Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue.

Topic: National DNA Day

Most of us have seen or may be somewhat familiar with CODIS statistics, but as of March 2006, the information on this FBI website has been updated. Below you will find a link to their website, showing the latest information.

Other stories in the news include police lineup overhauls; how DNA evidence has played a part in this change and ongoing debates over old vs. new. In New York, the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) program continues to expand. “SARTs are composed of specially trained forensic examiners and rape crisis counselors who provide sexual assault victims with state-of-the-art forensic and counseling services within one hour of their arrival at a hospital.” The article goes into more detail regarding the importance of these highly trained personnel and the timing of their services.

In Florida, a measure has been passed removing the time limit to seek DNA tests and allowing “anyone convicted of a felony and sentenced in the past, or in the future, to petition for DNA testing.” On a similar note, in Pennsylvania, a state commission may widen courtroom interpretations of the state’s post-conviction release and DNA testing laws. And again, there are a number of cases involving DNA evidence.

Get to know CODIS – updated statistics as of March 2006

There are DNA profiles of more than 2.9 million people in the federal Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, and officials want more.

On the FBI website, you can check how many people from your state are in CODIS. Click on your state in the map to see its number of: offender profiles, forensic samples, CODIS labs, labs participating in NDIS (the National DNA Index System), and investigations the FBI says CODIS has officially helped.

Find out more about what these categories mean on a separate page. The FBI notes the offender count has "many states now expanding legislation to include other felonies," but as the USA TODAY story explains, the state moves aren't coming without controversy.

On another note, a recent “Study Fuels Debate over Police Lineups”

The police lineup is a time-honored staple of crime solving, not to mention of countless cop movies and television shows like "Law and Order." Each year, experts estimate, 77,000 people nationwide are put on trial because witnesses picked them out of one.

In recent years many states and cities have moved to overhaul lineups, as DNA evidence has exposed nearly 200 wrongful convictions, three-quarters of them resulting primarily from bad eyewitness identification.

In the new method, the police show witnesses one person at a time, instead of several at once, and the lineup is overseen by someone not connected to the case, to avoid anything that could steer the witness to the suspect the police believe is guilty.

But now, the long-awaited results of an experiment in Illinois have raised serious questions about the changes. The study, the first to do a real-life comparison of the old and new methods, found that the new lineups made witnesses less likely to choose anyone. When they did pick a suspect, they were more likely to choose an innocent person.

Witnesses in traditional lineups, by contrast, were more likely to identify a suspect and less likely to choose a face put in the lineup as filler.

Psychologists who favor these so-called sequential double-blind lineups say that showing witnesses people one at a time makes lineups more difficult for the witness, and therefore better. Witnesses have to compare the person in front of them against their memory of the crime, rather than simply against the other faces in the lineup.

"It turns a lineup into a much more objective, science-based procedure," said Gary L. Wells, a professor of psychology at Iowa State University and a prominent proponent of blind sequential lineups. "The double-blind is a staple of science; it makes as much sense to do it in a lineup as it does in an experiment or drug trial."

The movement to change lineups took off in the 1990's after a growing number of DNA exonerations. New Jersey was the first state to adopt the sequential method, in 2001. The Wisconsin Legislature recently recommended the same approach, as did commissions in North Carolina, Virginia and, last week, California. Boston and Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, use sequential lineups, and Washington, D.C., is studying them in one district.

Still, lineup methods remain an open debate: law enforcement officials in California and New York have resisted changes, arguing that the evidence in favor of the sequential approach is not firm.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref01.html

In New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) program has been expanded to five city hospitals in the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens, making the program city-wide. SART was initially launched in The Bronx two years ago and a year after that expanded into Brooklyn.

SARTs are composed of specially trained forensic examiners and rape crisis counselors who provide sexual assault victims with state-of-the-art forensic and counseling services within one hour of their arrival at a hospital.

Before the SART program was implemented, every rape victim who sought treatment at a city hospital received a forensic examination designed to collect physical evidence for use in criminal investigations and prosecutions. However, not all victims were examined by dedicated, specially trained Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners (SAFEs), and many were not examined within one hour of their arrival. The longer the wait, the more difficult the experience for the victim, and the more likely that valuable physical evidence-and the victim's willingness to cooperate with law enforcement-will be lost. The SART program directly addressed these problems by creating a team of SAFEs dedicated specifically to providing high-quality forensic examinations and counseling services to every sexual assault victim within one hour of their arrival.

