Disposal of DNA Leads to Review

The revelation that the Los Angeles Police Department mistakenly destroyed evidence in 1,000 unsolved rape cases has ignited a debate about when, if ever, DNA evidence should be thrown out.

The disclosure has triggered discussion in the Los Angeles City Council, the Police Commission and among prosecutors, police and victims such as Patti Lancaster.

Ten years after she was raped at knifepoint, the slightest whiff of a certain men’s cologne--the kind her attacker wore--brings back horrible memories.

Santa Monica authorities closed her case in 1998 without an arrest when the legal deadline for prosecution had passed.

She was unhappy to learn that police policy allowed disposal of the evidence, which meant Lancaster might never know if the rapist got caught or whether he is still lurking about.

“That DNA evidence is like the rapist writing his name on a piece of paper and sticking it on the victim,” said Lancaster, 47, a producer of television commercials. “It’s right there. Why would you ever get rid of it?”

A Santa Monica police spokesman acknowledged that the department, like others in Los Angeles County, allows disposal of biological evidence when the statute of limitations expires. When investigations turn up no suspects, that legal time limit almost always expires before criminalists can find time to analyze the DNA.

New techniques for analyzing biological evidence and the collection of tens of thousands of genetic profiles have made DNA analysis the most valuable criminal investigative tool to emerge in decades, top law enforcement officials say.

Now such advances mean DNA can solve the oldest of cases, clear the wrongly convicted and bring relief to victims in rape cases that have been closed without being solved, many criminalists and women’s advocates say.

“Rapists repeat their crimes more than murderers do,” said Karen Pomer, a rape survivor and founding member of Rainbow Sisters. “DNA gives you the chance to stop them.”

Laura Johnson, administrator of the LAPD Support Services Division, said the department’s “policies and procedures have not kept up with the technology.”

Johnson headed the inquiry into the discarded evidence, called rape test kits. She said the study found that many detectives approved the destruction of biological evidence because they were unaware that the six-year statute of limitations had been extended as of Jan. 1, 2001. Some detectives decided the evidence was no longer needed for other reasons, such as the victim deciding not to prosecute.

“They should not be destroying the evidence in these cases [before the statute of limitations],” Johnson said.

The policy is under review. “That’s something we’re discussing with the city attorney,” she said.

LAPD Cmdr. Harlan Ward, head of the Detective Services Group, said the department may eventually decide to preserve all biological evidence.

“I would agree that we may be headed to where we will be holding everything,” he said.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, who has sparred with the LAPD over providing more resources to exploit DNA evidence, said that agency isn’t the only one lagging.

“I don’t think anyone in the Los Angeles County law enforcement community has done enough to take advantage of the advances in DNA science,” he said. “It’s developed so fast, and we are far from being on the cutting edge.”

With only a handful of criminalists and 60 to 80 new DNA requests coming in monthly, the crime labs focus primarily on cases heading for trial.

As a result, the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have reported a combined backlog of about 2,200 untested sexual assault kits, which are 5-by-7-inch envelopes containing swabs of body fluids obtained from the victim.

Cooley has said the planned $96-million regional crime lab, which will house the police and sheriff’s forensic laboratories, will not solve the problem. He contends the LAPD’s plan doesn’t provide enough space for its DNA unit.

For now, no biological evidence is being destroyed. The uproar over the destroyed rape kits prompted the LAPD to declare a moratorium. And the Sheriff’s Department, which does lab work for itself and cities other than Los Angeles, imposed a moratorium in November 2000, according to Peter Zavalo, head of the property and evidence unit.

The LAPD evidence controversy also spurred the Sheriff’s Department to launch a study of its own unsolved sex offense cases. Dan Scott, operations sergeant in the family crimes unit, said he is reviewing a sample of 350 cases to determine whether rape kits have been destroyed “when they shouldn’t have been.”

