Category Archives: DNA Legislation

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WNCN) — The man accused in a string of sexual assaults known as the Ramsey Street Rapes will face a judge on Tuesday. DNA testing and genetic genealogy led police to charge Darold Wayne Bowden in the case.
One woman is pushing to change DNA collection laws our state. She’s changed legislation in North Carolina before and she’s determined to do it again.

FRANKFORT – The 2019 Legislative Session opened with Senator Denise Harper Angel continuing her work for victims of sexual assault — specifically on the testing of sexual assault forensic kits. After successfully passing two related bills, the senator has turned her focus to the online tracking of rape kits.

The bill amends section 4713 of Title 29 of the Delaware Code to require buccal swab DNA sampling of persons arrested for (instead of convicted of) certain violent felonies. It also requires blood DNA sampling of persons convicted of violent felonies,incarcerated in the Delaware correctional facilities.

RICHMOND, Va. — A bill to help people wrongfully convicted by flawed forensic science is under consideration in Virginia, helped by a man who spent more than three decades in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland’s legislature is considering expanding restrictions on how law enforcement uses DNA databases to identify criminal suspects.

A Florida Circuit Court has ruled that evidence produced through the use of STRmix™ – the sophisticated forensic software used to resolve mixed DNA profiles previously thought to be too complex to interpret – is admissible in Florida v. Reshaunte Jermaines Anglin (Case No. 2017-CF-7816-XX, Section F9), a 2016 case in which the defendant is charged with first-degree murder, robbery with a firearm, and evidence tampering.

Many people first became familiar with DNA testing through its use in the OJ Simpson murder trial in 1994. Now, 24 years later, there have been two dramatic advances in the capability of forensic genetics that mark the start of a new era.
The first is the amount of information we can predict about a person from DNA found at a crime scene, and the second is the way police can use open genealogy databases to identify people.

Gardaí will be able to share forensic evidence such as DNA profiles and fingerprints with authorities in other countries for the first time today.
Laws passed in 2015 are finally coming in to effect, meaning offenders arrested here could end up being linked to crimes outside of Ireland.

RICHMOND, Va. (WHSV) — The DNA data bank in Richmond is adding two additional misdemeanors requiring DNA collection because of a new law passed in the Virginia General Assembly — which was inspired by the deaths of Morgan Harrington and Hannah Graham.

June 19, news broke that DC had indicted a DNA profile the month before. Authorities couldn’t ID their suspect by name, but they had to act because the clock was ticking: If they waited much longer, they wouldn’t be able to prosecute sexual assaults committed by a serial hotel rapist in 2003.

Standing underneath a projection of their daughter’s high school senior portrait, Hannah Graham’s parents watched Gov. Ralph Northam sign legislation they hope will help prevent violent crimes similar to the one that took their daughter.
More than three years after the University of Virginia second year was abducted and murdered, state legislators this year passed two bills that mandate DNA analysis for people convicted of misdemeanor criminal trespassing or assault and battery.