All SART members have received intensive training, approved by the State Department of Health, which includes properly identifying, collecting, and packaging forensic evidence, accurately documenting injuries, and attending to the emotional needs of rape victims. Coordinated by a project director, SART members are dispatched around the clock to conduct thorough physical examinations, collect potential DNA evidence, and document both internal and external injuries. Just as importantly, SAFEs are accompanied by volunteer rape crisis counselors who provide victims with emotional support and refer them to appropriate counseling and social services.

The Bronx and Brooklyn programs have proven successful at minimizing trauma to the victim and reducing the risk that critical evidence will be lost, damaged or overlooked. Since it began operating in April 2004, the Bronx SART has produced impressive results.

Through the end of February, 413 sexual assault victims were treated at Bronx public hospitals by SART examiners. Of those victims, 95 percent were examined within one hour of their arrival, compared to only 63 percent in 2003, before the SART program began. In addition, 87 percent of victims were examined for evidence of microscopic genital injury using a device called a colposcope, compared to only 27 percent in 2003. Colposcope use has led to the documenting of genital injuries in 55 percent of the cases, compared to 28 percent in 2003. Non-genital injuries were also documented in 56 percent of the cases, compared to 45 percent in 2003. Finally, 37 percent of rape kits collected from SART hospitals yielded viable DNA profiles, compared to 33 percent at other Bronx hospitals over the same time period. Nearly 63 percent of the rape kits collected in SART hospitals were positive for DNA, compared to only 46 percent in non-SART hospitals.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref02.html

In Florida inmates who believe DNA can prove their innocence would no longer face a deadline for pursuing the issue under a measure passed Friday by the House.

When lawmakers four years ago gave prisoners the right to seek DNA tests to try to prove their innocence they put a time limit on the measure. The deadline came in October, but was extended to this coming July by the state Supreme Court.

The measure, which passed 113-1, removes the time limit and allows anyone convicted of a felony and sentenced in the past, or in the future, to petition for DNA testing.

Starting July 1, the bill, if passed, will also allow prisoners who plead guilty or no contest to crimes to seek to have their plea thrown out if new DNA evidence that they didn't have access to before they entered their plea arises.

The measure also requires DNA evidence from crimes to be kept as long as the person's sentence.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref03.html

In Pennsylvania a state commission that would investigate at least eight cases of wrongful conviction may widen courtroom interpretations of the state’s post-conviction release and DNA testing laws. 
 
A bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in mid-February would form a 30-member Innocence Commission, whose members would be appointed by the governor, members of the General Assembly and the chief justice of the state Supreme Court. 
 
The project specializes in post-conviction DNA testing that will yield conclusive proof of innocence. 
 
Although there are exceptions, Saloom said law relating to post-conviction release and DNA testing often are interpreted narrowly in Pennsylvania courts and prosecutors resist DNA testing in many cases. 
 
There are several reasons for resistance, said Colin Starger, staff attorney at the Innocence Project who works on Pennsylvania cases. 
 
“One reason they give is because they believe they have to be opposed in one case; otherwise, everybody’s going to come out of the woodwork for DNA testing,” he said.  
 
“I think that’s a fairly unconvincing argument. One, that’s not what happens; there aren’t frivolous requests. Two, any frivolous requests would be denied.” 
 
A second reason is there’s a perception that a DNA test request is an attack on the prosecutor or the strength of his case, putting him on the defensive. 
 
“It’s wrong,” Starger said. “DNA testing is not an attack on the prosecutor. It is an acknowledgement that science has advanced and proof not available before is now available. 
 
“DNA testing, as often as not, actually confirms guilt. If someone has confidence in the verdict, he should be willing to put it to the test.”

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref04.html

Cases Involving DNA Evidence

Recent Review of the Duke Case:

This was reunion weekend at Duke University. But while alumni gathered from around the country, the school remained under the shadow of the rape charges that have rocked the campus.  
 
Two lacrosse players have been charged with raping an exotic dancer at an off-campus party last month. While new information about the case emerges nearly every day, there's a lot that we still don't know. In this week's cover story, Newsweek magazine gets at the question of who is telling the truth.  
 
