fifty fifty seven the davey smith reauthorization act of two thousand and eight with just sponsored by the general gentle lady from new york ms maloney will also hear testimony about issues surrounding the innocence protection act specifically the hurdles that have been that have impeded its implementation the consequences of those hurdles and how to overcome them debbie smith actually authorized of the attorney general to provide grants to states to assist them in entering the d n a entering d n a evidence into databases as a nation split departments and prosecutors have come to recognize the value of d n a evidence in solving crimes labs have collected d n a samples from increasing numbers of crime scenes and convicted offenders faster they can examine and enter them in the state and local databases so in fact congress has funded state and local law enforcement agencies to test nearly to test nearly one hundred four thousand d n a cases from two thousand and four two thousand and seven and funded over to two and a half million convicted offender and arrestee samples yet the backlog remains almost level consequences a large backlog of samples exists around the nation that could identify violent criminals at large there are no better examples of how to demonstrate how important d n a technology can be for solving crimes than the stories the two witnesses will share us share with us today before service in congress the gentleman from washington david reichert was sheriff of king county nearby in nearby woods by a stranger with remarkable courage and determination she reported her attack the crime wave lab was able to preserve d n a evidence of her attacker will eventually he was convicted of a separate violent crime and was required to can solve more crimes and solve them as soon as possible the act was incorporated into the justice for all act of two thousand and four and that expires at the end of two thousand and nine h r fifty fifty six has strong bipartisan support and has and w authorize funding for the devry smith act extending it through fiscal two thousand and fourteen the innocence protection act authorizes the attorney general to grant funding to states for post conviction d n a testing to help ascertain whether individuals have been convicted unfortunately post conviction d n a testing has been seriously underutilized due to unrealistic and unattainable standards for grant applications congress funded a total of seven million dollars for innocence objection act grants from two thousand and five to two thousand and seven but none of the funds where ever used for actual grants they according to the department of justice according to the department of justice office of justice programs in language of the of the acts that standards for authorizing the grants to have for any state to met to meet the concerns of also been raised the standard may have discouraged applicants from from applying as there have been actually only three grant applications virginia kinetic and i was oh no consequently seven million dollars that might have been used to free innocent people from prison of sat idle this is unconscionable and we must correct it the fiscal year two thousand and eight congress appropriated an additional four point eight million dollars and inserted a temporary change in statutory language that o j p suggested so that african states may be able to meet the requirements for grandson of the innocence protection act thus there  there are now eleven point eight million dollars available a new language of first facilitate granting post conviction d n a testing funds there are also five new applicants for these grants and we're looking forward to hearing testimony about the these applications and their chance access the new standard also look forward to working with my colleagues to determine whether the temporary language established for two thousand and eight should be made permanent or whether we should make some other correction in the law technology has given us the means to   the wrongly imprisoned now we have the responsibility to use those means and the day and then assess protection act complement each other and that they use d n a technology to meet the shared goal of identifying those responsible for committing do ensure the availability of funding set aside to determine the guilt or innocence and make sure it's used to its fullest fullest extent it's now my pleasure to recognize the same ranking member of the subcommittee gentleman from texas judge gom also been the made the subject of a fantastic many series that i watched last weekend and in any way that you would have done a better job i'm sure in representing yourself but it was quite a good many series but to the subject what we had before us march eleventh two thousand and three president bush announced his d n a initiative to provide funds training assistance to ensure that  knology reach his full potential to solve crimes to protect the innocent and in five missing persons the d n a initiative awards grants to address several d n a backlog issues including capacity enhancement convicted offender d backlog reduction forensic case work d n a backlog reduction and solving cold cases with d n a as a former prosecutor and judge i know the value of the d n a evidence and how it serves in convicting violent criminals and providing some closure to victims but also ensuring that those who are sent to prison are actually guilty of the crime the debbie smith card by boortz programs help ensure that these goals of the criminal justice system are met also solve the tremendous backlog the delay in justice from programs that were not fully equipped to address the d n a backlogs and the problems that created for state and  local justice but we've all heard the adage that it's better let ten guilty people go free than to send one innocent person to prison and d n a evidence provides a level of certainty in criminal prosecutions that i hope would lessen or even eliminate the on brooks that the chairman also mentioned them we are delighted that he is here today to share his story and the horrible ordeal that he witnessed personally it is appropriate this program providing grants to states for post conviction d n a testing is named for mr bloodsworth since nineteen eighty nine two hundred fifty two hundred fifteen wrongfully convicted individuals have been exonerated through the testing the  comply in practice with the requirement of the bloodsworth provisions this is true even if only one jurisdiction within the state process is post conviction d n a tests this requirement apparently has been so restrictive that only three states submitted applications for the blood work bloodsworth grants in two thousand and seven and none were approved to address the problem congress includes language and therefore two thousand and eight appropriation act to lessen the grant requirements on applicants states surprisingly despite these less burdensome grant requirements only five states submitted applications for post conviction grants in two thousand and eight and these five states requested only about eight million of the r fully eleven million a bailable and i know that there are more states that could use this help i'm interested to learn why so few states are seeking federal grant assistance for post conviction d n a testing whether they're aware of the grant program whether they're aware of the improvement to the grant language whether they believe that for some reason they're still in algebra or is it that they don't need federal grant money for post conviction d n a testing and if so why  not i hope the department justice can shed some light on these issues and i look forward to hearing from our sting witnesses today you're back to balance my t merely say this i because of the increasingly bipartisan nature of the judiciary committee we are very pleased to work more closely with the department of justice and i want david haye from the department of justice to know that we're all going to be  continuing our good relationships but you guys better get cracking on this subject matter here today and i guess i don't sound like i'm kidding and i'm not so my statement you know reiterate all of this and i always have to notice that i only wish carolyn malone i think she wanted to go to law school as a kid because chic she keeps coming before this committee all the time i think there's maybe its d or genetic i don't know and we're certainly glad to see congressman reichert here i'm also happy to see debbie smith joining us here this is a this is a historic moment for our committee love brooks is here and so i'm i'm happy to join in this evaluation and and the justice department at the time didn't like it and basically what the current chairman and i as the chairman at the time had to do is to go over to the senate and basically give them some provisions on victims protections which the justice department did like and i guess it's disappointing to me that after we'd reached this compromise that passed both houses overwhelmingly the justice department has not been vigorously implementing the d n a part and it's all been almost four years since the president signed the legislation into law it was a good deal then it was a good deal now and foot dragging by anybody but particularly the department of justice means that a good deal ends up being an incomplete deal i hope it is complete and i thank the chairman for yielding thank you the time of the as expired the gentleman from texas the ranking member the full committee thank you mr chairman i think i may have broken my microphone here i'm not sure but chairman thank you for holding this hearing on the reauthorization firsthand the value of d n a evidence in solving violent crime before he was elected to congress they reichert sheriff of king county washington state spent twenty long years hunting down the notorious green river killer though i did not know about the mini series gohmert mentioned gary ridgway pleaded guilty in two thousand and three to killing forty eight women and it was advances in forensics and d n a evidence that ultimately helped sheriff reichert solve this case carolyn maloney has been a champion well her willingness to share her courageous story gives hope to other victims of rape and sexual assault that they will see their attackers apprehended and brought to justice debbie smith program originally authorized in two thousand was a database the program also assist state and local governments with increasing the capacity of their forensic labs and collecting d n a samples from arrestees and convicted offenders these grants and other parts of the president's d n a initiative are working to reduce the d n a backlog solving crimes and put offenders in prison through d n a backlog reduction grants state and local governments received funding to test approximately one hundred four thousand d n a cases between two thousand four and two thousand and seven have also funded the collection of two point five million d n a samples from convicted offenders in a rest easy for inclusion in the national d n a database the department of justice estimates that over five thousand a collection and the need for larger laboratories and increased storage capacity we must continue our efforts to reduce the d n a backlog it is necessary in order to bring offenders to justice and provide some solace to the victims themselves look forward to york congresswoman carolyn maloney who's a sponsor of h r fifty fifty seven i think i may have called it fifty six at one time fifty fifty seven she's been a member of congress since one thousand nine hundred three and was a driving force but on the day every smith act on numerous occasions in congress before it was finally incorporated in the justice for all act in two thousand and four she's the reason she's before us mr chairman so often that she is a strong advocate for the protection of women in the criminal justice system not only on this bill but many others she has a bachelor's degree in education from greensboro college and so thank you for being with us today our second witness will be the gentleman from washington congressman david dreier who currently is in a second term in congress an addition to his notable work on the green river task force he has over thirty five years of public service to the people of washington he has a bachelor's degree from concordia lutheran college now both of the witnesses a familiar with  debbie smith act and so many other issues and ranking member gohmert and our distinguished chair of the committee john conyers for his leadership on this and so many other areas and and mr lamar smith who is the lead  others i have been working on this since two thousand and one when i initiated a hearing before the government reform committee a committee mr conyers used to chair on the use of d n a to convict and to exonerate  we reached out to a program called rain to find a rape survivor to testify and no one