Washington » The father of Elizabeth Smart pressed Congress on Thursday to give states money if they allow police to take a DNA sample from those arrested for violent crimes.
Ed Smart, who has become a nationally known advocate for crime victims, also wants Utah to take action. He backs a bill now before the state Senate that would lower the threshold to collect "genetic fingerprints" from perpetrators. As it stands, Utah law only allows police to take samples from convicts.
"This law is not a partisan law. It is all about our children and saving lives," said Smart, whose daughter survived a harrowing nine-month abduction in 2002.
So far, 21 states have passed similar legislation, known nationally as Katie's law. Smart joined a panel in Washington to support a federal law pushing every other state to follow suit.
Katie's law is named after Katie Sepich, of New Mexico, who was raped, strangled to death and lit on fire in 2003. Police found her killer's skin and blood under Sepich's fingernails, providing investigators with a DNA sample.
"I can't tell you what hope this brought to our family," said her mother, Jayann Sepich.
But that hope was tempered when the sheriff explained that the DNA sample would be checked only against convicted felons.
"I was shocked," she said. "I knew this scientific wonder would give us the best hope of solving Katie's murder."
Her killer was subsequently arrested and convicted, but the Sepich family was still troubled that police could take fingerprints and mug shots from those arrested for a violent crime, but not DNA.
Ever since, Sepich has gone state by state pushing for the law named after her daughter, and she said she won't stop until it becomes the nationwide standard.
"We can't bring Katie back, but if we can work to see this law pass, we absolutely believe we can save other families this pain," she said.
Rep. Harry Teague, D-N.M., has introduced a law that would set minimum standards for arrestee DNA collection for violent felonies. States that didn't collect the sample and check it against the national database would see federal justice grants drop by 5 percent. If states surpassed the minimum standards, they could receive a 10 percent boost in their grants.
"We have the power to advance DNA collection to help one less parent grieve a child," said Teague.
A Utah Senate committee unanimously approved a bill this week that would require police to collect a DNA sample from any person booked into jail for a violent offense. That sample would only be entered into the database once the person was bound over for trial and it would be removed if they were acquitted.
The Utah bill, sponsored by Sen. Stuart Adams, R-Layton, also increased the fee levied on suspected criminals from $100 to $150 to help offset the DNA testing. A fiscal estimate shows that expanded DNA testing would cost the state $250,000 next year and $500,000 the year after that.
The bill is awaiting action in the Senate.
Smart, who represents the Surviving Parents Coalition, called it "the biggest no-brainer out there and it shouldn't be an issue for anyone."
The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah expressed reservations during the committee meeting, saying the law could invade a person's privacy. The ACLU has filed constitutional challenges against similar laws in a number of other states, questioning the legitimacy of adding the DNA of potentially innocent people to the national database.
Smart said he knows some worry that "the great Big Brother has this information," but he said the sample identifies the person's gender and is coded before entering the database. It is not used for any genetic purpose.
Smart called the legislation a tool that "will bring closure to some families, exonerate other families and most importantly, it will prevent this nightmare from happening to so many families."