Susannah Meadows, a senior writer for the magazine, co-authored the article. She is a Duke alumna and returned to the campus to investigate the story. This morning, she visited The Early Show to talk about what she found out. "I have learned more than I knew ever in four years there, in four weeks," she told co-anchor Harry Smith. "More about the community, more about the school than I ever knew."  
 
DNA evidence  
Many rape cases are solved by the DNA evidence. But in this investigation, the tests have not provided the airtight answers investigators might have hoped for. Meadows says that could change in the future. "There may be DNA. In this first round of tests, they did find DNA under the woman's fingernails. But the tests, as to whose it was, were inconclusive," she said." There are new tests that are expected back," she adds, and these tests could lead to other conclusions.  
 
The suspects  
Last week, a grand jury indicted two lacrosse players, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty, with rape, kidnapping and sexual assault. It's expected that a third player also will also be charged. Attorneys for the accused say their clients are not guilty. Seligmann has already suggested he has evidence proving he was not present during the time of the alleged attack on the dancer.  
 
"What we found out was that in this period of time when the alleged rape would have been happening, he made eight cell phone calls, and so basically, we narrowed down the time when he could have been involved to a few minutes, unless he was using his phone during the process," Meadows said.  
 
She also uncovered details about how the accuser identified the suspects. "What I learned was that when the accuser was going through the photographs of the players, she broke down when she got to one of them," Meadows told Smith. "But at the same time, this whole process is kind of fraught, because what we've learned is that she was only showed pictures of lacrosse players, which is unusual for a lineup."  
 
The other dancer  
The other woman who was hired to dance at the off-campus party on March 13, the night of the alleged attack, was Kim Roberts. Meadows spoke with her about what she remembers from the party. "She talked about how she remembered the alleged victim showing up sober," Meadows said. "And then Kim remembered that they had been given drinks. They had each been given a mixed drink. Kim did not drink hers. She said the alleged accuser spilled hers, actually after having had a little bit of it, and then she drank Kim's. And it was after that, shortly after that that Kim remembers the alleged accuser becoming out of it, stumbling, having a glassy look in her eye, unresponsive look in her eye."  
 
Meadows said that information has raised the possibility that some sort of date rape drug was slipped into the dancers' drinks. "It's likely that she got all those tests when she went to the hospital that night," said Meadows of the accuser. "When I spoke to the prosecutor two weeks ago, he hinted at this — he hinted at the possibility that there might have been something put into her drink."  
 
Digital photos  
The defense attorneys say their case is bolstered by digital photos, which show the women at various points throughout the party. But Meadows says the pictures do not appear to be very persuasive. "I looked at them, and they're interesting," she said. "But there's a gap in the time when you see the women. So there's 12:03, then we don't see another woman until 12:30. I just don't think they're significant one way or another. I think they're interesting. But that time period is not accounted for."  
 
The prosecutor  
The case has turned a spotlight on the Durham County district attorney, Michael Nifong, and Meadows spoke to other attorneys in the area about Nifong's reputation. "They all have wonderful things to say about him. Even some of the defense attorneys have said this is a good lawyer who has never, ever courted publicity," she told Smith. "But at the same time, he's up for election. We can't ignore that fact."

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref05.html

Other cases involving DNA evidence include:

Pittsburgh - A man serving a life term for a murder conviction will be set free because DNA tests show that hairs from the killer's mask and hat did not come from him, a defense attorney said.

Drew Whitley, 50, was convicted of second-degree murder in 1989 in the killing of Noreen Malloy, a 22-year-old McDonald's restaurant manager who was shot to death outside the restaurant in Duquesne, near Kennywood Park, in August 1988.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref06.html 

Ohio - Columbus police have announced a DNA match in a two-year-old attempted rape.

Police say that the DNA of Sherman Justice, 19, matches evidence from an attack on a woman on the Near East Side in January 2004. The woman was walking on the street in the early evening when a young man forced her at gunpoint to enter an abandoned house at 714 Miller Ave. Inside the house the man tried to rape the woman, but he was scared away by noise at a neighboring house.

Justice's DNA was acquired by law enforcement officials because he was a convicted offender. According to Franklin County Municipal Court records, Justice was arrested and convicted last year of deliberately providing false information to Reynoldsburg police.

