The ACLU is challenging a California law that requires police to collect the DNA of all suspected felons.  Michael Risher an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco court Tuesday that the government should not be allowed to take the “genetic blueprint” of someone who hasn’t been convicted of a crime.  One-third of the 300,000 Californians arrested on felony charges each year are never convicted.  This does not stop the police from talking a DNA sample.

Risher said the voter-approved law allowing DNA testing after all felony arrests sacrifices privacy in exchange for questionable gains in identifying criminals.  The three-judge panel questioned whether DNA sampling is a major invasion of privacy.  They did, however, indicated that the California law may be vulnerable because of a year-old ruling in another case.  The case in question was decided by the federal appeals court in June 2009 ruling in a case from Las Vegas. In that case 2-1 decision said police violated the constitutional ban on unreasonable searches when they extracted DNA from a man who was under arrest – but was not suspected of any other crimes – so they could enter it into a criminal database.

Judge Milan Smith said DNA testing, taken with a swab from the inner cheek, is no more intrusive than fingerprinting and is “a really good way of identifying people.” He said Risher was asking government officials to be “Luddites (who) can’t use modern technology.”

If the California case is similar, “our hands are tied” and the court must overturn the law, Smith told Deputy Attorney General Daniel Powell, the state’s lawyer. Smith said the state would have to ask the full 27-judge court to order a new hearing before a larger panel, which would have the authority to overturn the Nevada ruling.

Powell argued that the current case is different because California has a law that authorizes post-arrest DNA testing and Nevada does not. He also said the California law protects privacy by making it a crime to release DNA information to anyone but a law enforcement officer.

In a news conference before Tuesday’s hearing, Attorney General Jerry Brown proclaimed the benefits of DNA evidence as “the fingerprint of the 21st century” and a powerful crime-fighting weapon. “This is no more a violation of privacy than you have when you give up your fingerprints,” he said.

The opinions in this article are not necessarily those of DNA Identifiers, the Blog Owners or Authors.

An arrest was made Wednesday June 7, 2010 of 57 year old   Lonnie David Franklin Jr. He has been charged with 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The killings include one man and the remainder, young black women. The “Grim Sleeper” moniker was applied by law enforcement due to a long, 14 year lull between murders from 1988 to 2002.

Franklin was reportedly a mechanic for a Los Angeles Police Department station near the center of the 1980’s murder spree. The majority of the killings were confined to a 2 mile radius in South Los Angeles, just a few miles east of the Hollywood Park Race Track. Several detectives, led by Dennis Kilcoyne, have been working full time on this case for years. ABC News reports that, although there were many suspects identified, they failed to zero in on Franklin. A newly adopted technique called familial matching provided the much needed clues to this investigation.

In April of 2008, California adopted an aggressive approach to a controversial crime fighting technique known as familial or “partial match” searching. The policy is aimed at identifying a suspect through DNA collected at a crime scene by looking for potential relatives in the states database. State Atty. General, Jerry Brown said the new approach was justified by violent crime plaguing California (2000 homicides per year), and said, “It would be used only when other leads had been exhausted”.

Partial or familial matching has been done in Britain for years with a 10-14% rate of catching perpetrators. The United States government employed a variation of this process in Kansas supporting the apprehension of Dennis Radar, the self described “BTK” serial killer.

In the case of Mr. Franklin, the suspect’s son was arrested and convicted in a felony weapons charge and swabbed for DNA in 2009. After being added to the California database, detectives were alerted regarding a partial match to evidence found at the “Grim Sleeper” crime scenes. Upon investigation of Franklin relatives a match was found to Lonnie Franklin.

72 more fragments of human remains have been found in the rubble or the World Trade Center after almost 9 years.  The fragments consist mainly of tiny pieces of bone were found during the process of sifting of tonnes of earth and debris recovered from Ground Zero.

Two truckloads of debris had not yet been forensically examined.  The fragments were large enough that they could be easily identified.  The new debris, the last taken from the rubble of the towers that had yet to be combed, was uncovered as construction work made new parts of the site accessible.

The New York medical examiner’s office said that DNA testing would be carried out.  They added that they hoped it would provide positive identification for the families of the victims.

