DNA Data Bank Oversight Panel
Minutes of meeting of June 12, 2024
The meeting convened at 9:32 a.m.
Participating in the meeting were Lab; Sevasti Papakanakis, DESPP-Forensic Lab; Daniel Renstrom, DESPP-Forensic Lab; Megan Olt, DESPP-Forensic Lab; Mandy Young – DESPP; Lisamaria Proscino, Office of the Attorney General; Robert Meredith, OCPD; Joseph Lopez, OCPD; Michael Pedevillino, OCPD; Regina Herbert, Judicial Court Support Services; Sergeant Lorie Lindo, DESPP; Detective Joe Sanford, DESPP; Elizabeth Tugie, Department of Correction; and Michael Gailor, Division of Criminal Justice.
The minutes of the meeting on March 13, 2024 were unanimously approved.
The lab reported that as of June 1, 2024, a total of 136,445 convicted offender samples have been submitted to the lab; 692 since March 1, 2024. Of these samples, approximately 7593 were determined to be duplicate submissions. One hundred twenty nine thousand four hundred sixty-one are searching in CODIS. Approximately 115 convicted offender samples are waiting to be processed/entered into CODIS. There are approximately 24,700 profiles in the Forensic Index. The lab reported that 11,462 investigations have been aided so far by 12,070 confirmed hits. Approximately 145 candidate matches are under evaluation. The average time it takes to send out notification of the hit once it has been obtained is 12.5 days. The lab reported that it is updating the profiles of older samples to include additional loci. It has outsourced this and will be updating samples from 1994, 1995 and 1996 once the data is received back from the outsourcing laboratory.
Regina Hebert reported that Judicial sent 406 letters to persons sentenced to a period of probation advising them to submit to the taking of a biological sample, 277 of the letters were first notices while 129 were follow up letters to individuals who had not provided a sample. In non-probation cases, Judicial sent 49 initial letters and 23 follow up letters. Judicial sent 11 memos to the Department of Correction advising them of the need to collect a sample. In total, Judicial collected 277 samples through March 2024.
The Sex Offender Registry Unit reported that it added 85 new offenders to the sex offender registry and 171 new offenders to the deadly weapon registry between January and March 2024. The unit obtained 41 biological samples from sex offenders for the purpose of developing a DNA profile and 15 samples from persons on the deadly weapon registry.
The Department of Correction reported that it has collected 674 samples in the year to date, 374 since the last Oversight Committee Meeting on March 13, 2024. DOC also reported that 66 collections are pending and that 60 inmates have refused to provide a sample.
The Committee went into Executive Session at 9:54 a.m. to consider matters related to individuals from whom samples had been obtained. Upon coming out of Executive Session at 10:14 a.m. the Committee reported the following:
Samples 6/12/24 A & B – Consideration of the status of those samples was tabled so that further information could be obtained.
Samples 6/12/24 C-L – Will be purged from the Data Bank.
The meeting adjourned at 10:15 a.m.