, I would 

 14       hope that at some point, such crimes would 

 15       go away if people realized they're going to 

 16       be detected.  

 17             In summary then, we've been developing 

 18       technology for automated DNA profiling as 

 19       well as how to use it for forensic analysis.  

 20       Almost every part of the STR data pathway 

 21       has been automated from robotic sample 

 22       preparation, PCR, many ways of separating 

 23       sizes, and the new bit that we've added is 

 24       how to automatically designate alleles with 

 25       very high quality assurance.  Thank you very 



                                                             607
  1  

  2       much. 

  3             (Applause.)

  4             DR. ERLICH:  Are there any questions  

  5       for Mark?

  6             SPEAKER:  Just a quick question and 

  7       this in reference to the comment you made.

  8             Why do you believe that people would 

  9       stop violent sexual offenses?  I know you've 

 10       got a medical background.  

 11             DR. PERLIN:  I'm thinking of a world 

 12       five or ten years from now where you have a 

 13       high recidivist crime and you're reaching 

 14       the point were almost everyone is going to 

 15       jail, not only will the people be in jail, 

 16       but somebody will look at the paper and 

 17       realize, or their buddies will all be in 

 18       jail; and it's the recidivist factor coupled 

 19       with the deterrent. 

 20             Would you shoot somebody in front of a 

 21       police officer, or would you try to do it 

 22       more privately.  DNA might lead to a 

 23       situation where it's more like you're being 

 24       observed more closely. 

 25             SPEAKER:  Does the hardware limit your 



                                                             608
  1  

  2       system, your software's ability to do this 

  3       job quickly?

  4             DR. PERLIN:  The sequencer or the 

  5       computer?

  6             SPEAKER:  I'm talking about on the 

  7       computer side of this.  

  8             DR. PERLIN:  No.

  9             SPEAKER:  So the program has plenty of 

 10       processing?  

 11             DR. PERLIN:  We're speeding up some of 

 12       the quantitation elements considerably in 

 13       the next year, and that will have the speed 

 14       of processing.  You can take 5,000 to 10,000 

 15       samples and run them overnight and off the 

 16       shelf microcomputer.

 17             SPEAKER:  The system that you 

 18       anticipate being operational in Birmingham 

 19       in the fall with five to ten percent human 

 20       checking, is that random?

 21             DR. PERLIN:  No, that's what they've 

 22       seen of what our system does on their data 

 23       before we've done more tuning.  Now, they 

 24       can tune it to whatever.  Their scientists 

 25       can choose thresholds for quality scores on 



                                                             609
  1  

  2       each rule.

  3             If they choose to run it at 5 percent 

  4       or if they choose to run it 25 percent, it's 

  5       based on the customization of their own 

  6       comfort factor.  We don't dictate that.  We 

  7       don't tell them what computer to run, how 

  8       much work to do.  That's completely up to 

  9       them, and we customize it for them.  

 10             DR. ERLICH:  Thanks, Mark.  Our next 

 11       and last speaker on this afternoon's session 

 12       is Ronald Sosnowski. Ron is the Director of 

 13       Molecular Biology and Assay Development at 

 14       Nanogen.

 15             DR. SOSNOWSKI:  I'd also like to thank 

 16       NIJ and the organizers, particularly, Dick 

 17       Rau, who has supported this work from very 

 18       early on, and Lisa Forman and her staff for 

 19       putting on a great conference along with the 

 20       people from the New York State Justice 

 21       Department.  It's been very stimulating and 

 22       informative.

 23             What I'm going to do is talk to you.  

 24       I'm going to give you a brief introduction 

 25       of what we do, what our organization does 



                                                             610
  1  

  2       and what we're about, and a little brief 

  3       introduction to the technology; and I'm 

  4       going to tell you where we are in developing 

  5       the technology and where we hope to go.  

  6             Let me just talk to you a bit about 

  7       kind of where we are oriented.  I know it's 

  8       a business plan sort of the thing, but I 

  9       think it will be helpful as I mention some 

 10       of the things we're going towards.  

