RALEIGH -- N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper wants to expand DNA testing in North Carolina by adding 10 analysts to reduce a growing backlog of cases.
"For too long, North Carolina has allowed evidence to stack up while DNA could be solving more crimes more quickly," Cooper said at a news conference Monday. "We have the science to catch violent criminals and get them off the streets."
Yesterday, a legislative-oversight subcommittee recommended approval of Cooper's plan to hire the new employees. The proposal goes before the full Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations today.
The unit extracts DNA - a person's genetic "fingerprint" - from such evidence as rape kits so that it can be entered into a statewide database of 38,314 convicted felons in hopes of a "cold hit," a match with a convicted felon or a link with another unsolved case.
Three analysts who now extract convicted felons' "blood-stain cards" for entry into the state DNA database would be retrained as molecular geneticists, enabling them to test rape kits from cases without suspects. There are about 20,000 rape kits sitting in police department evidence rooms statewide waiting to be tested.
The SBI is so swamped now that it only accepts rape kits and evidence if investigators have a suspect.
If Cooper's request is approved, it would more than double the lab's genetic unit beginning in January; there are five analysts now. The expansion would enable the SBI to double the 600 cases it now tests.
With the state's budget deficit for next fiscal year estimated to be as high as $2 billion, it's uncertain whether the request will be approved.
The cost would be absorbed by the U.S. Department of Justice until July. State and federal legislation also is pending to help pay for DNA tests, including a law that goes into effect in January requiring convicts who were required to submit DNA to pay a $300 fee.
About 2,800 backlogged convicts' stain cards awaiting entry into the database will be "outsourced," sent to a private lab for DNA extraction.
Last year, outsourcing solved a series of 11-year-old rapes and murders in Goldsboro.
"Our goal here is to test every single rape kit," Cooper said. "It makes me angry to know that we have potential evidence resting on a shelf in police departments."
For Allison McGuire of Cary, a junior at N.C. State University who was raped as a teen-ager in Charlotte, it means that her 1999 rape kit may finally be tested.
"I think it's a step in the right direction," said McGuire, who as part of an N.C. State rape-survivor group gathered signatures on a petition to bring attention to backlogged rape kits.
"That will give me closure. But there are many more victims who need their kits tested," said McGuire, who agreed to use her name to raise awareness of the issue.
Already, Cooper has devoted $200,000 from a lawsuit settlement to reduce the rape-kit backlog.
Cooper is pushing to expand North Carolina's DNA database. State law only requires DNA samples from those convicted of certain violent felonies, while 23 states require DNA from all convicts.