[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 67 (Friday, May 11, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     IN SUPPORT OF FUNDING FOR THE DEBBIE SMITH DNA BACKLOG PROGRAM

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. LAURA RICHARDSON

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 11, 2012

  Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my appreciation 
to Chairman Wolf and Ranking Member Fattah for working together to 
ensure that the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program is adequately 
funded in the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Act for 
Fiscal Year 2013.
  Given these difficult economic times, difficult choices must be made 
as to where scarce funds are to be allocated. Given the importance of 
the DNA Backlog Grant program to law enforcement agencies in my 
congressional district, I would have liked for the program to have 
received even more funding. But I am very pleased that the bill 
provides funding at the amount requested by the Administration, the 
sponsor of the authorizing legislation and my good friend, 
Congresswoman Maloney from New York, and is more than eighty percent of 
the amount of funding I requested the Committee to provide.
  The DNA Backlog Grant program provides funding to help reduce and 
eliminate the backlog of DNA evidence in state and local labs across 
the Nation. The ``Justice For All Act'' (P.L. 108 405) expanded the use 
of DNA technology to convict the guilty and free the innocent. In 2008, 
Congress again showed its overwhelming bipartisan support for this 
initiative by passing ``The Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act'' which 
extends this program through FY 2014.
  There is an ever-present need to continue robust funding for programs 
such as the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program in order to make 
sure victims do not fall through the cracks of the system.
  Women who have been raped have a right to expect police to thoroughly 
investigate the case and prosecute the offenders; however, many rape 
kits across the country are never even tested, and the perpetrators 
never face justice. Nowhere is this problem greater than in Los Angeles 
County, where there is a backlog of more than 12,000 rape kits sitting 
untested in storage facilities. Of those kits, 499 are attached to 
cases past the 10-year statute of limitations for rape in California, 
meaning that even if those kits are tested, the offenders cannot be 
tried for their crimes.
  The current fiscal crisis has already hindered efforts to eliminate 
the backlog, as Los Angeles city officials have been denied the funds 
necessary for hiring crime laboratory analysts. Continued cuts, however 
small, will continue a trend of neglecting this pursuit of justice, and 
thousands of women and their families will be denied their basic 
security and peace of mind.
  DNA evidence is critical in sexual assault cases, and I would like to 
highlight one recent success story from my district in Long Beach. The 
alleged crime occurred in August of 2003, when a 17-year-old student 
was sexually assaulted by a stranger on her high school campus. The DNA 
collected at the scene went untested for 7 years due to the 
laboratory's backlog, but in 2011 Redondo Beach police arrested the 
attacker. The DNA match showed the chance of the DNA belonging to 
someone else was one in a trillion, providing nearly irrefutable proof 
of his guilt. I ask for unanimous consent to include in the Record 
copies of newspaper stories that discuss in greater detail the 
importance of robust funding for the DNA initiative to reduce the 
backlog in Los Angeles, California.
  Mr. Speaker, the DNA Initiative is an invaluable tool for law 
enforcement today, and it will continue to be a legislative priority of 
mine. That is why I am pleased that funding for this vitally important 
program was not reduced as so many other worthwhile programs have been. 
I commend my colleagues on the Committee for funding the program at the 
level requested by the President and those of us in this body that 
strongly support the program.

                          ____________________