 11             We're basically a biochip company. 

 12       We're an active chip company, and I'll 

 13       explain what that means.  What we're going 

 14       to first is research people, people who want 

 15       to develop different assays and 

 16       technologies.  It's going to be a lab-based 

 17       instrument, hopefully, leading towards 

 18       diagnostics; and we've been involved in 

 19       forensics for some time.  We think that 

 20       that's a growing area and that's a very 

 21       important area to be in.

 22             We also have licenses to technology 

 23       and telecommunications and the internet,  

 24       real-time biological sensing, and this is 

 25       relevant, I bring this up to this audience 



                                                             611
  1  

  2       because we see a future possible product for 

  3       the forensics community.  

  4             Our chip is different than one than 

  5       that Dan Ehrlich was talking about.  We are 

  6       a microarray chip.  It is silicone based.  

  7       The array is in this area, as you can see.  

  8       The individual sites are about 80 microns in 

  9       diameter.  There are about 200 microns 

 10       center to center, and each of these has a 

 11       trace or connector that goes out to the 

 12       exterior which connects to a power supply 

 13       and a regulatory unit.  

 14             This means that each of these 

 15       individual sites in here, which are a little 

 16       difficult to see, can be activated 

 17       energetically with an electric field, and 

 18       that  allows us to manipulate DNA and other 

 19       charged molecules; and by doing that, we can 

 20       greatly increase the reactions rates. 

 21             The way that that can work is in this 

 22       very simple cartoon.  If this row of pads, 

 23       individual pads is biased positively, DNA 

 24       being negatively charged will migrate over  

 25       to this area, concentrates over this area, 



                                                             612
  1  

  2       and by the simple laws of mass action, when 

  3       you have the reactants  increase in 

  4       concentration, then you increase the rate of 

  5       products.  In this case, single stranded DNA 

  6       molecules going double stranded DNA 

  7       molecules.  In addition to attracting them 

  8       here, we can repel them from areas we don't 

  9       want to, and that can also be an important 

 10       factor.  

 11             By changing the solution, you can then 

 12       put a different molecule in and attract it 

 13       to a different set of pads until your array 

 14       is complete.  Let me just show a brief 

 15       demonstration of some real-time 

 16       hybridization.  Within this array, there's 

 17       already a single strand DNA attached, and 

 18       there is complementary strand in the 

 19       solution which is labeled.  What you're 

 20       seeing is a hybridization event.  This is 

 21       measured in seconds, and this is measured in 

 22       hours.  

 23             This was done under conditions of 

 24       about one mole of sodium chloride, about as 

 25       favorable as we could find for DNA 



                                                             613
  1  

  2       hybridization, so it's a fair comparison.  

  3             The system that we're going to be 

  4       releasing this year, the second half of this 

  5       year, is an integrated system.  This is 

  6       probably more than would be released to the 

  7       forensics community.  

  8             This system consists of two different 

  9       instruments.  One is a loader that the 

 10       investigator would be able make his own 

 11       arrays.  In a forensics environment, we 

 12       would be providing chips with genetic 

 13       content already on them, so this probably 

 14       wouldn't be relevant to the forensics 

 15       community.  

 16             However, the reader would be, and the 

 17       reader is able to do electronic manipulation 

 18       of the DNA, environmental manipulation of 

 19       reaction area as well as well as light-, 

 20       fluorescent-sensitive detection of 

 21       molecules.  

 22             This is the disposable part of the 

 23       system.  This is a research cartridge.  This 

 24       is about the size of it.  I don't know how 

 25       well you can see.  I'm just trying to give 



                                                             614
  1  

  2       you an idea of what the sizes are.  The chip 

  3       area that I showed you a blow-up of earlier 

  4       is in this section only.  

  5             The chip that I showed you before is a 

  6       100-pat chip.  What we're going to be using 

  7       shortly will be a 400-pat chip, which will, 

  8       of course, accommodate many more assay 

  9       capabilities.  

 10             This is little bit closer view of an 

 11       instrument that could potentially be in a 

 12       forensics lab in three to five years, 

 13       something along those time lines, depending 

 14       on how these things go with these types of 

 15       testing.  

