sherri13
07-08-2002, 08:42 AM
Bill is key to unlocking prison secrets
By Colleen Cason
July 7, 2002
The Staronline.com
Some of California's worst felons are just saying "no." And they are getting away with it. In fact, some might be getting away with murder. These convicts are refusing to provide a DNA sample. And a California Senate bill permitting prison officials to use reasonable force to take it from them is in trouble. SB 1242 -- proposed by Sen. Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga -- is stalled in the Appropriations Committee. The roadblock is the Board of Corrections -- which sets guidelines for county jails. It wants $60,000 to develop a model on how to take the specimens. This is bad timing, considering the state's dire fiscal straits. The fact is Department of Corrections officials -- which oversee state prisons -- have developed such a protocol and could share it with their local counterparts. Four years ago, California passed a law requiring criminals who commit violent felonies to provide DNA samples so their genetic profile can be entered into a state crime-fighting database. Approximately 900 prisoners have flat out refused. The reason for their refusal? "Nah, nah, nah. You can't make me." Currently prison guards can take the specimens only by court order, and judges aren't issuing them. Refusal is a misdemeanor. A guy doing 20 years to life apparently doesn't sweat a petty crime on his rap sheet. So the same folks who bound and gagged victims are all bent out of shape because a crime technician wants to twirl a piece of cotton around their mouths. The same folks who shed a stranger's blood suddenly are averse to a needle prick on their finger. Under the Brulte bill, the taking of a sample by force must be videotaped for the prisoner's protection. I'm fairly sure all these 900 prisoners are not great civil libertarians, sitting in their cells agonizing over the loss of yet another of our freedoms. I'm guessing many of them left their DNA where they shouldn't have. You'd think they'd give it up. After all, no one in prison is guilty. Just ask them. DNA has exonerated dozens of offenders. Currently, investigators in many California counties submit genetic evidence from unsolved crimes to the Department of Justice database in their search for the guilty party. It's important to get prisoners' DNA because it comes with their names attached. When evidence from the unsolved crime matches the known criminal's profile, it's called a cold hit. Serial offenders who pick their victims at random often are not even identified in the original investigation of the crime. I lack sympathy for our jailhouse objectors. Criminals who harm innocent people must be prepared to give up freedoms. After all, prisoners must submit to haircuts as well as body cavity searches for contraband. They also lose their right to vote. The privacy of your chromosomes should be a privilege reserved for law-abiding people. Just ask Donald Edgren, a Monterey city councilman. The mother of his two sons and his former wife, Sylvia, was murdered in June 1981. She had been sexually assaulted. For 20 years, his boys lived without the knowledge of who killed her. Monterey police held on to the evidence and when DNA came of age in law enforcement, they were able to enter it into the database. In January of last year, it matched the profile of one Michael Adams, who gave blood when he was in jail on a probation violation. He had been convicted of the assault of an elderly woman. At the time of his arrest, Adams was a free man. He has since been convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for Sylvia's murder. "It didn't bring back their mother," said Edgren, "But at least my sons know he won't harm anyone else." "This bill is a chance to protect somebody else," he told me. If SB 1242 passes, criminals will lose the right to say no to vital information society has the right to know. -- Colleen Cason's column will run Sundays only throughout the summer as she works on a special project. Her e-mail address is ccason@insidevc.com.
By Colleen Cason
July 7, 2002
The Staronline.com
Some of California's worst felons are just saying "no." And they are getting away with it. In fact, some might be getting away with murder. These convicts are refusing to provide a DNA sample. And a California Senate bill permitting prison officials to use reasonable force to take it from them is in trouble. SB 1242 -- proposed by Sen. Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga -- is stalled in the Appropriations Committee. The roadblock is the Board of Corrections -- which sets guidelines for county jails. It wants $60,000 to develop a model on how to take the specimens. This is bad timing, considering the state's dire fiscal straits. The fact is Department of Corrections officials -- which oversee state prisons -- have developed such a protocol and could share it with their local counterparts. Four years ago, California passed a law requiring criminals who commit violent felonies to provide DNA samples so their genetic profile can be entered into a state crime-fighting database. Approximately 900 prisoners have flat out refused. The reason for their refusal? "Nah, nah, nah. You can't make me." Currently prison guards can take the specimens only by court order, and judges aren't issuing them. Refusal is a misdemeanor. A guy doing 20 years to life apparently doesn't sweat a petty crime on his rap sheet. So the same folks who bound and gagged victims are all bent out of shape because a crime technician wants to twirl a piece of cotton around their mouths. The same folks who shed a stranger's blood suddenly are averse to a needle prick on their finger. Under the Brulte bill, the taking of a sample by force must be videotaped for the prisoner's protection. I'm fairly sure all these 900 prisoners are not great civil libertarians, sitting in their cells agonizing over the loss of yet another of our freedoms. I'm guessing many of them left their DNA where they shouldn't have. You'd think they'd give it up. After all, no one in prison is guilty. Just ask them. DNA has exonerated dozens of offenders. Currently, investigators in many California counties submit genetic evidence from unsolved crimes to the Department of Justice database in their search for the guilty party. It's important to get prisoners' DNA because it comes with their names attached. When evidence from the unsolved crime matches the known criminal's profile, it's called a cold hit. Serial offenders who pick their victims at random often are not even identified in the original investigation of the crime. I lack sympathy for our jailhouse objectors. Criminals who harm innocent people must be prepared to give up freedoms. After all, prisoners must submit to haircuts as well as body cavity searches for contraband. They also lose their right to vote. The privacy of your chromosomes should be a privilege reserved for law-abiding people. Just ask Donald Edgren, a Monterey city councilman. The mother of his two sons and his former wife, Sylvia, was murdered in June 1981. She had been sexually assaulted. For 20 years, his boys lived without the knowledge of who killed her. Monterey police held on to the evidence and when DNA came of age in law enforcement, they were able to enter it into the database. In January of last year, it matched the profile of one Michael Adams, who gave blood when he was in jail on a probation violation. He had been convicted of the assault of an elderly woman. At the time of his arrest, Adams was a free man. He has since been convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for Sylvia's murder. "It didn't bring back their mother," said Edgren, "But at least my sons know he won't harm anyone else." "This bill is a chance to protect somebody else," he told me. If SB 1242 passes, criminals will lose the right to say no to vital information society has the right to know. -- Colleen Cason's column will run Sundays only throughout the summer as she works on a special project. Her e-mail address is ccason@insidevc.com.