Dna Database

I would like to respond to Dan Rodricks ' column on taking DNA samples from people who are arrested ("DNA: Why wait for an arrest?" May 3). I support his opinion, but I think he could have included more reasons, especially for a general gathering of DNA. If all of us gave samples, the medical world would benefit tremendously. Close matching organ donors could be located immediately. Untold information could ease the tracking of diseases from the common cold to virulent cancers.

I would like to respond to Dan Rodricks ' column on taking DNA samples from people who are arrested ("DNA: Why wait for an arrest?" May 3). I support his opinion, but I think he could have included more reasons, especially for a general gathering of DNA. If all of us gave samples, the medical world would benefit tremendously. Close matching organ donors could be located immediately. Untold information could ease the tracking of diseases from the common cold to virulent cancers.

Anne Arundel County joined seven other Maryland jurisdictions yesterday that have agreed to collect genetic samples from convicted criminals for the state's DNA database - helping the state police whittle away at a backlog of unsampled convicts that had grown to an estimated 13,500. The partnership is part of an effort by Col. Thomas E. "Tim" Hutchins, state police superintendent, to sign up other law enforcement agencies to help collect the samples, which are then sent to the state police crime lab to be entered into the state's DNA database.

When a high court ruling came down this week limiting the use of DNA evidence, police in the state were investigating 20 cases based on DNA  collected after they arrested suspects charged with committing a violent crime or burglary. Now, it's unclear whether any of  those cases will lead to prosecutions. The Court of Appeals decision puts in question the constitutionality of collecting the samples before a conviction, and the state is considering whether to appeal the matter to theU.S.

Authorities have ordered nearly 1,600 Baltimore residents who are on parole or probation to have genetic samples collected as part of what state police say is a plan to reduce the state's DNA database backlog. Similar notices will be sent out in the coming weeks and months. More than 6,000 city residents under the supervision of the Division of Parole and Probation never had DNA collected, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Bartholomew. Statewide, the number is more than 14,000. Bartholomew said some of those offenders might have been released years ago. The parole and probation division sent the initial orders for Baltimore residents by mail June 6, directing them to report to the 5th Regiment Armory on June 30. State police spokesman Gregory M. Shipley said he was confident that all 1,591 samples could be taken efficiently in the same day. Lab workers, crime scene technicians and police officers will set up an assembly line and take samples by quickly swabbing the inside of the donors' mouths, Shipley said.

More arrests are being made using DNA, thanks to expanded collection and processing in Maryland, state and city police said Thursday morning. At a joint news conference, State Police Superintendent Col. Terrence B. Sheridan and Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III announced that the state's DNA database had assisted in the arrests of 101 people for serious crimes committed in Baltimore over the past three years, including 68...

When a high court ruling came down this week limiting the use of DNA evidence, police in the state were investigating 20 cases based on DNA  collected after they arrested suspects charged with committing a violent crime or burglary. Now, it's unclear whether any of  those cases will lead to prosecutions. The Court of Appeals decision puts in question the constitutionality of collecting the samples before a conviction, and the state is considering whether to appeal the matter to theU.S.

Maryland officials announced Friday the arrests of more than 250 suspects through the use of a DNA database previously backlogged with more than 24,000 samples. Since 2007, Gov. Martin O'Malley said, the state has significantly decreased the backlog of DNA that had not been entered into the state's database. State officials say 267 arrests have been made since those samples were entered into the system. At a news conference with Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III and other city and state leaders, O'Malley said 28 of those arrests have led to convictions, including four life sentences.

In the Baltimore County Police Department's effort to solve old crimes using new methods, two men have been charged in two separate 1998 rapes after DNA evidence linked them to the crimes, police said yesterday. Thurman Spencer, 35, of the 1200 block of Turpin Lane in Baltimore was charged with first-degree rape, two counts of armed robbery, two counts of first-degree assault and two counts of using a handgun in a crime of violence, police said. The charges stem from an Oct. 15, 1998, incident in Owings Mills in which a man about to enter his girlfriend's apartment was approached by two men with a gun. The suspects forced the man inside the apartment and robbed both victims.

