The DNA factor: lawmakers are expanding the use of forensic technology to battle crime.

• Author: Hammond, Sarah

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Their tragic deaths occurred years apart, but Johnia Berry and Juli Busken have one thing in common. Their murders spurred lawmakers to pass legislation that led to the arrest of their killers, and bolstered a system to catch other criminals. Berry, 21, lived in Knoxville, Tenn., and

was planning to attend graduate school when she was stabbed to death in 2004. Three years later the Johnia Berry Act was enacted. It created a DNA database in Tennessee that led to a DNA match and the arrest of Berry's killer.

"Ironically, he got caught voluntarily giving a DNA sample for an unrelated arrest," says Lieutenant Governor and Senate President Ron Ramsey, the champion of the act.

In Norman, Okla., Busken, a 21-year-old University of Oklahoma dance major and Arkansas native, was abducted, forced into her car, raped and murdered in 1996. Eight years later, a DNA database matched a man who had been charged with rape and second-degree burglary in another case. He was convicted of Busken's rape and murder and sentenced to death.

Last year, Arkansas Senator Dawn Creekmore sponsored the successful Juli's Law, which requires DNA samples to be taken from all suspects charged with murder, kidnapping and sexual assault in the first degree. "We are looking to further expand Juli's law to include burglary," says Creekmore.

Ramsey says there's no question that DNA has become a key tool for criminal investigations. "DNA is the 21st century fingerprint. Without DNA evidence and state databases, bringing these murderers to justice would have not happened."

DNA'S GROWING ROLE

Since the advent of DNA testing in 1985, biological material--skin, hair, blood and other bodily fluids--has emerged as the most reliable physical evidence from a crime scene. In 1987, police in Britain convicted a man of rape based on DNA evidence, the first person ever convicted on that basis.

In 1987, Florida rapist Tommie Lee Andrews became the first person in the United States to be convicted as a result of DNA evidence. The following year, a Virginia man called the "South Side Strangler" was convicted after DNA linked him to rapes and murders near Richmond.

Now, more than 20 years after DNA was first used in criminal investigations, its crime-fighting potential continues to be an important focus of state crime control legislation. Expansive policies for DNA collection have proved successful, and states continue to widen the scope of their statutes. Forty-seven states have laws to collect DNA samples for all convicted felons. With Juli's law, Arkansas joins 20 other states that are expanding DNA collection from those who are arrested for, but not yet convicted of, qualifying offenses...