 16             Briefly, let me explain how the assay 

 17       works.  Since we're doing this in a 

 18       microarray format and not sieving, it's a  

 19       hybridization-based assay.  So what's done 

 20       is that at different sites in the array, 

 21       let's talk about capture-down format in this 

 22       particular instance, we would array pieces 

 23       of DNA, oligonucleotides, that contain a 

 24       unique sequence that would be specific for a 

 25       THO1 locus, for example, and at different 



                                                             615
  1  

  2       points in the array, the unique sequence 

  3       would be the same, however, the number of 

  4       repeat units would vary.  So a series of 

  5       different pads would have a different number 

  6       of repeat units.

  7             Then one would come in with a target, 

  8       and in this example, it's a homozygote 8 

  9       repeat unit target, and that would hybridize 

 10       pretty much equivalently to all these sites.  

 11             The third part of the process would be 

 12       then to bring in a second oligonucleotide 

 13       that has a unique sequence that's also 

 14       complementary to the other end of the 

 15       target, and this is also labelled.  This 

 16       can, but does not have to have, a single 

 17       repeat unit.  

 18             After this hybridization is done.  

 19       This is pretty much, again, an equivalent 

 20       hybridization.  All of these are lit up, so 

 21       there's no discrimination at this point.  

 22       Stringency is then applied, and there can be 

 23       chemical, electronic, or thermal stringency 

 24       applied; and the first molecules to go away 

 25       are the ones that had an overhang.  Let me 



                                                             616
  1  

  2       just show you that briefly.  

  3             When there's an interference here when 

  4       the number of repeat units at a particular 

  5       site are equal to or greater than the number 

  6       of repeat units in the target, then there's 

  7       going to be an overlap between the reporter 

  8       and the capture.  

  9             And, those, we found, are the least 

 10       stable, and that's pretty obvious because of 

 11       the fewer number Hydrogen bonds that, at 

 12       least, statistically, at some point are 

 13       going to be present in the reporter complex.  

 14             So those denature first.  What you're 

 15       left with at that point are two classes of 

 16       molecules, either the match or sites that 

 17       have a gap and are also mismatch, and the 

 18       energetic difference between these sites and 

 19       the match site is that while they have the 

 20       equivalent amount of Hydrogen bonding, this 

 21       site has base stacking; and that is a 

 22       sufficient amount of energy to distinguish 

 23       between the different types of targets that 

 24       could potentially be hybridizing.  

 25             This is a multiplex of three different 



                                                             617
  1  

  2       loci that were done on one chip, so you can 

  3       see that the assay is quite robust.  These 

  4       are positive heterozygote, this is also a 

  5       positive heterozygote, and this is actually 

  6       THO1 9.3, which, because this is a 

  7       hybridization format, there's an added 

  8       factor of there being a difference in 

  9       Hydrogen bonding as well as the base 

 10       stacking.  So it discriminates quite nicely.

 11             We developed this assay along with 

 12       funds from NIJ with the Bode Technology 

 13       Group, and they were a beta test site for us 

 14       this past September.  

 15             We installed an instrument there, 

 16       talked to them, discussed with them how a 

 17       system might be run.  Jim Shaum was in 

 18       charge of running the concordance study.  He 

 19       set up a set of rules to run this system, 

 20       and then they took out of their database a 

 21       total of 107 samples, which would be 

 22       equivalent to 214 calls to alleles for each 

 23       individual at each locus.  

 24             What they found with TPOX was that the 

 25       results on our system were 100 percent 



                                                             618
  1  

  2       concordant with what they found on their 

  3       standard, which at the time was a Hitachi 

  4       101 gel sieving system.  With CSF1PO they 

  5       had a single discordant.  

  6             That discordancy was an allelic 

  7       drop-out.  The individual was a heterozygote 

  8       that was scored as a homozygote.  We went 

  9       back and looked at the data, and there was 

 10       actually a machine error.  It was a fluidics 

 11       error, really.  It didn't have anything to 

 12       do with the assay.