would testify understandably it's a traumatic experience yet debbie smith came forward and she told her story and believe me after that hearing there wasn't a dry eye on the panel and congress members are very strong people because her story was so terrifying and one that we could all again a file with living in a suburban quiet neighborhood an intruder broke in while our husband was asleep upstairs a police officer dragged her into the woods raped her and said i'll come back and kill you if you tell anyone so for six years she lived in utter fear that the intruder would come back until finally through a processing a match was made a cold hit and her her rapist was put in jail we put in a bill afterwards with the help of practically everyone on this panel that provided funding for the backlog we found out there were roughly five hundred thousand rape kits sitting in police departments across the country that had not been processed yet each rape kit represented a life such as debbie's that was living in fear and the f b i told us that most rapists are very sick people they will attack seven eight nine times they continue to attack so if you can make that conviction you are saving the lives of seven numerous other women from the horror of what debbie had to live through the f b i has told me that the second most horrendous crime in terms of destroying  life and recovering is rape preceded only by murder so this is a very very serious issue it took us four years to pass this bill and it was done with the great help and support of debbie and her her husband rob who continue their work in helping rape survivors they have started a foundation to really help with this effort our bill that went forward with the justice for all act not only provided money for the backlog but provided money for saying nurses there was documentation that with professional nurses the police said they could make the conviction with the d n a that was very important that included john doe convictions so that rapist could be information across the states since rapists don't know boundaries they go from state to state and it is served as an invaluable tool many rapists and organizations are rape victims have told me that through this program they have finally found peace because they're their rapists have been caught and it has been a wonderful tool for the law enforcement to use not only does it help convict but through the justice for all act and the work of mr delahunt and many others and mr conyers it has been used to exonerate the innocent those on death row now they must go through a d n a test and many people have been exonerated when they find out that this is not the  person debbie's story was so moving that it was made into a movie literally by a lifetime television called life interrupted and they are making us another movie based on the continuing effort with the justice department with members of congress and with the police and all of the d a s and everyone who are working to to really cure the backlog because of this groundbreaking programs authorization expires at others with the reauthorization estimates place the number of unprocessed rape kits nationwide in the tens and possibly hundreds of thousands each kit represents an innocent life and a rapist who may commit multiple rapes before he's caught and dedication in working with me and others which was no small feat has already made a tremendous impact on our justice system and i do want to compliment very much the efforts continuing efforts of lifetime television and rain as well as other dedicated groups to ending the violence against women april is sexual assault aware this prevention month tragically only six percent of rapists will spend any time in jail and congress must continue to support programs like the debbie smith d n a backlog grant program and helped that helps to put rapists in prison and reduce violence against women i want to thank this subcommittee and particularly bobby scott for his leadership on this action for many many years as well as many other issues we've been working on together along with with chairman conyers and i look forward to working with you in supporting your efforts and the debbie smith that thank you for this great honor of appearing before this committee i believe on before this committee so much mr conyers because you really touch on so many important issues in our country it's an incredibly important committee thank you for offering say that i very much admire and respect debbie smith as a survivor and some of the other survivors who might be here today to have the courage to come and testify before congress and push for important legislation that will be helpful to others and their lives takes a lot of courage i've investigated these cases over my thirty three year career as a police officer but the one that i want to talk to you about today is one that i think really paints a picture of a great need for d n a funding i was a young detective and nineteen eighty two at thirty one years old sometimes it's a hard story to tell lots of bodies and luck and lots of victims and lots of families torn apart lots of bad memories in this case but if you think about in one thousand nine hundred two at thirty one years old i had dark brown hair by the way back then standing on the riverbank there there was there was no computer there was no we we but no d n a it was blood typing that was it and if we got a blood type that would narrow the suspect pool to millions there was no automated fingerprint identification system when i started this reauthorization needs to take place we were able to collect bodily fluids from the river banks from three of the victims in this case they were the only three bodies that had any flesh attached to it during this best investigation and that's the only reason we were able to collect the bodily fluids that would somehow come together with a yes they can't contain saliva suspect was asked to chew on in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven we collected those samples in one thousand nine hundred two and froze them we had over ten thousand items of evidence collected during the investigation of this case over the nineteen year period that we worked on this case and i'm proud to say that we found every one of them when it came time for trial and that my friends is unusual too hundred seven gary ridgway was identified as a possible suspect out of forty thousand tips sheets we interviewed him he passed a polygraph test and he was released and we went on to investigate others all the while gary ridgway is in the mix he's out there he's still a part of what we're looking at we you know the polygraph test is a tool that we use he didn't fit the profile by the way the f b i profile which is another tool that we that came along during this investigation i have forty seconds left i want to tell you that the science came together the d n a science came together on september tenth the day before september eleventh to sept two thousand and one my detectives came to my office and said sheriff we know who killed at least three of the w a did that took two years for him to finally come to prison but i spent three days if i could just have a little bit more time with each family member fifty families and explain to them what we wanted to is make a deal so no death penalty here but we wanted answers to  questions we were able to get additional three cases matched through another science on paint evidence total of seven he wanted to plead guilty he wanted to save his life most of the families were in agreement to that but d n a provided the answers to the questions that these families have had for nineteen years for the families found out where their bodies of their daughters were for years that we couldn't find all the members of the judiciary committee that have this decision to make i wish i could have more clearly stated without such emotion the need for d n a testing and the relief that it brings to people like debbie smith will never be closure of the memories are always there the families of the victims in this case will never never have closure but they've got answers to questions they were able to put their victims their daughters to rest to go visit their their bodies in a cemetery and our wish and hope is of course that no other young lady has to suffer at the hands of such a murderous monster but if it happens d n a it is so essential we were allowed actually recipients of a one million dollar federal grant to help with d testing i went before my county council and seattle asked for an x or five hundred thousand dollars they didn't have it i spend it anyway we need your help thank you very much i'm certainly going to next panel will come forward our next witness will be debbie smith from home fifty fifty seven is named as a survivor as we've heard of a brutal attack so it has become a crusader intent on helping other victims and preventing other victims from being other persons from being victimized she speaks all of the united states and canada in an effort to help others and she is the founder and c e o of the heart incorporated a nonprofit foundation stablish to aid victims of actual  f next witness would be david haig a director of the national institute of justice he oversees the research development evaluation of activities of the department of justice including the authorization of grandson of the justice for all act of two thousand and  forensic education program accreditation commission for the american academy of forensic sciences and the national academy of sciences committee on identifying the needs of the forensic science community he also is chair of the consortium of forensic science organizations as a bachelor's degree and master's degree in chemistry each from the university of pittsburgh the next witness will be mr lavon brooks who is the two hundred fifteenth person to be exonerated through the use of d n a technology hundred two he was tried and convicted of a heinous child murder that he did not commit d n a evidence was used to solve other murders that had almost identical circumstances which led to mr brooks's exoneration march thirteenth two thousand and eight mr brooks was finally cleared of all charges but only after serving the last eighteen years in prison and a final witness will be mr peter neufeld co founder and co director of the innocence project at the bridge at the benjamin cardozo school of law his work has shaped the course of the course of case law across the country and helped to lead to an influential buy into an influential study by the national academy of science on forensic d n a testing as well as important state and federal legislation setting standards for the use of d n a testing is a bachelor's degree from the university of wisconsin and a law degree from new york university law school and all of our witness statements will be entered in the record in their entirety you i want to thank you for allowing me to be here this morning and for the commitment of congress that congress has shown to the victims by funding the debbie smiths act i'm deeply grateful to the house because you've consistently voted to fully fund this important piece of legislation and your message was finally heard as last year for the first time congress essentially fully funded the debbie smith act it's truly a privilege to be given the opportunity to be a small part of this legislative process it's also one of the most terrifying things i've ever done i truly believe that march third one thousand nine hundred nine would be the last day that i would feel the loving touch of my husband's embrace our hear the precious voices of my children tell that they loved me it was on friday it was on a friday that a stranger interdict my home and threatening to kill me if i screamed he then abducted blindfolded and led me to the woods behind my home where he repeatedly raped me and robbed me after being raped i struggled with trying to live with the memories of that day for six and a half years the smell of his breath the touch of his cool damp coat sleeve around my neck the side of his black rubber boots and the sound of his voice reminding me remember i know where you live and i will come back to kill you if you tell anyone we're all stored in my mind unwilling to be discarded i needed peace security and to feel normal again i had no hope that i would ever attain this vital relief i had found the fate worse than death and that was living with the memories of this day living with the fear that he would fulfill his promise to return to kill me or even worse that he would take out his revenge on my husband or my children i merely existed for those six and a half years as fear held my heart and soul within its grip choking out any of any joy in life i became suicidal seeking peace and rest from the pictures that played with that warning in my mind finally a cult hit d n a cult hit offered peace to my fearful heart and gave me validate gape