At this time about 1,00 of the nearly 3,00 people who perished in the 9/11 attacks have yet to be formally identified.

The city began a renewed search for human remains in 2006. More than 1,800 remains have been found at this time.

With the stroke of Gov. Ted Strickland’s pen on April 6, 2010, experts say Ohio now has some of the best laws in the country to protect the innocent from wrongful convictions and put the right people behind bars.

Strickland, joined by a handful of men who were exonerated after serving years in prison for crimes they did not commit, signed Senate Bill 77. It sets statewide standards for retaining biological evidence, requires the taking of DNA from anyone arrested on a felony charge and requires new procedures for suspect lineups.

Goodman introduced the bill after a Dispatch investigation in January 2008 exposed widespread shortcomings in Ohio’s DNA law, including the derailing of prisoner DNA tests by systemic indifference or hostility.

In addition to requiring that DNA samples be taken from anyone convicted of a felony after July 1, 2011, the new law:

•Requires law-enforcement agencies to retain biological evidence for up to 30 years in murder and sexual-assault cases. The limit is five years when a defendant pleads guilty.

•Opens DNA testing to parolees and those on the sex-offender registry.

• Mandates blind suspect lineups, in which the officer presiding either does not know the identity of the true suspect or uses a photo-lineup technique in which only the witness can see pictures placed in folders.

•Gives an incentive for law-enforcement officials to record interrogations.
(excerpted from Jim Siegel of THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH)

By Alex Blake

DNA testing is done for many different reasons.  Sometimes DNA evidence can link an alleged criminal to a crime scene or DNA paternity and maternity testing can identify a child’s father or mother. While DNA relationship testing can determine if two individuals are full or half siblings and DNA ancestry testing can determine ethnic origins and genealogical roots.

How DNA testing is done depends on the results desired and the samples available. DNA profiling is the process of analyzing and comparing two DNA samples. Only identical twins have the exact same DNA sequence, everyone else’s DNA is unique. This makes DNA the perfect way to link individuals to each other or to locations where they have been.

The entire DNA chain is incredibly long, much to long to examine all of it. Human DNA is made up of about 3.3 billion base pairs. The differences between DNA samples occur only in small segments of the DNA–the rest of the DNA is very similar. DNA testing focuses on those segments that are known to differ from person to person.

As DNA testing has evolved over time, the testing methods have become more precise and are able to work with much smaller DNA samples. Early DNA testing was done using dime-size drops of blood. Today’s tests can extract DNA from the back of a licked stamp (in some cases) but is most often done by using cheek swabs.  These cheek swabs are easy to collect, painless and very accurate The DNA must be extracted from whatever sample is provided. DNA must be isolated and purified before it can be compared. In essence, it has to be “unlocked” from the cell in which it exists. The cell walls are usually dissolved with a detergent. Proteins in the cell are digested by enzymes. After this process, the DNA is purified, concentrated, and tested.

DNA testing is done most often today using a process called “short tandem repeats,” or STR. Human DNA has several regions of repeated sequences. These regions are found in the same place on the DNA chain, but the repeated sequences are different for each individual. The “short” tandem repeats (repeated sequences of two to five base pairs in length) have been proven to provide excellent DNA profiling results. STR is highly accurate–the chance of misidentification being one in several billion.

February 20th was a big day for Darlene and Cliff Ryckman.  It was the day when they got back their missing dog Molly.  Molly the Shih Tzu made it home because of DNA testing which was completed by local police.

In an unusual case that spanned nearly a year, DNA sample were taken to prove that Molly belonged to Cliff and Darlene Ryckman.

Molly had no microchip and no tattoo, so when the tiny dog went missing last year the Ryckmans were at a loss to prove the identity of the dog they had raised from birth.  Even though they found out who in the neighborhood had taken her in.

Darlene, said “I thought you know what, they do it on humans, they got to do it on animals,” when asked where shy got the idea to preform a DNA test on Molly.

The Ryckmans also own Molly’s sire, Howey, and had the DNA paternity test done to compare genetic material between the two. In all three test were performed on each dog.

The stressful year started last March 4 when the two dogs were let out into the back yard of the family’s home.  The gate wasn’t quite shut, and the two dogs started to chase a cat and the next thing Darlene knew, she couldn’t find Molly.