 13             And, in fact, with new software that 

 14       we've developed, that error would have been 

 15       caught, and it would have been a no-call 

 16       rather than a discordant call.  That's where 

 17       we are.  Where we're going is in two related 

 18       but, perhaps, different directions.  

 19             One is towards a device that can be 

 20       taken closer to the scene of a crime.  We 

 21       discussed some of the pros and cons of doing 

 22       that, and I think that those issues need to 

 23       be resolved as quickly as possible so that 

 24       technology can be developed.  

 25             One way of doing that is going with a 



                                                             619
  1  

  2       portable system.  This is something that was 

  3       actually developed with funds from DARPA and 

  4       NIST, ATP related to other applications.  

  5             However, the functionality and the 

  6       underlying mechanics of the system are 

  7       identical to what would be used to a 

  8       point-of-crime device.  This is about the 

  9       size of a K-Pro computer, if anybody 

 10       remembers those suitcase-sized boxes, but it 

 11       is quite portable and it can be battery 

 12       operated and it includes the functionality 

 13       of amplification as well as analysis.  

 14             The key element in having something 

 15       that is useful closer to the scene of a 

 16       crime is being able to go from a sample to 

 17       an answer, and in that, amplification of 

 18       material is still critical.  

 19             What we envision doing is using in 

 20       situ amplification, that is anchoring the 

 21       amplification method at the site of 

 22       analysis.  So the amplification would occur 

 23       at a point in the array; and this 

 24       accomplishes a several things.  It makes a 

 25       very elegant solution to a lot of different 



                                                             620
  1  

  2       steps, it relieves the mechanical movement 

  3       of DNA from one platform to another, and it 

  4       also reduces the amount of training that's 

  5       required for the user.  It makes this a much 

  6       easier system to use.  

  7             So this is the area that we're 

  8       focussing on now.  I won't go into a lot of 

  9       detail.  The anchored SDA format is one of 

 10       the formats that we're using for in situ 

 11       amplification is strand displacement 

 12       amplification.

 13             It's very similar to PCR in that there 

 14       are opposing primers.  It's a geometric 

 15       amplification system.  One of the 

 16       differences is that it does not cycle 

 17       thermally.  It's run at a temperature that's 

 18       high enough to allow the polymerase to 

 19       displace the opposing strand and still allow 

 20       geometric amplification.  

 21             Why SDA, why not anchored PCR?  We've 

 22       gotten rights to do this technology.  It's 

 23       isothermal, it's very rapid, it can be 

 24       multiplexed, and it's well suited for any 

 25       integrated amplification; and we've been 



                                                             621
  1  

  2       using this for a while and have some 

  3       experience.  And we believe we can adapt it 

  4       to the STRs.  

  5             The STRs are going to be the special 

  6       challenge because of the differences in size 

  7       and the similar tiers of sequence.  This is 

  8       an example of doing STRs on chips in the 

  9       same array.  At the time we did not have 

 10       Y-chromosome SNPs.  We now have Y-chromosome 

 11       SNPs in the lab working, and the next talk 

 12       that I give, I promise Lisa that we'll share 

 13       those. 

 14             Again, this is on the same chip, done 

 15       at the same time.  We have discriminated a 

 16       heterozygote for, these are in duplicate, so 

 17       this is a heterozygote CSF; this is a 

 18       homozygote for TPOX; and then these are some 

 19       various SNP biallelic demonstrations. 

 20             Here's the type of discrimination one 

 21       can get with two homozygotes, a mutant and a 

 22       wild-type homozygote, and then a 

 23       heterozygote for the SNPs; and then, again, 

 24       on the same chip, this is the type of 

 25       discrimination that we get for STRs.  



                                                             622
  1  

  2             I'd like to thank several people, Bode 

  3       Technology Group and, again, Department of 

  4       Justice and the NIJ for supporting this work 

  5       along with NIST, ATP, and DARPA and a group 

  6       of people at Nanogen.  So thank you very 

  7       much.  

  8             DR. ERLICH:  Are there any questions 

  9       for Ron?  

 10             DR. PERLIN:  With simple tend to 

 11       repeats, I can see how you can develop 

 12       certain probes to come off nicely as you 

 13       change a parameter of hybridization.