validation to my accusations administer justice and prevented this man from claiming another victim with his conviction the jury can send him to two life sentences plus twenty five years with no parole but my problem here this morning is how do i convey to you something that is so deeply rooted in my heart that the only way i have found to express it is through action perhaps if you can picture in your mind the reality of what i've seen and labs and police evidence lockers all across our great country you'll have a sense of the urgency that i feel for ro from floor to ceiling holding boxes of every size with numbers written in black containing vital evidence that are dusty and untouched these are not just boxes but they represent real people people that are trying to live past the memory of the day that evidence was taken from their body these victims have family and friends who are watching them watching the self destruction that often come from sexual assault these people who are waiting as i had waited but for how many of them is it already too late when a rape victim submit to this very intrusive evidence collection process she at least knows that she has done her part she has done everything that has been asked  to keep this man from hurting anyone else unfortunately there's a very good chance that this vital evidence will set on a shelf with another estimated three hundred fifty thousand rape kits each holding within it vital evidence that is crucial to the safety of women everywhere every day that passes without the identity of these rapists being known allows them to continue to claim victims and i promise you they will we simply cannot allow these women to feel violated begin by our negligence to do all that we can to provide them justice and safety it is for the sixty five thousand victims in alabama the forty thousand in california and all those victims across our country are still waiting for answers that my husband and i have sacrificed our income our retirement and our time it is for them that we could to new to return to your office so is pulling for appropriate approach for proper appropriation of funds and now for the re this bill i'm not a paid lobbyist living on a retired policeman pay is not easy in fact if it were not for our foundations fundraising efforts and the support from local and national businesses we could not even afford to be here today as neither of us takes any type of salary or honorarium but they help to provide the necessary expenses as we travel all over this country training nurses prosecutors law enforcement and act advocates on how to deal with victims and the value of a this is not a job for me this is my life this is my very heart and i will do whatever it takes to give these victims a chance justice since passing the debbie smith act massachusetts crime lab has reduced their sexual assault backlog from four thousand cases to two to two thousand eighty one cases solving cold cases providing numerous offender profiles to be added to codice atlanta georgia has reduced their d n a backlog from thirty three thousand to five thousand cases in just less than two years after night teen years a texas victim was relieved when in two thousand and six codice produced the a dent to have her attacker prosecution was not possible because of the statute of limitations but her attacker's parole was denied because of this new d n a evidence we have made tremendous strides since passing the debbie smith act but our success has also been our own worst enemy as state legislators understand the power a of d n a they have broadened the types of offenses they have included in the database and more states are beginning to include all arrestees detective detectives recognize this enormous ability in solving no suspect cases and police officers are more aware of d n a s capabilities victims are grasping the connection between d n a and justice giving them the courage to submit to the you merely ating rate kit all of these wonderful achievements have caused us well in the backlogs though across our country i'm fortunate to live in a state where the forensic scientists realize the potential of this valuable tool and found resources to initiate a program unfortunately these resources are not available in most states the swell having such sided with another five years of federal funding crime labs going again began to eliminate their backlog and the current unacceptable turnaround can be shortened as the success of this powerful tool continues the public can become becomes more priority not to do so would mean that we're going to lose valuable minim this science is distinctive in that it's tied to a national database and it requires involvement from congress and state legislature to function when the original bill was passed it provided for training money for all first responders including sexual assault nurse examiners these forensic nurses are vital in the collection and preservation of evidence but this part of the bill is yet to be funded i would ask that you use the power afforded you to guide our wonderful country to using d n a to its fullest potential inclosing d n a is structurally a chain yet this amazing piece of science breaks the chains of emotional imprisonment and becomes a chain of confinement for those who would violate experience of this gift of renewed life that i received and i know that d n a can offer that gift to re whole to be to withhold that gift would be the act of deny our citizens that promised right of liberty and justice granted by our crosses constitution so i'm honored and proud to be here with you today representing that hope of prompt just thank you thank you thank you  they said earlier and i just mission is to advance scientific research to meet the challenges of crime and justice and i'm pleased to be here to talk about the department's efforts in this area in forensic capacity as well as particularly as it regards to d n a as you're hearing in the stories today forensic science plays a vital role in the criminal justice system in solving crime protecting the innocent identifying the missing congress has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to d n a technology including the passage of the justice for all act in two thousand and four which includes the debbie smith act since fiscal year two thousand and four in i j has provided over five hundred seventy five million dollars to support d n a and forensic related activities through the initiative state and local and law enforcement agencies have tested as we've said many have said earlier one hundred four thousand d n a cases you know jay's also funded the analysis of two point five million convicted offender an arrestee samples which will be added to the national d n a database and again as i mentioned earlier five thousand or matches to unknown profiles or other cases have resulted in the jays also supported many innovative research projects in human genetics molecular biology in biotechnology the research has dramatically improved d n a testing of sexual assault samples which we've heard from congressman maloney and debbie smith how important that is as well as those a small degraded or compromised evidence which is used in missing persons in masses aster cases research and other forensic disciplines such as impression evidence toxicology crime scene other d n a non d n a areas have also greatly expanded these research programs promise to revolutionize forensic science methods and i j has provided funding to expand the long term capacity of criminal justice agencies to proper process d n a evidence on their own through the purchase of modern equipment hiring of staff training of new analyst and we delivered basic and advanced cold case in missing persons training for law enforcement and i j produced an interactive resource tool in title principles of principles of d n a for officers of the court to help lawyers and judges understand d n a in it and its implication it doesn't just stop with the match it has to go on and make sure it follows through that the entire process in two thousand and seven we launch the national missing in a dignified person system which we call name us the first national online repository designed to help medical examiners and corner share information about missing persons in the unit and if i did the department of justice seeks to ensure that all federal funds are spent wisely and that the criminal justice system can rely on the validity of forensic results one major step in this direction is to grant progress assessment program to which you know j s s is one hundred percent of its grants over to your cycle since implementing the g p a program eight hundred fifty four reports have been generated thems of forensics results have been reviewed by independent experts and many important proven to have been institute in labs that receive the funds kind of a best practices as well as as an audit ing the department of justice has taken many other steps such as ensuring accreditation of granting laboratories monitoring financial compliance educating grantees about best practices and mandating the timely expenditure of federal funds were aware that the committee's concerned about the post conviction d n a testing program please be assured that the department of justice remains fully committed to exonerating wrongly convicted individuals the issue with the kirk bloodsworth postcondition testing program has been with section four thirteen of the justice for all act this section requires state applicants to demonstrate that they satisfy detailed and stringent eligibility requirements for preserving biological evidence and providing post conviction d n a testing in connection with all state felonies and fiscal year two thousand and seven as it was said earlier we asked you to solicitation under those requirements of four thirteen we got three applicants and none were considered eligible for the program with the benefit of the language that was provided in fiscal year two thousand and eight appropriation we eased the eligibility requirements for the post conviction program now a state one example is now a state must only address post conviction testing and preservation of evidence in cases of murder non negligent manslaughter and rape rather than all state felonies in i j fiscal year two thousand solicitation was issued in january we conducted extensive outreach above and beyond what we normally do to ensure that people knew that this was this application was out there five states did submit applications and assuming the requirements are met we're working on the peer review now we expect to make those awards this year what we're also doing is trying to do a survey of the states it didn't apply were just as concerned as why we only got five states applied we thought that the three would be improved as the choirmaster east so i just want to say we've made great progress there's much more to be done and it's this backlog as mentioned earlier the the submission of violent and nonviolent crime seem information as well it's the collection of from offenders of violent crimes to all felons and now many cases all arrestees is increasing that backlog but we're working our best to do it and again i want to thank you and just reiterate that whatever problems or concerns we have of the post conviction program it the department forensic sciences chairman indicated but i'm also speaking today is as chairman of the consortium of forensic science organizations and what that is is six national organizations the american academy forensic science national organization of medical examiners the american side of crime laboratory the international association of identification the american society of crime laboratory directors laboratory accreditation board and maybe i missed somebody but you get the idea  good and bad if you look at it from an operational standpoint because what we've experienced is as we progress as we develop more sensitive and more direct science more technology and add to the databases that the various states are looking at that's very good however what it also does is it increases the number of case that are available for laboratories to work and with the databases the number of hits that we've all talked about we've talked about the numbers hundreds of thousands of of old cases that are now worked and we're in a situation where laboratories are forced to struggle between the old cases the cold cases the post conviction cases court dates and everything else in a snub that they wouldn't really love to be able to do didn't do everything but the resources just aren't there the case where backlog has been stated before or somewhere around three hundred fifty thousand again when we originally started the funding two thousand two thousand and one their own bought four hundred thousand four hundred fifty thousand offenders convicted offenders in the databank now there are several million virginia alone started out with a few thousand