“I prayed every day,” she said. “I went to a psychic. I put it in The Spectator.”  Darlene also put an announcement on local TV, got the word out at some schools and put up flyers.

Almost right after Molly went missing, a woman responded to the flyers Darlene had posted.  She said had seen two people in the neighborhood pick up a Shih Tzu and take it into an apartment building.  Cliff, tracked down a specific apartment, and was told by a woman there that they did not have Molly.

The Ryckmans weren’t convinced and they were persistent with police.  Eventually they ended up face-to-face with the people who had picked up Molly on the street when they were out with Molly.  Darlene said of the encounter, “Seeing Molly just walking away from me … she was going nuts when she seen me and my husband, and I just broke down because I couldn’t take my dog and these people wouldn’t give me my dog back.”

Cliff said the whole situation was very upsetting for the couple.  He said,”It upset me to go to work because my wife would be crying everyday.”

But finally, after much determination and pursuing Molly through three moves by the people who had Molly, the Ryckmans paid $110 for DNA tests for the two dogs.  Constable Annette Huys, one of two officers working on the case, took the DNA samples.  Huys said, “I’d just come out of the forensic unit, so I was used to collecting lots of DNA, but not necessarily from dogs.”  Huys said unfortunately everybody had fallen in love with the Molly and it didn’t matter which side police dealt with, they were always crying when it came to talking about the Molly.

It took about two weeks for the samples to come back a match. Molly was returned to her the Ryckmans on February 20th.

Staff Sergeant Jack Langhorn called the entire case including taking doggy DNA “extremely unusual.” He said, “It was a unique situation … It wouldn’t be something that we’re going to do on a regular basis.”

Darlene said she’s grateful to the two officers who worked on the case and that, she’ll be getting Molly microchiped shortly.

The Hamilton Spectator

Dog DNA

Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of California (January 25,2010) ruled 5-2 to authorize the use of “John Doe” DNA arrest warrants. California law, consistent with the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment holds that prosecution for an offense commences when an arrest warrant is issued and “names or describes the defendant with the same degree of particularity required for a complaint.”

In a brief overview DNA.gov discusses the proper preparation of a John Doe DNA Warrant. It states that “if no offender match occurs in cases which statutes of limitation are an issue, consideration may be given, in consultation with the prosecutor to prepare a John Doe warrant. These types of warrants can identify the perpetrator according to his or her DNA profile. The 13 loci profile generated by the crime laboratory should be clearly printed on the face of the warrant”.

In a the case of Paul Eugene Robinson, a man charged with raping a Sacramento woman in 1994 a warrant was issued three days before the 6-year statute of limitation ran out in August of 2000, this warrant describing only the suspect’s DNA profile. That profile was then linked to Robinson through the California Department of Justice Laboratory SDIS system. Mr. Robinson had been convicted on sexual assault charges previously. {JURIST, Sarah Miley}

Supporters of the John Doe DNA indictments say it is a legitimate way to vindicate victims, prevent offenders from escaping justice, and prevent future crimes. Without the start of prosecution, a case cannot be tried once the statute of limitations has run. This means that if a suspect is identified one day beyond the statutory limit, he cannot be tried for the offense.

Critics argue that issuing an arrest warrant based on a DNA profile is a disingenuous device of the prosecution that evades the statute of limitations and infringes on the constitutional rights of the accused. In the dissenting opinion in the Robinson case, Judge Carlos Moreno stated “the warrant did not become effective until a fictitious name is replaced with the suspect’s real name, and at that point the statute of limitations had expired”.

While the John Doe warrant appears to be in place in California there are still many challenges for it to face before it becomes common practice.

I was reading Bedrooms, Backseats and Courtrooms which is available at http://www.dna-testing-paternity.com/ or by clicking the link and it got me to thinking about the aricle by Michael Cole I had read a few months ago…

For many years now we have been hearing about how hard it is to be a single mother. They have to hold down a job, maintain a household IE cook, clean, do laundry etc. They in effect have two very demanding full time jobs.

I think it is outstanding that there are so many programs designed to allow a single mom live with dignity. They have access to free or reduced cost child day care. There is “WIC” Women, Infants, and Children. There are education grants,reduced cost housing, free job training, and the list just goes on.