 14             When you have more complex STR loci 

 15       that are in CODIS, things like VWAFG, things 

 16       that have very complex repeats with multiple 

 17       patterns inside them, have you envisioned 

 18       devising hybridization probes that will deal 

 19       with that complexity?

 20             DR. SOSNOWSKI:  We've actually already 

 21       approached that.  The question is, what 

 22       happens when you have -- what's the 

 23       terminology that Tauts uses?  It's a 

 24       microvariance or something along those 

 25       lines.  The one example I showed of THO1 is 



                                                             623
  1  

  2       a microvariant.  

  3             So we would just develop along those 

  4       lines.  It can become more complicated, 

  5       however, the size of the array is really an 

  6       advantage in that place.  You've got a lot 

  7       of real estate to work with.  You can set up 

  8       more types of assays. 

  9             DR. ERLICH:  Are there any other 

 10       questions?  Ron, you said you were aiming 

 11       for 400 pads? 

 12             DR. SOSNOWSKI:  Yes.  What becomes 

 13       limiting in the size of the array is not the 

 14       number of pads but getting the wires to 

 15       connect to them, and so we have an active 

 16       chip that uses transistors embedded in 

 17       silicon that can address individual pads 

 18       with a much lower number of traces.  

 19             That's, actually, working in the lab, 

 20       and we're trying to develop that into a 

 21       commercial product.  

 22             DR. ERLICH:  Well, thanks very much.  

 23       We have a few minutes, perhaps, if anyone 

 24       has questions any questions for any of the 

 25       panel members or any of those members have 



                                                             624
  1  

  2       questions for their colleagues on the panel.  

  3             DR. SOSNOWSKI:  I have a question for 

  4       Dan. Does your device require any particular 

  5       requirements for sample prep for the DNA?

  6             DR. DAN EHRLICH:  No, in fact, we were 

  7       using samples prepared by AFIP way back in 

  8       the beginning, so identical prep at this 

  9       point.

 10             DR. ERLICH:  Is it the case, of the 

 11       technologies that were discussed, Ron's is 

 12       the only one that has the potential for 

 13       being on-site, or Dan, would you say that 

 14       eventually yours might as well.  

 15             DR. DAN EHRLICH:  I would say that, 

 16       certainly, ours would also have the 

 17       potential to be on-site.   It would be an 

 18       integrated optical device, so it would be 

 19       about suitcase-sized, conveniently.  

 20             And then you have to deal with the PCR 

 21       amplification process, which might be 

 22       another suitcase-sized device using current 

 23       technologies, maybe made by somebody else.

 24             DR. ERLICH:  And so, Ron, you said 

 25       that your goal was to actually carry out the 



                                                             625
  1  

  2       PCR itself on the same chip that 

  3       hybridization, both for a length and 

  4       sequence polymorphism, would be carried out; 

  5       is that right?  

  6             DR. SOSNOWSKI:  Yes.  We want to do 

  7       some type of in situ amplification.  Again, 

  8       for electrical property reasons and for 

  9       other scientific reasons as well, we're 

 10       investigating strand displacement 

 11       amplification, although, anchored PCR is 

 12       certainly possible as well as some other 

 13       perhaps rolling-circle amplification types 

 14       of technology.  

 15             But by getting the amplification at 

 16       the site, it just solves a lot of problems 

 17       such as changing the buffers in between 

 18       analysis and amplification processes.

 19             DR. ERLICH:  So what kind of fold 

 20       amplification have you been able to achieve 

 21       using the anchored SDA?

 22             DR. SOSNOWSKI:  It depends on the 

 23       system that you're talking about.  

 24       Currently, our status is that from human 

 25       genomic DNA, we are still developing the STR 



                                                             626
  1  

  2       assays.  For SNP assays, we've gotten, for 

  3       anchored SDA, well over a million fold, 

  4       certainly detectable levels in less than 

  5       half an hour with an anchored system from 

  6       genomic DNA.

  7             DR. ERLICH:  Are there any other 

  8       questions for any of the panel members?  