and and thanks to a lot of far thinking legislators in virginia by the way the chairman was one of them at the time was stabbed to vagina databank and found that money for virginia to essentially test two hundred forty thousand of those samples prior to any federal funding being being provided  laboratories are catching up with the backlog but what is happening is and i've heard it i've heard the criticism mr hague you've heard the criticism that in spite of the amount of money that's been funded to laboratories that the backlog just aren't coming down well what's happening is the number of cases that are being worked is certainly going up but because of the influx of significant number of case says it's a losing battle of more cases coming in the door even though you're working more the backlogs aren't coming down as quickly as as we would like virginia for example from two thousand and three to two thousand and seven cut the backlog in half that's at the same time that the receptionists have gone went up fifty to sixty percent there's been numerous success stories from virginity that come out of the d n a funding under the justice the many training positions that we funded under grant funding and with projections later on turned those grants funded positions into fully funded positions under our funding for d n a backlog case work and research development to be impossible for us to keep up with this issue would not that not getting that funding while the commonwealth of virginia is fortunate to have our administrations several and legislature they provided significant support for us not only in positions but in facilities other states aren't that lucky i'd also like like to address then the bloodsworth act and maybe answer some of those issues with with funding for postcondition testing virginia was one of those states that applied we have applied again and we have a significant or should i say a very interesting issue in that the cases we are analyzing are cases for which we possess that evidence so we know what that finite pool of cases is to be able to address for grant purposes what the other states don't have necessarily is a handle on what that number is funding for post conviction testing is just as important as funding for any other type of d n a processing thank you everything that i had you know to make it even with all kinds of people that you're around here today but i had to do what i had to do to make it but thanks to d we're going have a couple of votes in a minute so we'll can conclude your testimony then come back for questions it's no foul to sure back in the fall of one nine hundred ninety in a mississippi a three year old girls abducted from our house in the middle of the night he's taken out he's sexually assaulted she's then killed and she's dumped in a pond behind her house there was a logical suspect there was a pedophile there was a young man in the community who had sexually assaulted other young women nevertheless that suspect was not pursued and instead attention focused on the boyfriend of the mother of the three year old girl  lee testified in murder cases all over mississippi because he was the only one to do it at a discounted price it was a capital case von brooks was convicted of the capital murder but because it was a jewel of doubt he was sentenced to life in prison without parole eighteen months later mile and a half away in the same tiny rural town in mississippi another three year old girl is abducted from her home she's taken out into the woods she sexually assaulted she's and strangled and killed and she's deposited in a creek behind the house now anyone looking at these two crimes you might think my goodness they're obviously committed by a serial pedophile the law enforcement macon mississippi didn't see it that way and this time they convicted a guy named kenny brewer who is the boyfriend of the second girlfriend and again he's convicted on the same discredited testimony the same corrupt forensic dentist and the same discredited testimony and false testimony of the local pathologist who did all the autopsies for eighty percent of the prosecutors in mississippi at that time he wasn't as lucky as lavon he was sentenced to death and was sent off to parchment death that to preserve evidence now brewer the second guy candy brewer gets d n a testing because his lawyer one of the very few asked the court at the end of the trial please preserve the biological evidence and then later on when we requested testing we couldn't get it until the mississippi supreme court finally decided you know in this case you might want to do some testing and so brewer gets testing on semen left by the perpetrator of the second crime and it not brooks's case but unfortunately again because mississippi did not have a preservation statute the biological evidence was not adequately preserved but thank god for mr brooks that when the attorney general took over the case and apprehended the real perpetrator just a couple of months ago and started talking to the real perpetrator on videotape about the abduction of that little girl christine jackson in the brewer case he said you know by the way i did another one and the one i did with this little girl courtney smith the one the lavon brooks was convicted of so it was serendipitous if you will because there was no preservation and there was no access to the d n a that mr brooks along with mr brewer was completely exonerated of this horrible horrible crime and of course we join with debbie smith and carolyn morrow maloney and the other people here who understand the importance of d n a and also understand how unreliable forensic science evidence like the type used in these two cases ok should be discarded should be improved and hopefully congress will do that at the same time opening up the opportunity for people like lavon brooks and candy brewer to get d n a testing congress in its infinite wisdom passed the justice for all act and put aside a good pot of money so that would be tested however the executive branch gutted that took away the financial incentive supports states like mississippi like alabama to do d testing that's a small amount of money in the bloodsworth branch and that was it eighty people have been exonerated of the two hundred fifty people have been exonerated eighty other people were identified as a true perpetrators and in every case almost every case those eighty people committed other serious violent crimes the intervening years congress knew that to get the states to allow for access to d n a and to preserve the evidence that had to be financial incentives but it was taken away by the president and the small amount that was left was poorly managed by and i j s o j p they put difficult obstacles in the way of most states and they did it to the point that in the first year only three of fifty states even applied for the money and now you have only five states at a time when they say they've made it much easier to happen they haven't made it that much easier it's still very difficult for the states to do it and tony generals for this money alone have to certify that they have met certain past and then when they certify and they have to swear to it under penalty of criminal prosecution we have looked at other authorizations and requests for proposals from the justice department we have not seen anything quite that draconian so as a result you only have a few states doing the lawyer needs to be changed hopefully you'll do that hopefully you'll you'll you'll allow that other moneys that people get to do d n a testing in laboratories get will be conditioned on providing access to post conviction d n a testing for preserving the evidence preservation is not just about the n s a and preservation is also required so cold case units can look at all cases it's a no brainer but they're not doing it so hopefully congress will impose that requirement as a condition of getting these on the monies like it was initially intended in two thousand and four change that law so there won't be more of an brooke so there won't be more candy so before we come back mr gentleman from ohio mr chairman yes i think i can do is one that i appreciate the opportunity to make our very brief statement i'd like to thank you for holding this hearing on such a critical her son was murdered her remains were never found never been located and she has been an inspiration to many people in our community and trying to locate her daughter and deal with this terrible  situation and i appreciate and support h r five zero five seven i'm a co sponsor however there's one aspect of the d n a initiative that i want to emphasize and that's the use of d n a testing to identify and locate missing persons and human remains more than forty thousand sets of identify human remains rest in laboratories or offices oftentimes sitting on on a box or something on the shelf across the section three zero eight of the justice for all act was intended to encourage jurisdictions to use the technology for the purpose of identifying this and to submit the samples the f b i missing persons database so that there was one central repository to which jurisdictions could access information to date that this remains an underutilized component of the d n a initiative and i'd just like to urge this committee to focus appropriate attention on this that we need to deal with this backlog of d n a samples how much do we need to appropriate to effectively eliminate the backlog consistent with the technology d n a technology that we have i'm sorry one how much money would we have to appropriate to deal with the backlog that we have a bipartisan consensus i believe that we ought to be doing something we've got these hundreds of thousands of kids floating around all over the place how much would we need to appropriate to effectively deal with the backlog i don't even know if i could make a guess at that i'll tell you how we spend our money because as an agency that congress in ministration gives money what we try to do is focus our efforts on those things that may have the biggest impact our research and development our capacity building measures to increase the throughput in the processing but so we really focus on those efforts for state and in whatever i mean we always do but we also want to send money out to the bla bs in the equipment in something that you buy in the field so i really can't pick a figure on what i can say we tried a new plan you can you go back and try to pick out of a figure because we would like to eliminate the backlog the backlog as we've heard because people are doing a better job in gathering samples the backlog is not really we're not really been chipping away at the backlog how much would we have to appropriate to effectively eliminate the  backlog i couldn't even get the number i apologize it could be any amount like to the money we have now we're trying to efficiently and effectively spend it will spend what we get but i and we're fully committed to it but it could be any number and again i don't know the future we have some agencies that are having trouble spending their money some are spending more and well let me let me ask you about iran right there grants that are outstanding are we effect of really getting spending the money that we have already appropriated in terms of grants we had the technical problems before there are technical problems that may occur that would prevent you from releasing the funds that we've already appropriated i don't see really technical problems beyond the post conviction issue that we aware of i don't see a lot of technical problems we do see some states that you see in most grant programs procurement issues training of analysts of the case where it can move faster is one of the concerns we have also i think last year we had some money that's still out in the field we try to keep a running total of what's out in the field because the budgets are coming later in the year i think the analysts concern procurement policies though somewhat slow it down but i think it's farce technically we're getting the money out the door and mr malone can you help us and what would be needed to deal effectively with the backlog how much money you need unfortunately i tend to agree with dr hague about the dollar figure issue because what he doesn't have control of what congress doesn't have control of and what the field desperately needs is the cooperation of the state law at the state and local level he can give me money if i can't get the f t ease the positions to train those people under grant funding where i don't have the facilities were the maintenance the under all maintenance to do that that's the problem a lot of what you have but that again you've got to money what do you what do we need to do as members of congress to effectively deal with the backlog all we get what we need do is then in incentivize the situation  dollars we can get rid of the backlog and not over a five year yes or well that