- Inmates nationwide are refusing to give authorities DNA
samples that could link them to other crimes, threatening nascent efforts
to build a nationwide database of convicts' genetic profiles that officials
say could help clear thousands of unsolved cases.
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- Authorities say inmates in as many as a dozen states
- including Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Illinois - have refused
to give blood or saliva samples containing DNA since states began requiring
them from inmates during the 1990s.
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- The refusals are centered in California, where since
last summer more than 900 inmates in at least five prisons have declined
to give samples, prison officials say. The officials say the prisoners
have cited privacy concerns and a general distaste for authority as reasons
for refusing. Refusals "have broken out sporadically in the past,
but the California situation seems unique," says Dawn Herkenham, a
consultant to the FBI on DNA database laws. "If it spreads, it could
be very harmful" to efforts to perfect a national DNA database.
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- During the past 13 years, all 50 states and the District
of Columbia have passed laws setting up crime-fighting databases. They
work by taking DNA, a cellular acid that contains an individual's unique
genetic code, and matching it by computer to the codes found in blood,
semen and other body fluids left at crime scenes.
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- All states are authorized to collect DNA from convicted
sex offenders. Most also take it from murderers, kidnappers, robbers and
child molesters.
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- Since 1998, state DNA databases have been linked by a
national computer system maintained by the FBI. The national system allows
crimes committed in one state to be solved through comparisons with DNA
samples taken from convicts in other states. As of February, the national
system contained DNA profiles of 802,000 convicts and had been used to
identify suspects or develop evidence in 3,911 investigations, according
to the FBI.
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- Since the mid-1990s, 11 states have passed laws permitting
authorities to use "reasonable force" to take samples from reluctant
inmates. In California, prison officials have used administrative sanctions,
including a loss of parole credits, to try to coax inmates into cooperating.
Critics say the sanctions are not persuasive to convicts who are serving
long sentences with little hope of parole.
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- At the state's Vacaville prison, for instance, convicted
murderer Fred Clark refused to give DNA samples, telling prison officers,
"What are you going to do? Put me in jail?"
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- Some prosecutors are critical of officials for not forcing
prisoners to comply.
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- "It's the Leona Helmsley approach: They want their
guests to be completely comfortable," says Rockne Harmon, an Alameda
County, Calif., deputy prosecutor, referring to the owner of luxury hotels
in New York City. "With guys who have nothing to do all day but talk
about how the system is screwing them, it just doesn't work."
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- Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for California's corrections
department, says the department has used court orders permitting the use
of force to obtain samples from about 30 inmates. A bill that would permit
authorities to force inmates to comply without seeking a court order is
scheduled to be taken up April 30 by a state Senate panel.
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- San Diego defense lawyer Christopher Plourd, who recently
used a state DNA database to exonerate a man who had been convicted of
murder in Arizona, says defense lawyers should join prosecutors in insisting
that convicts give DNA.
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- http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/04/15/usat-dna-refusals.htm
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