  9       Well, if not, I'd like to thank all the 

 10       panel members for their excellent and 

 11       provocative talks and also thank the 

 12       audience for their perseverance and 

 13       patience.

 14                      CLOSING REMARKS  

 15             DR. FORMAN:  We've had a considerable 

 16       amount of attrition this afternoon, one of 

 17       those people being David Boyd.  And I am not 

 18       David Boyd, but I will give a few closing 

 19       remarks any way.  

 20               I have some not very good news to 

 21       report.  Part of the reason that we have 

 22       this attrition is because Commissioner Safir  

 23       at this moment is announcing some health 

 24       problems publicly, and we have lost our 

 25       partners here who are going to stand behind 



                                                             627
  1  

  2       him now.  I'm sure we all join in wishing 

  3       him the best and hoping for the best.  

  4             That having been said, I would like to 

  5       make some closing remarks.  The housekeeping 

  6       remarks I would like to make are to ask you 

  7       to, please, if you could, take a few moments 

  8       to turn them in to Alanna or Margaret before 

  9       you go or fax them to you when you get home.  

 10             I would also like you to know that 

 11       this entire conference is being transcribed.  

 12       There are two pieces to this piece of 

 13       information.  The first is that those of you 

 14       who spoke may be receiving drafts of the 

 15       transcripts to make sure that they have been 

 16       transcribed appropriately.  So that you will 

 17       be asked, perhaps, to do some editing.  

 18             Once that has been done, we will be 

 19       putting these transcripts up at our website 

 20       so that they will be available to all of you 

 21       and anyone who would be interested.

 22             And also, again, although Dick told 

 23       you about this earlier, I just want to 

 24       reinforce that from October 12th to 14th of 

 25       this year at the U.S. Grand Hotel in San 



                                                             628
  1  

  2       Diego, California, we will be holding our 

  3       Second National Conference on Science and 

  4       the Law, and we would urge anyone who has 

  5       the time or the interest to please attend.  

  6             And, again, I will be very brief.  In 

  7       the last two days we've heard very many 

  8       interesting perspectives that can provide 

  9       solutions to the very poignant and important 

 10       problem our society faces, as so well 

 11       articulated by both Mr. and Mrs. Scoville 

 12       and by Mrs. Smith and supported by her 

 13       husband.  

 14             And I know that we all appreciate the 

 15       effort that it takes for them to share that 

 16       with us, and I hope that they know that 

 17       their sharing that with us helps us to do 

 18       our work better.  

 19             We have heard the commitment of our 

 20       partners in this conference, the New York 

 21       State Division of Criminal Justice Services, 

 22       the New York State Police, and the New York 

 23       City Police to improving access to and the 

 24       speed of DNA services.  

 25             And their commitment was so forcefully 



                                                             629
  1  

  2       articulated by Governor Pataki and 

  3       Commissioner Safir to directly address not 

  4       only victims' need for closure but the need 

  5       to stop crimes from happening.  

  6             We've heard from several speakers, 

  7       Dave Coffman, Dave Werrett, Becky Sparkes 

  8       that a single convicted offender can be 

  9       traced to a number and a variety of crimes.  

 10             We and our partners, the Northwestern 

 11       Association of Forensic Sciences, also know, 

 12       all of us here know that simply working 

 13       harder, faster, and even smarter through new 

 14       techniques, more effective models, or bigger 

 15       problems isn't the whole solution.  

 16             We've heard very clearly and cogently 

 17       that there are policy and legislative 

 18       solutions that can either positively or 

 19       negatively impact on the effective use of 

 20       forensic DNA.  

 21             And we've been urged, and, again, I 

 22       would repeat that David wouldn't allow us at 

 23       NIJ to urge anyone to lobby, but we have 

 24       been informed by the conference several 

 25       times from other speakers that a forensic 



                                                             630
  1  

  2       scientist can speak with a single voice, and 

  3       if they remain aware of and knowledgeable 

  4       about both local, state, and federal 

  5       legislation, this important information can 

  6       be used by the forensic science community to 

  7       impact in the direction that we would like 

  8       to have occur in our society.  

