HARRISBURG, PA — The PA Senate Judiciary Committee this week passed a bill that seeks to help solve cold cases, particularly sexual assault cases. 

The committee chair, PA Sen. Lisa Baker (R, 20), said Senate Bill 988 requires that DNA be collected at the time of arrest rather than only after conviction, which would bring Pennsylvania in line with 33 other states.

She proposed an amendment that modifies the list of offenses eligible for DNA collection and implements the legislation in phases to allow the state police lab to adjust to the influx of samples.

Sen. Frank Farry introduced the bill. He  today’s technology allows for a much less invasive DNA collection than when a blood draw was necessary, and that crime scene DNA can now be identified from very small samples of tissue and blood.

“Every day, opportunities to solve serious crimes are missed because a search of DNA databases for a match to the profile of an unknown perpetrator fails to produce a ‘hit,’” he said. “This is because those databases are only as effective as the samples they contain. This legislation will strive to protect the public from serial offenders, stopping serial offenders before they can commit crime after crime, terrorizing our communities.”

The bill will expand the collection of DNA to offenders convicted of criminal homicide. Farry said a quirk in the state’s criminal laws requires samples from those convicted of felonies but not criminal homicides, which make up their own classification of crime. “Our bill will close this loophole,” he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 ruled that a cheek swab is comparable to fingerprinting as a legal police booking procedure under the Fourth Amendment. 

Justice Antonin Scalia dissented in the case, saying DNA testing is to solve cold cases, not to identify suspects in custody.