will help to get if somebody can come up with some suggestions would like to hear them because we're trying to eliminate the backlog and all we get is you know it's a simple question and five minutes is almost haven't gotten an answer yet looking for a number it is not a simple answer that is the problem in that state no seriously it's  states has the problem is that states have to cooperate in this to agree to to provide support in addition to the federal funds there has to be buildings there have to be people and so federal funds in and of themselves aren't going to correct that situation that's the problem federal funds can build buildings how reserve the balance of my time for them for the next round i'm going thank you mr chairman first let me go miss smith and i was honored to have a chance to meet you and visit with you during our break for votes but you know something was mentioned earlier when you mentioned about self destructive tendencies  after a sexual assault and i think it speaks volumes for you that you have turned that into a positive to help so many across the country who have been victims but i did as a see repeatedly that self destructive tendencies can which was then used against victims or attempted to be used against victims when they went to test trials so thank you for a know it had been a closure doesn't mean complete closure it just means a chapter but thank you for what you're doing and if it anytime let me let me just tell all our panelists your testimony doesn't have to end today the question's been put by the chairman we're trying to get to the bottom and get to a solution you can submit us things and riding this is how you can can help the program and that's one of follow up with challenge trying to get to let me go to mr ron rather than a number i'm going to try to find out what do you think would be the most helpful change we could make to federal law hard to say something about what we don't have adequate training in the state and local areas that we need to have some this money go for training programs is that something that needs to be part of the fix absolutely actually  i have to be very very careful what i say because i sit on the the national academy of science committee looking at these very issues and we've been knocking these issues around for the last year now going  see is it's a combination of all these things the chairman said federal money can build buildings right now i can use federal funds to expand existing space i have or renovate it to make labs i can't build a new building with it that's one of the issues the training is certainly in essence a very very important part of the process of the aspect there what do you think it's the most important seem to be where you're going and they're not they're all equally important you have to have facilities to put people in you have to positions in order to train people for the last two years virginia got thirty four positions and it's taken us a couple of years to incorporate all those positions into now productive positions not just for a but for other positions also so for example x farms examiners take a year d n a exam are skewed me two years d n a examiners take a full year maybe nine months to train them so once you have the position it takes almost a full year to get him into speed where the positioned to work those cases so you hire people that aren't trying to quit to do the d n a you're that you're hiring college graduates and having to train them the pool of experience qualified examiners is so small yeah i can steal him from the next state over a fire for the more money and that will help but on the on the national level it doesn't help to trade people around you have to produce new people it is all things like they're and could go a lot quicker than two to four years well a year a year for d n a folks you know sir can't you know maybe maybe nine months on the outside but on the inside is there any college program in the country that would have people trained to do d n a studies in the criminal forensic area when they come out of college they have all the and yes there are actually also sit on the committee that accredits college programs on the particular applications they learn all the theory they learn the genetics the molecular biology the biochemistry but they don't know the specifics and there are no college programs now that that teach specifically the application that's the  key that sounds like that's a problem so if you're out in order to do in accreditations then you need to tell him we're not going to credit you unless you can prepare people to go do these jobs when they come out and not cause them to have to get more student loans and more training for four years if you're wrongfully convicted there's there's no amount of money that's going to give you back your eighteen years but it least my goodness you don't walk out with nothing and struggling as apparently you have at least there's funds to help someone like you wrongfully convicted at least have some seed money to get us started and i'm sorry that you've had to deal with that issue and for what you've been through mr new feel from  we don't have people languish eighteen years one point i would agree with mr marone on is that really what has to happen in congress is going to probably do this sooner the better is realize just how critically important friends of science is not only as a matter of public safety not only to identify innocent people and help them but also to fight terrorism and everything else involved let's assume we've got that realization now how do we fix the legislation that's going to need infusion of capital to allow for the training and education on the math level and united states of all the people who can do not only d n a work but all the other valuable forensic disciplines that are utilized in laboratories like the one that mr marone runs and other people run around the country you're going to have to have a program where better forensic scientists utilize we don't have the kind of situation that mr brooks had to suffer when you have a incompetent dentist an incompetent pathologist fighting false testimony but we're still at thirty thousand feet is you michael i'm sorry ok now i know they testified falsely but it appears to experts who reviewed the evidence that they testified deliberately false have they been punished they haven't been punished yet although we filed a complaint with the medical licensing boards in mississippi this week seeking the dr haines medical license and we've asked as soon the statute of limitations on perjury is long since there is no it hasn't because under mississippi law for instance there is an exception for fraud also we have asked the federal government we've asked everybody we can to look into the possible criminal penalties for these people who use known false oaths to convict innocent people and frankly of capital cases mr brewer the other gentleman went to death row you know as far as i'm concerned on a personal level if you fabricate evidence in a capital case with the intent to send an innocent person death row you're committing the crime of attempted murder and you have been unsuccessful in getting prosecutions so far we have in your general work with proving a lot of people innocent have you found perjury to be a major problem or just rarely well you witness stand and after people have been proven innocent because of improper conduct do you find that generally remedial action is taken or does just shrug it off there has been historically very little remedial action particularly  unfortunately among prosecutors a lot of prosecutors are very conscientious and doing the right thing but on those occasions when they step at a line and do the wrong thing there's no discipline in fact in our state like most states even when a case is reversed for pro misconduct there's no disciplinary action there's no remedial action there's nothing done to the offending prosecutor but you think it might be a good idea for congress to condition aid to states for justice matters on some sort of a of a record of  disciplining people who who who bring about wrong convictions because of deliberate misconduct i think would be very good for congress to do everything they could to create financial incentives on the states to take remedial action to eliminate seriously reduce the causes of wrongful conviction misconduct is certainly one of those lawyers who asleep in the courtroom is another police who secure false confessions a third sloppy identification procedures which generate false identi identifications is a fourth all of those causes need to be addressed congress can certainly get involved with that and create financial incentives for the states to eliminate those cause i mean is he one of the can thank you do you think of the good idea also for congress to incentiv e states to we pass as you told me in the break congress passed a bill a number of years ago to provide for compensation for federal prisoners who've been wrongly imprisoned and urged states to do so but almost the very few states have done that do you think that the federal government to condition grants to states and they're establishing programs to compensate people who spend significant amounts of time after wrongful convictions in state prisons i think you can incentivize states to do the right thing with respect to compensation because there's no question that the notion of compensation enjoys wide bipartisan support no one feels that somebody like love like lavon brooks who spent eighteen years in prison the but i mean the crazy thing about mr brooks here is one month before he went to prison he was accepted in our school he was about to leave a town of three hundred fifty rural mississippi move north you go to art school instead he spent the next eighteen years in some of the worst prisons in america he obviously deserve some measure of competence the triangle and finally you said that the secular branch had gutted the act that eliminated financial incentives to states only five states of apply to federal money what changes do you think should be made in the reauthorization act well what happened very specifically was in two thousand and four when congress was the will of congress and the justice for all act had four different revenue streams that would go to the states to incentivize them to provide access for d n a testing and to preserve biological evidence which is not only good for the innocent was also good for police to want to do cold case units  what happened after congress did that is the president did an end run around that legislation in the justice for all act by eliminating the incentives for three of the four pots and those eliminating i mean just not funding it so they weren't funded at all no no no what happened is he gave them the finding but they no longer had as a condition of receiving the finding have to either preserve the evidence or authorize pose that legal under the act she was me was that legal under the act or the president break the law no no no the president through the through the president's d n a initiative which is basically appropriating money ignored the original authorization willed by congress that said that these four pots of money would be conditioned on preservation a and what you plan to do to a baby the law by changing that and run i'll get you into that thank you your back now about this i think with your next thank you mr chairman mr new feel let me have a conversation with you if i could about case in alabama that caught my attention involves someone named thomas arthur you are aware that case and the most of the questions seem to become the use you might be better leaving your my guns you with that keep happening to you but i know the n s a s project has got involved in this case and it caught my attention for two reasons these are the facts there were not widely available in my state and he's never had the benefit of a d n a test he has argued that the state should conduct these tests under alabama law the governor of the state has enormously broad authority and then the matter is for which he may issue a commutation or pardon actually even the attorney general of alabama concedes that the governor has the legal authority to order d n a testing the governor has declined to do that and it caught my attention because i like unanimous consent mr chairman to introduce an evidence say birmingham or to put into exhibit rather the hearing used in my courtroom days they birmingham news editorial dated thursday november twenty ninth two thousand and seven d n a testing for arthur it's interesting because candidly it's the only time i recall the birmingham news ever criticizing the governor of alabama their very very very very very strong supporter of his and they'll a time i've ever seen them criticize him on their editorial pages was over his refusal to order a testing so i want you to talk with me a little bit about first of