A law requiring gun makers to provide state police with ballistic information is ineffective and should be repealed, with the money put to better use, says a report by the Maryland State Police. No criminal cases have been helped by the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, or IBIS, which began in 2000, according to the report. "The program has not yielded any investigative results in four years," said Sgt. Robert A. Moroney, a state police spokesman. The idea behind the law was to amass a database of ballistic markers.

Since Maryland began collecting DNA samples from suspects arrested in violent crimes and burglaries, it has used that evidence to win 58 convictions, including eight in rape cases. As the state's DNA database becomes more extensive and more genetic samples are collected in crime scenes, the usefulness of this tool to solve crimes and put dangerous people behind bars will only grow. DNA evidence is much more accurate than eyewitness identification and more ubiquitous than fingerprints.

Eight years after finding its first DNA match in an evidence database in 2002, Baltimore County police, elected officials and laboratory analysts gathered yesterday to mark the 150th such match for the county's crime laboratory. And while the extraction and testing process for genetic material is not as high-tech as popular crime dramas make it seem — biology lab supervisor Lynnda T. Watson said it can take about two months to properly analyze a single DNA sample — officials pointed to DNA testing as a powerful tool in their arsenal.

In their first debate of the election year Monday, Gov. Martin O'Malley and rival Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. each insisted he has a better plan for jobs, education and spending taxpayer dollars wisely as Maryland emerges from a national recession. Neither O'Malley, the Democratic incumbent, nor Ehrlich, a Republican seeking to reclaim the position he lost four years ago, made a major blunder. But the televised debate was tense at times, in part because of a free-flowing format that allowed the two to respond to each other directly while the moderator sat silently for long stretches.

She spent years wishing that her rapist had made good on his threat to kill her, enduring anxiety attacks, and trying to put the sexual assault that took place when she was 13 years old behind her. And then, she said in court Tuesday, after seven years, just as she started to be happy again, the call came: Her attacker had been identified through a DNA database. He was arrested in March, and she was forced to relive the memories, again worrying for her life. In May, she said, Anne Arundel County police confirmed her fears, telling her that the man who'd attacked her was now trying to have her killed.

It has been nearly 10 years since Maryland adopted one of the nation's most far-reaching rules for reopening old criminal cases and giving inmates convicted of murder and rape an opportunity to prove their innocence based on DNA evidence. It has been a year since the National Institute of Justice, in support of expeditious and scientific truth-finding, gave the state a $307,000 Kirk Bloodsworth grant, named after the Maryland man who was the first American sentenced to death and later exonerated by DNA testing.

Maryland officials announced Friday the arrests of more than 250 suspects through the use of a DNA database previously backlogged with more than 24,000 samples. Since 2007, Gov. Martin O'Malley said, the state has significantly decreased the backlog of DNA that had not been entered into the state's database. State officials say 267 arrests have been made since those samples were entered into the system. At a news conference with Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III and other city and state leaders, O'Malley said 28 of those arrests have led to convictions, including four life sentences.

Valerie Neumann was drugged and raped in 2006, but the DNA her attacker left behind is still untested. Her case is not unusual. Government estimates indicate that hundreds of thousands of rape kits and other evidence linger on laboratory shelves, even though DNA evidence and the FBI's nationwide DNA database of offenders have helped convict thousands of criminals. How widespread is the problem? Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch reported 10,500 untested rape kits in Detroit and another 4,000 in Houston.

More arrests are being made using DNA, thanks to expanded collection and processing in Maryland, state and city police said Thursday morning. At a joint news conference, State Police Superintendent Col. Terrence B. Sheridan and Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III announced that the state's DNA database had assisted in the arrests of 101 people for serious crimes committed in Baltimore over the past three years, including 68...