California takes lead on DNA crime-fighting technique

The state will search its database for relatives of unidentified suspects in hopes of developing leads. Critics voice privacy concerns.
By Maura Dolan and Jason Felch
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

April 26, 2008

California will adopt the most aggressive approach in the nation to a controversial crime-fighting technique that uses DNA to try to identify elusive criminals through their relatives, state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown announced Friday.

Employing what is known as familial or "partial match" searching, the policy is aimed at identifying a suspect through DNA collected at a crime scene by looking for potential relatives in the state's genetic database of about a million felons. Once a relative is identified, police can use that person as a lead to trace the suspect.

The new plan makes California a leader in such searches, which several states permit but do not vigorously pursue. Colorado has recently begun to examine its database for relatives of unknown criminals as part of a research project.

Brown said the new approach was justified by violent crime plaguing the state. He emphasized that it would be used only when all other leads had been exhausted.

"We have 2,000 murders a year in California -- that is 10,000 since the Iraq war started -- and that is a lot of killing," Brown said. "When you see it and see the victims and have to go to funerals, it is pretty serious stuff."

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