Both departments also are reviewing training programs and criteria used in deciding whether evidence should be saved or tossed. Currently, neither agency has written criteria.

Both departments rely heavily on individual investigators’ judgments, and they follow similar procedures for collecting, storing and retrieving evidence. The movement of rape kits among crime labs, property rooms, clerical personnel, detectives and prosecutors is painstakingly documented.

In the Sheriff’s Department, detectives, in writing their initial crime report, assign evidence a “retention” number, which usually refers to the length of the statute of limitations.

About every six months, personnel in the department’s property and evidence unit in Whittier ask for instructions on what to do with the evidence. The unit has three 20-by-40-foot freezers where biological evidence is stored and will soon have a fourth.

Detectives tell the property room to save the evidence or destroy it. They are not required to give any explanation for their choice, Zavalo said.

“The case investigator is responsible, because they should be, and are, aware of what’s going on with the case,” he said.

At the LAPD, a supervisor must approve a detective’s decision, Ward said.

The authorization is given monthly on a “disposition summary” document that detectives receive from the property and evidence unit. Ward said that whoever approves the disposal of evidence is expected to review the case file or consult with any former detective assigned to it before authorizing disposal.

Johnson, the support services administrator, said unneeded evidence has to be thrown away periodically to save space.

“We definitely have space problems,” she said. The property room, which is on Ramirez Street, will soon add about 2,000 square feet of freezer space to the 3,000 it already has. Even with that, she expects the unit to run out of space before the end of the year if the moratorium continues.

The California Department of Justice maintains two computer databases of DNA evidence, one with more than 224,000 DNA profiles of people convicted of sexual offenses, domestic assault, certain robberies and other crimes. Although the database was established in 1994, it didn’t become large enough to be useful until about 18 months ago, according Frank Fitzpatrick, director of forensic services for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The state also maintains a database of DNA material collected from unsolved sex offenses. The two databases permit investigators to cross-check DNA profiles in unsolved rapes with the profiles in the database of criminals.

As the number of DNA profiles in the databases increases, detectives have a greater chance of finding rapists. That’s why the new statute of limitations law that went into effect in 2001 is so important, experts say.

At the very least, the law extends the time limit from six years to 10. It allows the investigation to continue without any deadline for sex offenses committed after Jan. 1, 2001, if the DNA is analyzed within two years of the offense.

For crimes committed before 2001, the biological evidence must be analyzed before 2004 to put the statute of limitations on hold.

The statutory clock will not start ticking again until the DNA has been conclusively matched with a suspect, at which time authorities have one year to begin prosecution.

Rape survivors say the new law, combined with rapid scientific advances, has made the destruction of biological evidence and the huge backlogs especially egregious. For them, it means law enforcement has frittered away opportunities to solve cases and stop countless other sex offenses.

The Rainbow Sisters will hold a “DNA Awareness March and Rally For Public Safety” in front of Los Angeles police headquarters at Parker Center to, among other things, protest the destruction of rape kits.

“This is a core safety issue,” said Jeri Elster, a rape survivor and member of the group.

Even if a rape kit cannot be used to prosecute the case for which it was meant, the DNA profile could help stop the rapist if he is charged with a subsequent offense, said Lisa Kahn, a prosecutor who heads the Los Angeles County district attorney’s forensic science unit.

“It can be used as corroborative information,” she said.

More than that, Kahn added, rape survivors need to know if their attacker has been caught.

“From a purely humanistic view point,” Kahn said, “if you can someday tell a victim, ‘Hey, we’ve caught the guy, we’re prosecuting him, and we’re going to put him away for a long time,’ it gives them some relief.”

Patti Lancaster, the 1992 rape survivor, agrees. “To know he is in prison would make me feel fabulous,” she said.

“Just this morning on the set [for a commercial shoot], one of our people had the cologne that was so similar to his,” she said, referring to the rapist.

“It was a reminder of the incident,” she said. “That he’s still out there. That it can happen again.”