all broad proposition is there any cost to the criminal justice process in terms of efficiency is an unusual burden that's imposed from a state ordering d n a tests for someone who never received them well first of all you're absolutely right about alabama alabama is one of those states for instance that doesn't have a statute authoriz conviction d n a testing and so the only way that somebody can get post conviction d n a testing even if they're on death row in alabama as if the government on his own decides to do it and so we went to the governor and asked him to exercise that authority because we don't know if the man's innocent or guilty but d n a can answer that question and and there's no dispute about his authority he said he didn't have it but the republican attorney general says he has no he has the authority ok and obviously everybody wants to get to the truth you would expect that everybody would want to get to the truth the consequence of doing a doing d n a testing financially only to the benefit of the state obviously if you have the wrong  guy you're not going to have to pay the house going to prison any longer if you have the wrong guy and you can do d n a testing and get a codice hit and identify the real perpetrator who's out there on the street committing other violent crime give me a number just to put it in perspective how much as a d n a test or how refuses what's the governor's basis for refusing the government's original basis for refusing was that he wanted to lay the execution to already been delightful once the supreme court decided to take up the issue of lethal injection and he knew it would take four months at least before that was decided it would only take four weeks to do the testing he then didn't offer another justification because it's been delayed supreme court delayed it they delayed it last december so is there any reason why the state couldn't conduct the test now in the interim the has to do is authorize it let me just end with this observation i differ from some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle i'm a supporter of the death penalty and that puts me in the minority on this side of the aisle but when i look at a case like this i'm i'm i'm compelled to make an obvious point if we can put in place a more regular procedure at the state level and incentivize states to do it congress consent of the states to put in a reasonable course of action like this for xmas a reasonable course of action i suspect michaud of i'm going to finish this point up i suspect the reason that it hasn't occurred is that you know those of us in the political world don't want anyone to say that we're soft on crime we don't want anyone to say what we're trying to provide some delay in the criminal justice system it strikes me a two thousand dollar test that would have the effect of either exonerating someone or at least possibly casting a major doubt around his to want to reexamine decisions so maybe we do have to have in place a procedure that is more hospitable that doesn't require a political actor to make the ultimate decision on review the only thing i would i would take into these issues i'm disciplined i would run agree with you more that i am not trying to make a very basic point that if we can put in place some kind of procedure with more regularity that doesn't require as an alabama yes i would submit that this former main follow in order judge would be glad to co sponsor legislation to work on that with you if you were interested well i appreciate the job maybe not to give members asked the central question in the legislative front and i want to try to endeavor with some questions to answer the first question was how much money is necessary part of the problem we've always had with this issue is it generally lucked into law enforcement agencies that have backlogs to  trumpet press releases trumpeting that fact so that when we originally passed the first legislation ever to fund d n a testing by congress one of the things that was included was a study to go take a look and even that study that came up with this number five hundred forty two thousand it didn't say this police agency has this much this one has this much this was this much and it did comment about how reluctant some agencies were to talk about it is mr newfield organization knows that sometimes they're reluctant to even mitt that they're not that they're reluctant to admit it you know it's getting them to say we've got this is not something a lot of sheriff's department want to talk about we also learned in that study a couple of interesting things we learned that that in england their average start to finish when they take the the piece of evidence submitted to the lab to i get a result back is about thirty three days in the united states it's thirty weeks so that's the difference in imagine and that's even that's assuming that you had a law enforcement agency that's really fired up they get the thing and it doesn't sit we also have the experience of new york where we had in the early ninety's in the late one nine hundred ninety s almost a six year backlog when you literally had kits sitting like like  boxes you know you know vault in several of them actually in queens literally each one of them had a number it represented a woman in most cases a woman waiting for justice in their case and they to their credit didn't wait got some federal money but mostly city and state money and then went to work on trying to clear out the backlog and they've done it but i want to ask mr nagin to throw in you can jump into a couple of things that i'm going to be offering in the next version of this bill that perhaps mr gohmert in this just got would be insane and i just want you to boss whether you think it would help improve the backlog and these are things that are in the current law that perhaps i should add one should we give priority to labs with demonstrated training and personnel needs meaning labs that are doing their best but can show that they're overburdened meaning it would incentivize them to say here's our backlog here's why we need it would help to clear it clear the backlog if we gave more money and more priority to those labs you're asking me yeah we do that if we do our formula the grant making process second thing is expanding eligibility funding to cover salaries for existing employees you know frankly you're competing you know there is there are salary needs for employees that are already on the books not just the need to hire new folks meaning  salaries rise as competition gets higher for to technical skills to give to expand eligibility for those that's the second thing you think that might help calories or something we cover as well and the next thing is that these are all things that are not in the present every smith fact that w would add is the next evolution next ad so money for grants for technology you know one of the things that's happening is barco technology that really does help speed the english system in if you get that type of technology and you get labs to invest in that not just keeping more people pounding away at the same technology think that might help with the back absolutely the next is a technical thing under the present law the attorney general has to sign off in advance that state provide post conviction testing and biological evidence before states are eligible to get some grants would it not be as a technical matter sufficient to have that process going on that approval process going on and still left the ramp up with with some federal money and worse comes to worse you just say you don't get next year if you don't meet certifications it is something that's tomorrow night the other comment this year we gave an extra month when we reform this post conviction or trying to improve the process we gave more extra time to work on getting the actual certification we go to the attorney general because these are state laws and practices they're speaking to and there are some most of the time the most a person an appropriate person to gather a few a bit a few agency a few states have said to me there's a little bit of a headache that they're waiting while that a g process is going on next hour to talk about a couple of things relatively small things that i think would not only add to the cases that mr newfield has and improve experiences of victims like unfortunately smith has first oughtn't we be ramping up a little bit the the sexual abuse nurse examiners that need to be out there the experts that sit in hospital emergency rooms that are on call for police agencies that realize that dealing with women who are victims of of sexual assault not only have very important emotional needs as victims of crimes but also there are specific forensic things that you need to do to collect information flows and what would it not be helpful this time to ramp that up a little bit so it's not just something that you find in big cities but in small towns as well i can speak to how important that is and we actually are with the office on violence against women at the u n as we speak presenting a tool that we form together it's a practicum is well as a a cd on how to sexual assault forensic exams and actually improve that process not only to help the victim but to lead to convictions and innocent people i mean guilty people that have done these acts and that is actually both our office in the office and biological imprisoning that to which is amazing and that is and let me add one other thing and i appreciate the the cheery letter r little over the other thing is r and d take r and d into d n a technology you know we talked a little bit about bar codes and things like that but you know it strikes me that if we took a fraction of our r and d budget for some things and just put it towards the trying to figure out ways to mechanize the system a little warm maybe that we need the next big the next big advance and frankly the private sector is not getting incentivized to do it because it's such a drip drip drip of dollars that people are putting it to getting as many tests they can do with the existing people if you create an r and d fund that says two to two technology firms go out and try to improve this i think that at that would help a great deal and if i can take one additional moment just to test a new field about well about one case that captured a lot of our attention in new york is a there are also a problem of d n a and evidence of all sorts sitting in a completely o disorganized uncategorized boxes in bins in a lot of places you had a fairly famous case that was tragic of having to go back of a piece of evidence that you knew existed but the police agency and i'm not sure i don't know which one it was frankly just couldn't find it for years and years and they kept telling you quarter to quarter a quarter they kept saying we we can't really find it is there a way that we using this popular hook of d n a which ever looked at through their own lens say let's also figure out ways either to require agencies to retain evidence better or to incentivize them how would you recommend we do that the easiest way to incentivize them is the way that you initially wanted to do in two thousand and four but then unfortunately with the end run it didn't happen which is to give the money to the states to do all this d n a testing but simply condition it on two things one is come up with this kind of preservation besiege of the bar coding for instance that you just described a moment ago is fantastic but you don't just do a prospect of late you've got to do with the ten thousand items that are currently sitting in your property clerk warehouse because if you don't do with those items not only will you not exonerate people but you also deprive your cold case units from reopening all cases so obviously you want to incentivize that congress can incentivize that they should do it and that's why poor states like alabama for instance don't have a preservation statute don't have a d n a access believe there because they need the money they need the basic money for infrastructure that you're describing but if congress can appropriate those kind of funds yes i think it will happen at thank you mr chairman thank you mr marone how often do you get cold hits  cold hits lukewarm hits forty a week forty to fifty a week and that's it if you had gives me a month forty fifty a month if you had more of these in the database you to get more cold hit we saw a significant increase is the database went from one hundred thousand to two hundred fifty thousand we saw a significant increase in the number of hits obviously the bigger database you're perpetrator you indict the the d n a profile and if and when you identify the person that goes with that profile he can be prosecuted how often john doe's i'm sorry you know how often john those are defied i don't have that information sorry you and then essence project here some a lot of people who claim to be innocent what portion