Google “single moms” and you get 19,500,000 results. Lots of programs geared to the the single mom.

Being a single parent is difficult at best, sometimes it is nearly impossible.

So why is the other side of the coin so often ignored? Where is “MIC” Men, Infants, And Children? Why are single fathers treated like low-life lay abouts if they are desperate and overworked enough to ask for a little assistance? It is no easier for a man to raise his children alone, in fact society often makes it harder.

Single dads are told “Be A man” or “Suck it up”. They are being men. They are raising the children they brought into this world. Yet, it is somehow their fault that the mother of their children could not be bothered to stick around and help raise the kids she conceived.

I recently worked with a man who narrowly escaped jail time because he didn’t want to pay child support to his daughter’s deceased mother. He supplied Michigan’s Friend of the Court with her Death Certificate at least twice that I know of, and yet it still took months to get it cleared up.

Some people will ask ” What right do you have to write this?” or “How dare you!” So here is a small part of my story as a single dad. I’m sorry, but it reads like a bad plot in a soap opera.

In Jan. of 1992 my wife told me she she wasn’t happy and “needed space to find herself” I tried to get her to go to marriage counseling, no way would she go. Let’s work it out ourselves, she said. I was willing to do anything to make her happy.

We lived in So. California and I worked in construction. I would get up at 3:30 AM six days a week to provide for my wife and two kids. As a result of my early schedule and heavy workload I was ready to sleep between 8:30 and 9:00 PM. She told me I needed to stay up longer so we could work it out. I told her anything she wanted I would try.

She pulls out the smallest zip-loc baggie I had ever seen with an off-white powder in it. “What’s that?” “Something to help you stay awake.” Being rather naive I said okay. Out comes a mirror, razor blade, and a straw. She proceeded to show me how to prepare and snort a line of Meth-Amphetamine. Stupid me, I tried it. Over the next few weeks she feed me way more than I could handle. The result? A drug clouded mind that would agree to anything she said.

She got her own apartment in March. In July she took my daughter and moved to New Jersey, 3,000 miles away. My son and daughter hardly know each other. New discoveries and revelations of what a fools paradise my marriage had actually been kept hitting me from all sides. I lost everything I had.

My family spirited my son away to Michigan because I was such a mess. Shake a man’s world hard enough the world doesn’t fall apart, the man does. I don’t know how I survived. Dumb luck and a little voice in the back of my mind “Your son needs you, you’re all he has.”

Even after all these years it is painful to think about.

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

Fast forward to December 1994. I found enough of myself to get back up and stand on my own two feet. I got on a bus to Michigan with a suitcase half full of clothes(every thing I owned) and a vague plan. “Get the drugs out of my system, get my son, and go home to California to start over”.

I quit the drugs cold turkey with no rehab. I then realized if I went back to California the hole I had dug for myself and climbed out of was there waiting for me. I decided to start over in Michigan.

My sister and mother convinced me ask for state help, despite my very limited success in California I agreed.

Here is the “help” that was given me, a single dad trying to cope with loss and raise a young son who couldn’t understand why his mommy left him.

I was enrolled in a program called “Work First” I was thrilled, my new home was going to help me!! They were going to teach me use a computer. I was going to learn to program and repair computers. I would be able to get a high paying job in a high demand growth industry. I would once again be a fully functional and contributing member of society.

I couldn’t wait to go to class. I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. I was still recovering from the meth, my body wanted to sleep, my mind wouldn’t let me. I was up and ready an hour before I needed to be. I was on my way!

My first week I took my tests and did my assignments. I was in the top five percent of my class. Our assignment on Thursday was to fill out a job application. I didn’t have a car so I walked to the gas station across the street. I got a job paying $5.00 an hr.

Friday I told my instructor what I had done. “Congratulations, you graduated”. I was out of the program. No free training. But not to worry, we’ll still train you.

Since I am a high school graduate it would have only cost me $150.00 a credit and I only needed about 20 credits! Making $200.00 a week how was I to get $3,000.00 for my training?

I have no doubt that in some data bank I’m listed as a glowing success for the program. Less than one week to get me a job, without having to pay for my training.