Columbus police are searching for Justice, whom they classify as a fugitive. Police consider Justice to be armed and dangerous, and they are requesting that anyone with information on his whereabouts contact police, or anonymously through Central Ohio Crime Stoppers, (614) 645-8477. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref07.html

California - San Francisco police have solved a 33-year old murder — one of the oldest in the department's history — through a database that matched the DNA of the suspect with a Stockton felon, according to police.

Police arrested John Puckett, 71, Friday morning in connection with the death of Diana Sylvester, a 38-year-old University of California nurse, who was killed on Dec. 22, 1972 in her apartment in the 1200 block of 6th Street.

After a swab test, police matched Puckett's DNA against the DNA collected at the scene of the crime. Sylvester was stabbed in her apartment and was probably raped, according to Morris Tabak, Deputy Chief of Investigations for the San Francisco Police Department.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref09.html

Washington - Aberdeen Police used DNA left behind at a crime scene to link a 25-year-old Aberdeen man arrested last month to burglaries at two Aberdeen industrial companies in December and January. 
 
The Grays Harbor Prosecutor’s Office charged Shawn R. Clark with two additional counts of burglary this week for breaking into Airgas, at 111 Commerce St., on Jan. 16, and Industrial Electric, at 2100 Industrial Road, on Dec. 17, Aberdeen Police Capt. Dave Johnson said. 
 
Clark was already in custody after he broke into Sears on March 27, tripped the alarm and was caught inside. 
 
Evidence was recovered at both scenes and Detective Bret Ellis was able to talk the crime lab into processing the items for DNA, Johnson said. 
 
“The crime lab was able to extract the DNA of Shawn Clark from these items which linked him to both burglaries,” he said. 
 
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref11.html

California - A cold murder case was revived today when DNA analysis led to the arrest of a man suspected of raping and murdering a nurse in her apartment in San Francisco's Inner Sunset District police 33 years ago, San Francisco police announced Friday.

John Puckett, 71, was 38 when 25-year-old Diana Sylvester was murdered on Dec. 22, 1972. He was arrested in Stockton early Friday by investigators from the San Francisco and Stockton police departments after evidence found at the crime scene was analyzed using methods unavailable in 1972, linking him to Sylvester's death, according to police.

In the years since Sylvester was killed, California has required the collection of DNA evidence in serious felony cases, a change that has proven a great help to investigators, San Francisco Deputy Police Chief Morris Tabak said.

Just as fingerprints can be analyzed and matched in criminal investigations, police can now turn to the state's Combined DNA Index System to try and match the DNA profiles of suspects to profiles already in the system, he said.

It was this sort of evidence match, along with recent technological advances in analyzing crime scene evidence that led to Puckett's arrest. His DNA was in CODIS because ``he's had a considerable criminal history in California,'' Tabak said.

Tabak said he believes cold case arrests will continue to get easier to crack because changes in the law mean there is more DNA entering the CODIS system.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref12.html

Arizona - The state of Arizona rested its case against Dr. Bradley Schwartz Thursday with a DNA expert who bolstered the testimony of a defense expert.  

Bruce Budowle, who has a doctorate in genetics and works for the FBI, told jurors in Pima County Superior Court that he believes that one in every 13,000 white people shares the same partial DNA profile as that found on the car radio knob of slaying victim Dr. David Brian Stidham.  

Prosecutor Sylvia Lafferty told Judge Nanette Warner Wednesday that she was forced to call Budowle to the stand because one of her other experts, Department of Public Safety criminalist Curtis Reinbold, made a mistake when he told jurors early in the trial that one in every 20 million white people shares that DNA profile.  

Lafferty said that although the prosecution "would be taking a hit" by having Budowle testify, she couldn't ethically leave jurors with the false impression that the DNA profile is that rare.  

Regardless of the numbers, all three of the experts agreed Ronald Bruce Bigger could not be excluded as the source of the DNA.  

According to prosecutors, Schwartz hired Bigger to kill Stidham in October 2004 because Stidham abandoned the medical practice they shared when Schwartz was forced into drug rehab after an indictment on prescription-fraud charges.  

Schwartz is facing one count each of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.  

