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State police, prosecutors urge fix to DNA law that left thousands of samples in limbo
Summary
Witnesses pressed for House Bill 259, a statutory fix to how arrestee DNA samples are collected, analyzed and expunged. State police and forensic directors said ambiguous "arraignment" language has left more than 16,000 samples untested or not expunged and proposed changes to clarify triggers for testing and expungement.
House Bill 259 would clarify responsibilities and triggers for collection, testing and expungement of DNA samples for arrestees, convicted offenders and certain registrants. Witnesses from Maryland State Police and the Forensic Sciences Division said a legacy requirement in the statute that linked arrestee sample testing to an "arraignment" created a backlog of samples that could neither be analyzed nor expunged.
Tom Williams of the Maryland State Police and Dan Katz, director of the…
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