A suspect in a 2003 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Essex was arrested Tuesday morning in eastern Baltimore County because he had given a DNA sample in Ohio, police officials said.
“It seems that it happens every week that a detective rushes up to me to say we?ve cleared another case” based on DNA evidence, Baltimore County Police Chief James Johnson told reporters.
Gov. Martin O?Malley used the case to illustrate the increasing use of testing of DNA, the genetic fingerprint unique to each person, “to take predators off our streets.”
Through increased spending and filling vacant positions, O?Malley said, the state has been able to clear the backlog of 24,300 DNA samples to be sent to the central national registry and has increased the number of samples in the state database by 30 percent to 37,000. By training corrections officers to take the cheek swabs for cell tissue used to map DNA, almost of the nearly 600 inmates who owed samples have now been tested.
The state also spent $800,000 to purchase long-needed instrumentation at the Maryland State Police?s Pikesville Forensic Sciences laboratory, where DNA samples from across the state are sent.
So far this year, 162 DNA “hits” have been made in criminal cases, lab officials said, compared with 220 matches found statewide in all of 2006.
“For a long time we have all understood the importance of fingerprinting” in crime case, O?Malley said. It?s time to consider taking DNA tests at the time of arrest, he said ? not just after conviction, as Maryland law provides. There has been some reluctance to do that because of concerns about civil rights, the governor said, adding that he might propose such a change in the law.
While DNA can be used to catch repeat offenders, “it is also very important that we exonerate the innocent,” O?Malley said.
The state police lab was opened just last fall, and the lab?s deputy director, Teresa Long, said the facility should be fully staffed by February and “has the potential for growth.”
The goal is to collect samples at all the entry points to the criminal justice system, Long said, by training other collectors. DNA is left at crime scenes through blood, semen and saliva, and the larger the database the more it can help give detectives leads in cases, she said.