I stopped asking for help after that. To have all that help taken away because I wasn’t lazy and was willing to work for what I got.

I worked hard and became Manager of that station and have since moved on to better things.

I still had a choice to make, work two jobs to buy my son expensive toys and clothes or spend time with my son. I chose to spend time with my boy. I did without so I could give him what he needed. He needed glasses, he got them. When he needed braces, he got them. We may not have had a lot, but we had each other.

So yes, I do know what I’m talking about.

I did not write this so anyone would feel sorry for me, I am proud of my son and what I overcame to raise him. He is in college with a 4.0 average.

If you are a single parent and have read this far, have hope. You have something that was not available to me. You have a computer, you have the Internet.

With these tools you can build a home based business. You can be there for your children while building a second income on line. You don’t have to be gone most of the time to give them a little more.

You will have to work hard, but you’re used to that. Anyone who tells you “Sign up, Do Nothing And Get Paid” is lying to you or trying to scam you. At best they want you to scam money from other hard working people.

There are many free and low cost training programs available on line. Do some research and find the one that is best for you.

And always remember,You are not alone, there others like you, overcoming the odds, join them.

There are many organizations world wide that are trying desperately to help find missing children.  South African Provincial Police are trying to set up a National DNA Database of Children to assist in locating missing children.  Officers are trying to use media, movie theaters, banks and even air lines to show video clops showing pictures and details of the over 114 children who are missing in the provinces.  They are also planning to ask malls, trains and taxi operators to distribute pamphlets with photos and details of the missing children

Police announced these plans as officers continued searching for six-year-old Okuhle and three-year-old Mabaxole Maqhubela, the latest additions to the province’s list of missing children. They disappeared in Laingsburg last week on their way from East London to Cape Town by taxi.

During a weekly press briefing, provincial visible policing head Robbie Roberts, said missing children were one of the “biggest concerns” in the South Africa.  According to Roberts “on a daily basis a lot of children are reported missing.”

Roberts warned parents not to leave their children alone or let them out of their sight.  “And ask yourself when you put your children in the care of somebody, do you really know that person? Do you really trust that person?”

Roberts urged parents to tag their children, including on the tag the child’s name and the parents’ contact details, especially when taking their children to a large public area like a beach. “It’s unbelievable how many children get lost on a beach in one day,” he said.

Roberts said children needed to be taught their home address and parents’ cellphone or landline number. “Once recovered, we find it difficult to get this information from children.” He also urged parents to take photographs of their children so they would always have a recent one.

Provincial Police Commissioner Mzwandile Petros had tasked Roberts, other NGOs, to come up with a more effective plan to tackle the problem.

In the most recent missing children case, Roberts said officers had been unable to find recent photographs of Okuhle Maqhubela and her brother, Mabaxole. The brother and sister went missing from a petrol station in Laingsburg at midnight during a trip from East London to Cape Town, where they would have been reunited with their mother.

Roberts said police in the province would approach the national office to have an identity kit they had created for children, to be distributed in the Western Cape and the rest of the country, if approved.

Once filled out and completed, the kit would include details of the child, a recent photograph, his or her fingerprints, a DNA sample, his or her blood type and details of his or her parents. Dessie Rechner, founder of the NGO Pink Ladies which helps police with search operations, said she was “extremely excited” about the identity kit and proposed database.

Missing children are a huge concern international. Many laboratories are trying to assist in the search for missing children. DNA Identifiers offers a Child Safety Identification Kit like the one described in the article to help keep children safe.

Child Safety Kit

More about this article

Associated Press Writer, JEFF CARLTON, released a story on January 7, 2010, regarding a convict who had been convicted on rape charges of a Texas Tech University student in 1985. The wrongly convicted man, Tim Cole, was an Army Veteran who died in a prison in 1999 at the age of 39.  A 2008 DNA test proved his innocence, 13 years after another man confessed in a series of letters to Lubbock County prosecutors and judges.

Cole’s family sought the pardon. The State Governor, Perry, though expressing sympathy, maintained he didn’t believe he was legally permitted to issue one. However, Cole’s brother tells The Associated Press that a Perry aide says the governor will pardon Cole.

La Times