  9             There are also educational and 

 10       training solutions that can raise the bar of 

 11       our profession if we commit ourselves to 

 12       their development, and there are 

 13       technological solutions that will surely 

 14       occur; new markers that we heard about, new 

 15       ways of looking at our markers identified by 

 16       our speakers that are already well underway.  

 17             What is clear is that it is the 

 18       awareness of all of these spheres that will 

 19       bring us closer to the near nirvana that's 

 20       Dr. Werrett and Dr. Sparkes spoke about 

 21       that's experienced in the UK, the effective 

 22       use of DNA, not just as a tool for the 

 23       courtroom, but the powerful tool that it can 

 24       be for investigative purposes.  

 25             I would remind you that this is the 



                                                             631
  1  

  2       fifth and final National Conference on the 

  3       Future of DNA Evidence.  We are transferring 

  4       this agenda to the DNA Grantees meeting 

  5       which we held for the first time last March, 

  6       and which will be held again, not this 

  7       coming June, but probably next June.  You 

  8       should watch our website.  

  9             At that conference we will be 

 10       marrying, so to speak, our DNA grantees from 

 11       the laboratories and our DNA grantees from 

 12       the research and development program.  But 

 13       it is not a closed meeting.  You are all 

 14       invited to attend.  There will be 

 15       announcements.  They will be on our website.  

 16       It will be between a two- and three-day 

 17       meeting, and there will be a similar set of 

 18       presentations.  However, it will be even 

 19       more focussed towards what we can do to 

 20       marry together the practitioner and research 

 21       communities.  

 22             Now, I have one more little bit of 

 23       business.  When we and our partners sat down 

 24       to talk about giving awards, we talked about 

 25       giving awards to those people who catalyzed 



                                                             632
  1  

  2       forensic DNA above and beyond what it could 

  3       have been without them, who made such a 

  4       foundational and significant difference to 

  5       the use of DNA in the criminal justice 

  6       system, that without their participation and 

  7       contribution, we all wouldn't be sitting in 

  8       this room today, and there wouldn't have 

  9       been a second, third, fourth, let alone 

 10       fifth national conference.

 11             Now, NIJ is a major host of this 

 12       little event, and one should never pat one's 

 13       self on the back, however, there is one 

 14       individual that must recognized in the same 

 15       light as the individuals that we recognized 

 16       earlier.  

 17             And that is a person who, by himself, 

 18       recognized the value of a small, sleepy, 

 19       boring federal program and said, "You know 

 20       what, this could really do some good."  

 21             And then he recognized that the kind 

 22       of people that would be working in the 

 23       public laboratories in that small, sleepy, 

 24       federal program could probably benefit from 

 25       a little bit of research, the exciting 



                                                             633
  1  

  2       biomedical research that was going on 

  3       probably had some application to forensic 

  4       DNA as well, and so, by himself, he kept 

  5       making noise in a small, sleepy, little 

  6       federal agency.  

  7             And so we would very much like to 

  8       honor for his contribution to the 

  9       establishment of federal funding for 

 10       forensic DNA, Dr. Richard M. Rau.

 11             (Applause.) 

 12             (Presentation of award.)

 13             DR. RAU:  Thank you very much.

 14             DR. FORMAN:  Thank you very much.  

 15       That concludes our program.

 16             (Applause.)

 17              (Time noted:  5:30 p.m.)

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                                                             634
  1  

  2                 C E R T I F I C A T E

  3   STATE OF NEW YORK   )

  4                       : ss.

  5   COUNTY OF NEW YORK  )

  6  

  7              I, JEAN V. GAFA, a Notary Public

  8        within and for the State of New York, do

  9        hereby certify that the within is a true and

 10        accurate transcript of the proceedings taken

 11        on May 9, 2000.

 12              I further certify that I am not

 13        related to any of the parties to this action

 14        by blood or marriage and that I am in no way

 15        interested in the outcome of this matter.

 16              IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto

 17        set my hand this 19th day of May, 2000.

 18     

 19  

 20                              _____________________

 21                                  JEAN V. GAFA

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