DNA Collection Gets High Court Blessing

The Department of Corrections can begin taking DNA samples from condemned inmates, after the state Supreme Court declined to consider the case. Attorney General Bill Lockyer says the samples may help solve other crimes in which the condemned inmates may have been involved. His office´s DNA Convicted Felons data bank has helped solve 122 crimes since the project began in 1994, most of them since 1999. The Department of Corrections halted all collections after a 1999 Sacramento Superior Court ruling that the department´s regulations for collecting samples were insufficient. An appeals court reversed that decision, and the Supreme Court is letting that ruling stand.