of the people who claim to be innocent do you think and actually innocent well that's a good question in about a third of our cases that we take on we get about three thousand requests now year for post conviction d n a testing but it can take many years before we actually get to do the testing and a third of our case we have to close them out because the evidence has not been preserved in the intervening years but in the cases that actually go to lab and we do the testing it turns out that the d n a testing exonerates people about fifty percent of the time there are fifty percent of the time it confirms their guilt  some people might want to why are you doing it if it confirms kill fifty percent of the time that's a good thing to confirm guilt on the other hand if we're getting in exonerate way to fifty percent that's extraordinarily high also who would imagine that that fifty percent of people who write to us then locate the evidence and go to lab actually end up being exonerated by the testing their chain of custody issues in terms of the integrity of the evidence in sexual assault cases there's no real chain of custody issue at all because there are internal controls that are part of the d n a test when you're talking about the rape kits that debbie smith was talking about for instance the rape kits are a mixture of d n a from the victim and from the assailant and they can actually differentiate if you will in these laboratories between sperm d n a and all other kinds of d n a so first of all when you find this kid twenty years later and it could be wedged behind some prosecutor's desk the first thing you want to do is when you do that separation is the non sperm fraction match d n a from the reference sample taken from the victim if it does you've got the right case if it doesn't you've got the wrong case that answers your question secondly let's look at the sperm it's sperm d n a ok i can't if it was me if i was the real perpetrator there's no way the science is figured out that i could get in there and somehow separate and extract my sperm out of that mixture and then substitute somebody else's sperm to make it look like they did the crime so those two internal controls by its very nature give d n a a kind of integrity that other types of friends are given and simply lack mr own is a problem with the preservation and deterioration of the evidence  no sir once the once the materials have all been dried and that's the key that they're dry and i'm assuming we're not talking about blood tubes but the swabs and such slides essential e office environment room temperature with a you know decent humidity what you have to stay away from is high humidity warm temperatures but a sentient like that we're in here now would be certainly appropriate to be able to store have an as for a significant time period i would like to address the one thing that mr neufeld spoke about one of the biggest issues that we see with some of these post conviction testing is that although we might be able to get results you know getting full profiles from the crime scene samples and quite often you're getting not full profiles for me to the victim or the suspect what's problematic is going back and trying to get new good samples from those individuals especially with the victims who really don't you know they were a lot many times don't want to have to go through that all again so it's very problematic the touchy issue to go back and talk to victims of cases five days ago saying there is a constitutional right to post conviction d n a testing there are three other circuits who share that position there's one or two circuits who disagree but wait and see what happens as the effective death penalty act serve as a barrier because i know that you have to show clear and convincing evidence of innocence which you don't have until the test is done well the effective death penalty act it's been an obstacle to a lot of types of post conviction relief that people see problems in the conforming state by state what people are profiles the is the test done in virginia comparable and compatible with the tests done and the states absolutely so there's there's no no problem with compatibility nationwide in fact there are searches that are done internationally any problem with false negatives if you do a test if somebody claims they are innocent if you do a test and get a result is it possible for it to be a false negative i would say never say never but i can't think of a particular situation where that would be  neufeld said you have an internal checks and balances system with the cases that you're looking at would there be any value to a central testing lab where people can send samples from across the country to a central lab than it is today and the determination was made that by having this process localized in the states and cities you're going to have much better throughput than you would if you have one central laboratory the key service to have them all working off the same sheet of music thank you well i'm following up on that line and i know in our court and in my court back in texas  feel like you've got a perpetrator a prosecutor does well everybody is interested in getting results as quickly as possible and you know delays of ninety days may not saying much but if you're really wondering if this  is cause here then it means a lot of difference whether it's ninety days or one hundred eighty days and so what what seemed to happen there is the prosecutors would say if we got a state lab they can do this more quickly a d p s lab or will the f b i lab help so i was different cases here from f b i lab folks and some other cases d p s lab people in texas who ever could get to that case the quickest and so after hearing so much difficulty from our witnesses putting their finger on exactly how we can get their great greatest good done by this this law i'm wondering well are we back to saying maybe we need to localize f b i labs where that we can do the greatest good and the problem with with training programs federal dollars or you know do these need the federal repository f b i labs do we need those more localized and just let those do it if if we've got a problem we get people properly trying to do the work so i'm wondering let me ask my friend from a and  what percentage of d n a tests in the united states are currently being done by f b i labs do you know i do know d o j labs yeah i don't know the answer that i mean there's one hundred some eighty that are qualified in their state labs so i could try to work on an answer for you that i don't know that off the top of my head but just to your other concern about what really works that what we really look like in the back to congressman weiner's point about technology this high throughput throughput technology as well as the process research that we do and we do as much as we can on the general for in not only in d n a but general forensics as a whole can really have a tremendous impact on the labs ability to get those d n a samples tested so we really try to start with those processes training is good but you do have turnover and you continually have to train and buildings are good and all that but i think a real focus on the r and d technology and those types of processes can really help move all of the labs one of the things that just five got just quick chance on the things we're talking about any time we use money to incentivize behavior which we do i mean that's a very important part of our grant programs but that adds restrictions to the money so we always have to balance what we try to do with the money and allison getting it to the local governments and making sure they can do it so we always try to balance that as a grant making that brings up another issue i was concerned about appreciate friends from new york actually doing some concrete thinking that not everybody always does but on trying to figure out what can we put in the law to make it better make it work what language will this work will this work and i but i would only submit that what i've seen when we provide incentives or priorities to labs with a demonstrated need it means oftentimes they're doing a sorry job they're taking forever and throwing money at labs that have some real problems doesn't necessarily fix the problem because sometimes it's their personnel and money is not going to fix it it's just going to incentivize more bad work whereas it seems to me when you find labs maybe they're understaffed but they're doing good quality work doing it in a timely manner maybe that's where we need to put some money but i appreciate that will go around hired guns what normally happens with bad experts is they're not intentionally perjuring themselves they're just doing bad work and shoddy work and they've got people at risk sometimes you found people parted themselves but when you find people who have done shoddy work and that's been shown to happen well as the us supreme court has made clear the judge has an obligation as a gatekeeper to disarm and whether somebody is truly an expert should be allowed to testify and we do need to have more judges that that make the finding this guy who is a snake oil salesman and he's not going to testify in my court and put people at risk when he's done so way too freely in the past and i wonder about the term false negative also i mean but i do we have false negatives and i'm wondering if that ends up being like can somebody crazy now that they're really crazy you know if you've got a false negative how do you really know it's false negative and i don't know if there's a good way to know that let me let me attempt to answer that my answer would be i don't think you can get a false negative but i would never say never because to find something that would come up you would expect to see it in those blanks where you know you're not supposed to see anything so you've got a number of controls that was false negatives probably going to create a reasonable doubt once that comes into evidence and it would kind of end the evidence because that would be exculpatory you have a result that's not supposed to be there my estimate would be you'd pick that up as a whole process and would be a question on the examiners part what they may not know what they have what they know they don't like with the half and so probably just kind of inconclusive at that point with the results you have one of the things i would like to address and it's as you said the seminal question what's it going to take to fix this and that's something that's  that as i said the national candidates been working with and it is truly a complex issue the public up i'll stick with the public testimony so i don't step on anybody's toes it's very comprehensive you need you need training make zander's you need certification of examiners they meet certain minimum quite criteria you need accreditation of laboratories every laboratory meets a certain standard and that gets to your question of are they are they doing bad work are they just doing good work and but not enough of it you need educational opportunities start with the pool make sure the educational programs are supplying the examiners you need research and support  at all those levels you need more training and certifying of of attorneys and judges to understand scientific aspects so you're looking at all those things it's not a single quick fix thing you need more facilities more people and everything so it's it's an extremely complex program you asked us to give a top of the head in five minutes this is an issue that people have been dealing with if you look at our report in  that folks did it said the same thing as a report to us than one thousand nine hundred nine the same thing that of a report that was done two years ago with the forensics what's called one hundred eighty day study and these are the issues that the national academy of science is dealing with and that gives  general direction as to where we need to go there are a number of things it's not a simple quick fix it is an over all national process and i understand that but just to correct one thing you said i didn't ask for  read some of the more off the top than others but i didn't ask for an off the top of your head in five minutes i asked for concrete suggestions and also pointed out to everybody on this panel it doesn't stop in five minutes it doesn't stop  if you've got suggestions every body up here is interested in fixing the law and we would welcome your input really not just here but well into the future just one comment on some of the things we've tried to do we combined our capacity in case work grants to make it easier make it more flexible for granted so we did that last year when they used to be two separate grants to make it easier we've also extended some of our grandchild property crimes which is due to talk about a growing backlog we're going to have some studies coming out of the effectiveness of d n a used in property crimes and it's going