Media Coverage: The Johnia Berry Act

Arrests may put DNA to wider tests

Bill would permit samples from felony suspects to be checked against other crimes

By COLBY SLEDGE Staff Writer, The Tennessean
Published: Monday, 03/26/07


Tennessee police could soon be collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested in connection with a violent felony and checking them against samples from other crimes if a currently proposed bill becomes law in the state.
The bill is making its way through the legislature as a growing number of police crime labs nationwide are creating databases of DNA taken from people who are not convicted or charged during investigations and using that DNA to match them to other crimes.
Such databases operate beyond the reach of state or federal laws. They have sparked a controversy, pitting the labs against civil libertarians and defense lawyers who say such databases violate the rights of those who supplied their DNA samples under different circumstances.
Current Tennessee law requires that anyone convicted of a felony on or after July 1, 1998, provide a blood sample to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation so scientists can extract the person's genetic code.
Under the proposed bill, named the Johnia Berry Act of 2007 after an East Tennessee State University graduate student killed in Knoxville in 2004, a DNA sample could be taken from anyone arrested in connection with a violent felony. Violent felonies would range from first- or second-degree murder to carjacking.
That sample could then be used to examine other crimes in search of a DNA match, said Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville. Ramsey and Sen. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville are co-sponsors of the Senate version of the bill.
"The parents (of Johnia Berry) encouraged me to do this, but I was a little reluctant at first," Ramsey said. "But then I considered, we take fingerprints of people who are charged, and lots of times DNA can prove innocence as well as guilt."
DNA of innocent isn't kept
Under the bill, if the charge is later dismissed or the person is not convicted, the TBI would destroy the DNA sample. If the person is charged or convicted of any other crime resulting from a match, however, the sample would remain in the TBI database, Ramsey said.
The bill is set to be reviewed in the Senate and the House on Tuesday. It is sponsored by state Rep. Jason E. Mumpower (R-Bristol) in the House.
Ramsey said the purpose of the bill is to improve the state's current DNA database.
"We don't have much of a database except for a very few convicted sex offenders," he said. "It's coming to where DNA is really the 21st-century fingerprint."
Ramsey said he had spoken to Gov. Phil Bredesen about the bill and that Bredesen said he "would be willing to work with me on this."
Few court rulings exist to say whether DNA databases are legal or whether data contained in them can be used in criminal cases. State legislators in Illinois and New York this year are among the first to consider bills that would regulate or forbid the databases.
All 50 states and the federal government maintain databases of DNA profiles taken from persons convicted or in seven states indicted for murder, rape and other crimes.
The DNA profiles are matched to genetic material taken from unsolved crimes through an FBI computer system. The system, called CODIS, has matched suspects to crimes in more than 35,000 cases, said FBI spokeswoman Ann Todd.
However, there are a growing number of DNA samples the FBI can't store. They include DNA taken from criminal suspects who aren't charged.