DNA testing of criminals may be expanded
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No Comments [ Add Comment ]By LORETTA PARK
Standard-Examiner staff
lpark@standard.net
SALT LAKE CITY -- Bradley Newell Perry's brother does not want others to go through what his parents and family members have been through the past 24 years. That's why he was testifying Friday in support of a bill to expand DNA testing of convicted criminals.
"The man who was arrested for my brother's murder is going to be tried next month," said Lee Perry, who is also a Utah Highway Patrol lieutenant.
Perry had not originally come to the Legislature to testify about DNA. He was at the Capitol on behalf of the UHP to testify about why law enforcement wants to change the booster seat law.
"I was reading the agenda and saw the DNA law and asked the representative if I could speak about it, but not in behalf of the UHP, but in behalf of my family," Lee Perry said.
Bradley Perry, 22, was found stabbed and bludgeoned to death on May 26, 1984, at a gas station in Perry. Police conducted an extensive investigation but were unable to arrest any suspects.
Glenn Howard Griffin was arrested in June 2005 when police said DNA tests linked his blood to the crime scene. Griffin's DNA samples were taken in 2004 and entered into a datebase when he entered a federal prison in California.
If it hadn't been for the DNA sample, "we wouldn't have been able to have caught him," Lee Perry told legislators.
Rep. Kerry Gibson, R-West Weber, is sponsoring House Bill 157. It has been before the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee three times this past week. On Friday, the committee unanimously approved a substitute version of the bill, which now goes before the House floor for further consideration.
Gibson said on Wednesday some legislators had some questions about the constitutional aspect of the original bill. The wording in that bill would have required law enforcement to collect DNA from any person arrested on a felony charge or for a class A or class B misdemeanor involving violence.
He asked the committee then if he could hold the bill until Friday because he learned the answer and "I'm not willing to take the risk of having our whole database at risk."
The substitute bill requires a DNA specimen to be taken from any adult convicted of a violent class B misdemeanor. Currently, DNA samples are obtained only from those convicted of felonies and class A misdemeanors.
The original bill stemmed from a national movement called "Katie's Law," Gibson said.
The law was created after a 22-year-old woman was raped and killed in New Mexico. Police arrested a man several weeks later on another charge, but it wasn't until three years later, when he was convicted of a felony, that he was linked to the woman's murder through DNA evidence.
According to the Katie's Law Web site, most states do not allow DNA samples to be taken from people arrested on felony charges.
Gibson said law enforcement agencies came to him and asked him to run the original bill. They were concerned that some suspects arrested on felonies would disappear or plea bargain to a lesser charge.
But when several committee members asked about the constitutional aspect, they did more research, Gibson said. Several states have faced court challenges since implementing the law that allows DNA samples to be collected after an arrest, Gibson said. Most state supreme courts have upheld the law, but there is one case that looks like it will go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"There's a difference between an arrest and a conviction," Gibson said.
Law enforcement officers did not want to take a chance of having the entire DNA database at risk due to a court ruling, Gibson said.
"The decision was made to give it a year and wait and see what happens to the court cases," Gibson said.
Gibson said one of the biggest advantages of the DNA database is it also helps those who have been wrongly convicted.
"It benefits both ways," he said.
Jay Henry, director of Utah State Crime Lab, said the DNA database does allow law enforcement officials to solve crimes, but it "also allows us to protect the public" because criminals may be caught before they commit more violent acts.
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