to show some tremendous results and so we're also allowing some of the bigger labs are caught up on their their backlog on their violent crimes and they're moving into that from the bigger let so we're doing some of that as well much time with expired gentleman from new york thank you chairman so i understand there are for profit labs that are on affiliated with the government right to do this work but if we learned any lessons are they better  i would say they're not they're no better they're no worse they because they are they have to meet the same federal criteria that public labs meet they do this similar kind of work awful lot of manpower intensive type work and because all these are the majority of these cases are done grant funded you know they have to do it on a very tight overhead but if you have if you need you want to wait in the speed of just one second you know we're also a user group we go out to lots of laboratories all over the country government laboratories and private sector laboratories do post conviction d n a testing and i have to tell you in all can all the same some are a lot better than others there's some government laboratories that have been other government laboratories there are some private laboratories that are great and other private laboratories that are awful if you had a client who came to you and i know this really happens in your line of work that said money's no object prepared to go out and get the best fastest i want it quickly i want top notch i want the best and they wrote you a blank check can you go to your rolodex and said i'm going to call this lab get it back in a in a couple of days and it's going to be a bust out great said other for their labs like that no unfortunately the laboratories we've found the do the best quality work have also been the slowest i guess that's not necessarily counter intuitive i mean maybe you'd expect it to be a little slower can i open up a can of worms as we end this as he and this hearing there are no cops on the panel peter maybe i can put you in the category of a civil libertarian we if we arrest somebody for jumping the turnstile and we now in new york city put them through the system meaning we take their fingerprints and check to see if they commit any other crimes when they were arrested should we have a rest should we take d n a from arrestees then with a position on that and then and then obviously if they you know like a fingerprint if you found not to be guilty of the crime or you there's no hit on something else you know that we do we can go ahead and destroy it but who knows they will find somebody jump to turnstile also rape somebody  position on that peter well i mean first was an association we do not have a position on it i mean personally i mean obviously in any situation like this one has to do a cost benefit analysis there's no question that if you have a universal database if you have d n a testing from every member of congress for instance you probably saw more crimes ok even though there have been arrested much less convicted of anything that's the reality that's a simple statistics and no one would disagree with that but for certain reasons we choose in our society  exclude certain groups of people from having to give up that privacy right whether it be members of congress have people been arrested and of innocents or people who simply stopped on the street and not even arrested ok like they are in great britain if you simply stop and i've been arrested they can take your d n a sample so we as a nation will have to decide what are we willing to give up in order for certain benefits that national discussion has not been had well it to some degree it has because we take fingerprints of people arrested well no but we haven't decided as a nation do we want to have a universal d n a database no i but i'm but congressman you have to do that and the reason you have to do that is when you put on the one side of the scale solving crime and if that is your goal and it's simply to solve crime there's no question if you have everybody's d n a in the databank you going to solve the crime there be no disagreement in the country you know we don't do that so there must be certain concerns that we have to wait hold on a second when you are arresting someone you are trying to solve a crime well right in that that specific task that you're pursuing is to solve a crime i'm not saying go out into everyone but right now i guess what i'm puzzled by is is are we making a difference a distinction would where no not really exist when we do take identifying information from someone when they're arrested and then just like if they're found not to be guilty we destroyed and move on i mean i guess i'm putting in the position of of problems and concerns in your state for instance in my state new york is that our attorney general did a study and discovered that in fact people of certain races were being disproportionately singled out for stops and arrests and so there's a danger that if you simply making arrest the criteria or condition for a testing that you will have something called a pretext arrest a disproportionate number of black and brown people being stopped and their d n a ends up in the databank whereas white peoples do not and that's why you're constantly doing that kind of course benefit analysis i'm not making to be a line at serious violent felonies and virginia found that most of the people for which they were hit were nonviolent crimes actually the way the statute is written and it is just that is for for r s t s right for arrestees it's it's for the serious felony crimes and in virginia that dictated that equals to about twelve thousand arrestee samples per year of those twelve thousand about fifty percent after a period of time are pulled back out just as a congressman and if it if it's not process it's dismissed or whatever pled down those samples are pulled out from two thousand and three with those numbers coming in over the years there have been four hundred hits on arrest the samples for you know but for people convicted of a felony if you go to prison everybody regardless of the charge yes community and used to be is only those in prison for the violent felonies but then you expanded it to everybody i'm not sure exactly what we would do with the gentleman yield i mean look there are five states that still don't take it from all felons guess one of the questions that we have on a federal level is the ability to solve a crime in texas being hindered because people in new york make a decision to have a lower a smaller group of arrestees samples and one of the opportunities that we have with this legislation say listen if you want to be part of the database you've got to make sure that we're all sharing the same types of information so that we can so that we can crack these cases and i think that that it's true you know we're on the precipice of a much larger discussion yesterday use exactly right more and more information little blood specks at a burglary scene are being added on the on the crime lab side so this conversation going to be thrust upon us to some degree how much we  grow this universe but i think it's some point we're going to reach a point where you know and i agree with you mr neufeld you know the pursuit of what are called to fifty's in new york to stop and frisk as a as a policing tool has has problems but i'm not i mean i frankly think you should i don't i don't i don't think since it's a thing it's a distinction that we should make but i thank you for the extra time to say our our study of these these burglaries and these property crimes are showing much more serious criminals are being caught as well some of this is limited study of about five cities and five hundred cases in each city but we're also finding that that they have much more serious criminal record as burglary thank you gentleman from texas just one going to ask another question then asking that mr weiner's original question if we could get an answer because i thought it was a good question mr new film not asking what the innocence project position is but is understanding to ask originally should we then they samples from people who were arrested and as i got your response it was we need to have that national debate but i'd like to know your answer to that question do you think we should be in a sample from anyone who's arrested understandings you're not sure this would not be an answer for innocence project but just for peter neufeld with all your experience i have not fully fought out and resolve that issue for two reasons one is because i do think it's a much more complicated question and i was trying to apprise you all some of the complexities ok because you have to decide literally what is a priority so you went on as you can answer that well that's one too ok it's not just the philosophical issues and policy issues but it's a fiscal issue and the fiscal issue is you're talking to these folks today because they can't even deal with the backlog of cases of rapes and murders ok and if we can and i think we'd all agree that number one priority i just didn't know if you had an answer specific to that question and because it is that answer would then if it were yes then we would be more labs it then creates more funding and who knows what drives drives what and i happen to think of all the areas of the lab process that's most given to being mechanized and improved and speeded up it's this idea offender sample which you have one standard for and one standard swab one standard slide so you're right we would have to make that that that decision i think this larger it's a larger philosophical and an a moral question and it's one that crosses party lines about how much information do you want to it is a civil i mean it's a big issue and then how you preserve or don't preserve that information and remember unlike a fingerprint you're getting a heck of a lot more information on that little piece of evidence and do we want government having that you know and i mean i was as you know there's so much d n a around this room right now members of congress what a frightening laboratory this would be if it were ever opened up to the experts that i was just just to give you one additional piece of that puzzle is very complicated friends in new york there are a number of laboratories across the country for instance you have a serial murderer a serial rapist and so the police as part of a proper investigation will go out and ask hundreds of people to consent to give biological specimens so they can be excluded as a perpetrator which will enable the police then to refocus their investigation in florida for instance when they had a serial rapist several thousand and they knew the assailant was a black man the police approached several thousand black men in miami and asked them to give samples they all gave samples all consented they were all excluded and eventually the police identified and captured the real perpetrator but those several thousand samples d n a samples were never destroyed and the and the rationale was hey we got it legally it's only being used for law enforcement purposes what's the big deal well if you can accept that which perhaps you do then you can accept that maybe we should have a universal database so we would have to have racial distinctions or other kinds of distinctions we'll just have everybody's d n a on file and i appreciate that sometimes people come up here to preach i really did want to ask questions and i think the key is mr winner's question i'm familiar with all the different sides in the exactly the things you're pointing out i understand the philosophical discussion i can have that debate entirely by myself and have my wife come in and go who are you talking to and she does that often but and so i can play both sides but once we answer mr winners question then we can move forward with appropriate legislation to deal with the issue and that's why i was curious as a civil libertarian  mr winter indicated how you felt about that i've got mixed emotions like i say i can debate that from both sides but i just wondered where you were and your your jury's still out so thank you very much and i debate with myself whether i'm even a civil libertarian thank you let me make one for the commodore and mr brooks the situation having been exonerated yesterday and the president and the second chance act which gives assistance to those who have been convicted of crimes provisions there is legislation pending specifically to help exonerate we're going to see if we can move that along so that people in your situation don't get the worst of both worlds so i want to thank all of our witnesses for their testimony today members may have additional written questions which will forward to you and ask you answers promptly as you can so that maybe that answers may be made part of the record without objection the hearing record will remain open for one week for submission of additional