Officials say expansion of DNA databank would help solve more crimes
Story Created:
Feb 2, 2012 at 7:32 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Feb 2, 2012 at 7:47 PM EDT
UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - Lieutenant Governor Robert Duffy was in town on Thursday, asking for support of a proposal that would expand New York State's DNA databank - something that some officials say could solve crimes and prevent repeat offenses from criminals.
Local law enforcement is applauding Governor Cuomo's proposal to expand the DNA database, something Lt Governor Duffy calls a "no brainer" to solve more crimes.
"It is great in terms of certainty," Duffy said. "I think it brings justice to the system and what it also does (is), it provides police and prosecutors with a tool to link those involved with other crimes."
Expanding the state's DNA databank would mean adding 400 different crime categories, including all felonies, all misdemeanors, and all crimes outside the penal law.
"Often, in very violent felony convictions, people were arrested or convicted on an average of 2 or 3 times on a lower level offense," Duffy said. "This will allow DNA to be put into New York State Police crime labs and hopefully, if that same person is responsible for other crimes, to have that person taken off our streets."
Duffy hopes changes like this could keep criminals like Robert Blainey from raping and killing, as he did with victim Linda Turner of the Davis Motel in Utica, as well as preventing victim Nancy Green from misidentifying her rapist, who also turned out to be Robert Blainey.
"It's really sort of endlessly fascinating to me that I was so sure of myself - that I knew his car, knew his face," Green said. "It never occurred to me that I would get it wrong."
Blainey's DNA was left on Green, and Blainey had been convicted of a previous crime. However, since there was no DNA databank, her case was weak in court, not leading to Blainey's arrest.
"The onus shouldn't be on us to do that," Green said. "It would be very nice if science could do that for us, which it can."
It is science that Lt Governor Duffy says provides 100 percent certainty.
"It is assigned numbers," Duffy said. "It is colorblind. It is a genetic barcode that has such a high degree of certainty that there's no doubt that a person with the evidence is linked to that barcode."
Lieutenant Governor Duffy says he's not aware of one case in New York State that involved DNA evidence that was overturned.
