Van de Kamp Supports Genetic Code Bank Using Blood to Solve Crimes

Data on blood samples taken from criminals convicted of certain sex and violence crimes would be kept in a statewide computerized genetic code bank to help solve future crimes, under legislation endorsed Friday by state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp.

The so-called “genetic fingerprint” of each blood sample would provide a unique biological profile of each felon that could match up with blood, semen or body tissue at crime scenes.

California is one of several states considering such a data base. Other states have already used the technique as key evidence to convict several rapists, and Van de Kamp gave his approval earlier this year to use such evidence in court.

At a news conference in Los Angeles Friday, Van de Kamp cited a federal study showing that nearly two-thirds of those released from state prison are arrested for new crimes within three years, and said the legislation to create the centralized Cal-DNA data base will help officials to deal with repeat-offenders.

“We can’t keep these people longer than the law allows,” said Van de Kamp. “But we can try to make sure that they are caught and shipped straight back to prison as fast as possible if they commit new crimes.”

Van de Kamp said the data base would “not only be used to establish convictions but to exonerate the innocent.”

The legislation, proposed by Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), would require that those convicted of murder, assault or battery provide blood samples when they are imprisoned, and current felons would provide the samples when they are paroled or discharged from custody. Sex crime offenders already must do so.

Each sample would be analyzed for DNA data, each person’s unique genetic blueprint, and stored in a statewide computer network similar to the present Cal-ID fingerprint bank. Its information would be made available to every police and sheriff’s department in the state, Van de Kamp said.

The minutely accurate technique was developed in Great Britain in 1985, and can be used on blood, semen or tissue samples. Each convicted criminal’s genetic “profile” stored in the data bank could be compared to DNA-analyzed evidence found at crime scenes, much as fingerprints are now.

The odds that two individuals will share a similar genetic “profile” are about 1 in 10 million, although Van de Kamp said earlier this year that theoretically, the odds were “30 billion to 1” that two people would have the same DNA structure. Van de Kamp contends that fingerprints, with odds running 64 billion to 1 against duplicate sets, are not always clear or available, and give “much weaker identification.”

In California, a man charged with 63 counts of rape faces a June trial in Orange County based on DNA matching.

Ventura County prosecutors have used 60 human hairs found at a death scene to allegedly link a suspect to the crime, and Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner declared in February that the genetic fingerprinting technique would be used to prosecute two men in the rape and murder of a Pasadena woman.

Hart’s bill would require a central DNA laboratory created in conjunction with UC Berkeley, and regional laboratories in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, and the San Francisco Bay Area.