news

NEWS
DNA COMES UNDER FIRE
By AUDREY COOPER
© The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - When a warrant identifying a suspect only by his DNA led to charges against a man in a 1994 rape, law enforcement agencies hailed the tactic as an important advance in fighting crime.

But civil libertarians and the suspect's lawyer were troubled: Might not no-name warrants make statutes of limitations meaningless?

The debate's flash point came last month with the arrest of 31-year-old Paul E. Robinson. State computers matched Robinson's genetic code to a no-name warrant issued in August - just as the six-year statute of limitations was about to expire.

“I think someday this DNA technology will be where fingerprints are now, where you just put the info in the computer and get a hit on your bad guy”, Sacramento Police Detective Peter Willover said on Tuesday.

The August 1994 rape was one in a series of five assaults by a man that police and newspapers called the Second Story Rapist for his penchant for attacking women who lived on the second floor of apartment buildings. Robinson was charged with five counts of sexual assault.

Other law enforcement agencies around the country have filed such DNA warrants, but Robinson is believed to be the first suspect arrested through one, said Jim Polley, director of governmental affairs for the National District Attorneys Association, based in Alexandria, Va.

Lawrence Kobilinsky, assistant provost at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, agreed Tuesday that it was the first such arrest.

“This will affect the entire country”, warned Johnny Griffin, Robinson's attorney and a former federal prosecutor.

Robinson's DNA was collected by police on an unrelated criminal matter, Willover said. He would not give details about that case.

Nevertheless, condemnation of the arrest by civil libertarians was immediate.

Griffin said he would ask that the case be thrown out on the grounds that the statute of limitations has expired because his client was not identified by name in the warrant.

Also, Griffin said he would try to get the DNA evidence dismissed because Robinson's genetic code should never have been entered into the law enforcement computers. Under the law, the DNA of a suspect under arrest can be entered into the computer only for certain offenses.

Statutes of limitations, which limit the time prosecutors can file charges, help ensure fair trials, Griffin and civil liberties groups argue. Memories of witnesses fade, and evidence gets lost or contaminated, making it difficult to defend the accused, Griffin told The Sacramento Bee.

“It's difficult for a defendant to mount a defense that is six years old”, added Jeffrey Adachi, chief public defender in San Francisco and a board member of the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice. “The whole purpose of a statute of limitation is to protect the right to a fair trial”.

Willover and Anne Marie Schubert, a Sacramento County deputy district attorney in the adult sexual assault unit, said Robinson's arrest and the victim's gratitude justify no-name warrants.

“It validates what we're doing”, Schubert told the newspaper. “To the survivor, they don't care whether it's one year, two years or 20years”, added Dave LaBahn, spokesman for the California District Attorneys Association. “This is a great test case.”

Willover said he expects DNA testing to be done on evidence from the other rape cases connected to the Second Story Rapist. Even the rapes that happened more than six years ago can help in the trial, he said.

Beginning in January, a new state law will nearly eliminate the six-year limit on rapes in cases where DNA evidence is available.