Editorial - A Yellow Light to DNA Searches
Normally, if investigators find some DNA at a crime scene, a lab checks for matches in the database. If there is no exact match, the database search ends there. But sometimes the sample matches part of other people’s DNA, and the matches are strongest with a family link.
In the case of the serial killer nicknamed the “Grim Sleeper,” DNA samples he left at several crime scenes were a close partial match to Christopher Franklin, who was in a California prison on a weapons conviction. Investigators could tell that the killer had to be a close relative of Mr. Franklin and narrowed it down to his father, Lonnie Franklin Jr., after they found the father’s DNA in saliva on a discarded slice of pizza. Lonnie Franklin Jr. was charged with 10 counts of murder.
Using a partial DNA match this way could raise all sorts of privacy and civil liberties issues if not carefully controlled. Hundreds of people could fall under suspicion simply because they are related to someone in the criminal DNA database. Because blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately represented there, a first-time black offender has a better chance of having his DNA lead to a familial match than does a first-time white offender.
These concerns are serious but should not block the use of familial searching, which has led to several successful arrests in Britain. If other states want to proceed in this area, they need to follow the example of California, which has strict requirements for the use of the technique.
Under rules set up by Attorney General Jerry Brown, familial searching cannot be used unless all other investigative leads have been exhausted. The crime must be murder or rape, and the criminal has to be an active threat to public safety — still committing crimes.
A committee of lawyers and forensic experts in the attorney general’s office evaluates all requests to do a familial search and votes on whether to proceed based on those criteria, as well as the strength of the DNA match and several other factors.
Those procedures, however, are not codified into law, and they need to be, in California and in any other state that moves in this direction. (Currently, only California and Colorado have written policies.) Another attorney general could come along and loosen the procedures to allow abusive fishing expeditions.
One example of the potential for abuse is taking place elsewhere in California, where the district attorney of Orange County, Tony Rackauckas, has set up his own database, apart from the state’s, which he can use as he pleases. It includes many people whose arrests do not meet the standards set up by the state for inclusion in the DNA database. State lawmakers across the country need to require centralized databases with statewide laws governing their use.
Crime-fighting technology may be improving — and DNA sampling has been a huge boon to many innocent prisoners — but it must balanced alongside constitutional protections against intrusive searches.
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