If convicted, he could receive a life sentence with or without parole on the murder charge. The conspiracy charge carries a life sentence with parole possible after 25 years.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref14.html

New Jersey - A DNA analysis has determined that a hair found in a crack in a bedroom wall in the home of Krisann and Frank Badics came from the infant boy the couple was in the process of adopting.  

Assistant Prosecutor Christie Bevacqua contends the 10-month-old child, whose name was Jae, lost the hair on Sept. 16, 2004, when Krisann Badics lost control and slammed the baby into the wall.  

Badics and her husband, who authorities allege did not get help for the child, are on trial in Superior Court, New Brunswick, for endangering the welfare of the infant who has since been placed with another family by the adoption agency the Badics were using.  

The Badics are facing up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the second-degree charges.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref15.html

North Carolina - A Camp Lejeune Marine corporal was charged with a sex offense Wednesday after a DNA test connected him to the alleged crime.

Cpl. Sergio G. Lujan, 21, of 2nd Medical Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, was charged with second-degree sexual offense, said Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown.

Authorities were first notified Feb. 8 after a woman went to Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital to report she had been raped, Brown said.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref16.html

Illinois - Seven months after a Riverdale community was alerted about a possible serial rapist, a 21-year-old resident has been charged in two of four reported assaults, authorities said Wednesday. 
 
Wesley Toney was charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault. He is accused of breaking into a home and forcing a 17-year-old girl to have sex at gunpoint. He was also charged with attempted criminal sexual assault after allegedly trying to break into another home to attack a girl, authorities said. 
 
Toney was arrested at home Tuesday after DNA evidence linked him to the two cases, Police Chief Pete Satriano said.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_17_may_06/vol17_ref17.html

Did You Know?

Topic: National DNA Day

Many of you may know about or at least be familiar with National DNA Day, celebrated on April 25th. What exactly is it, and why is this day considered to be important in the DNA community? Hopefully you will find the information below of some interest. 

First celebrated to mark the 50th anniversary of James Watson's and Francis Crick's discovery of DNA's double helix structure, National DNA Day occurs annually on April 25 to commemorate the completion of the Human Genome Project in April 2003. 

A Brief History of DNA's Discovery 
 
1865 Gregor Mendel, in experiments with peas, theorizes about how traits are passed on from one generation to the next.  
 
1869 Swiss Scientist Friedrich Miescher isolates a material in cells that will eventually become known as "deoxyribonucleic acid" or DNA. He calls it "nuclein." 
 
1909 German geneticist Wilhelm Johannsen coins the term "gene" to describe units of heredity. 
 
1911 America scientist Thomas Hunt Morgan shows that these units of heredity are located on chromosomes. He receives the Nobel Prize in 1933. 
 
1929 American biochemist Phoebus Levene determines the chemical makeup of DNA, identifying its four bases - - adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. 
 
1943 English biochemist William Astbury makes the first X-ray diffraction images of DNA's structure. 
 
1952 Work with viruses and bacteria by American scientists Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase supports the theory that genes are made of DNA. 
 
1953 At Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, Francis Crick and James Watson describe the double helix structure of DNA and suggest how genetic material is copied. Their idea of a double helix formation is based on X-ray diffraction images made by Kings College's Rosalind Franklin, who was part of a lab led by Maurice Wilkins. Watson, Crick and Wilkins receive the Nobel Prize in 1962. 

April 2003 -- Fifty years ago this week, a one-page report published in the British science journal Nature revolutionized science. In it, James Watson and Francis Crick described the three-dimensional structure of DNA.  
 
Knowing DNA's structure immediately solved one of biology's greatest mysteries -- how genetic instructions are passed on from one generation to the next. And it opened the door to what has become the hottest area of medical research -- genetics.  
 
Human Genome Project director Francis Collins says, even 50 years later, it's impossible to overstate the importance of knowing the structure of DNA: 
 
"It is so intertwined in every bit of what we do experimentally, in terms of perceiving our own position in the scheme of life on this planet. It has become one of those givens that is so central to your thinking that you stop thinking about it, but if somebody took it away from you, your whole intellectual foundation would collapse, and it would be unimaginable what we would be doing now if we didn't know about the double helix."  
 
Source: http://www.npr.org/news/specials/dnaanniversary/index.html 
 

Editor: Karen Daurie

Karen.Daurie@DNALabsInternational.com  

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