At an informational meeting of the House Judiciary Committee, researchers, survivors and civil‑liberties advocates debated whether Pennsylvania should expand preconviction DNA collection and require broader inclusion in CODIS.

John Roman, director on public safety and justice and a senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, said expanding DNA collection and increasing the number of crime‑scene samples entered into CODIS would raise the probability investigators identify unknown suspects. "Expanding the database would improve the effectiveness of DNA as an investigative tool," Roman said, citing research that DNA testing has aided more investigations in recent decades and that, in a randomized trial, DNA identified otherwise unknown suspects about three times more often than fingerprint evidence. He estimated the incremental cost per arrest at roughly $3,500 and said the system would require additional resources if the pool of profiles were expanded.

Survivors urged action. Ashley Spence, founder of the DNA Justice Project, described a sexual assault that remained unsolved for seven years until a CODIS match after an unrelated arrest. "They uploaded his DNA into our national DNA database, CODIS, and it hit a match back to mine," Spence said, arguing broader arrestee collection closes cold cases and can spare future victims. James Tillman, an exoneree who said DNA cleared him after 18½ years in prison, urged lawmakers to "use DNA more like fingerprints" to avoid wrongful convictions.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania presented the counterargument. Elizabeth Randolph, the ACLU's legislative director, said wholesale preconviction collection raises Fourth Amendment and state‑constitutional concerns and risks turning arrestees into "permanent suspects." "Preconviction DNA collection undermines the presumption of innocence," Randolph said, warning of racial disparities in sampling, the invasiveness of genetic data and operational risks such as local "rogue" databases, rapid‑DNA misuse and the lasting consequences for people whose charges are later reduced or dismissed.

Legal context featured in the testimony. Witnesses cited the U.S. Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Maryland v. King, which allowed limited arrestee collection in certain circumstances, and debated whether that precedent or Pennsylvania's Article I, Section 8 supports broader, suspicionless collection. The ACLU argued the scope proposed in recent bills — discussed in testimony as Senate Bill 912 — remains legally unsettled under state law.

Committee members pressed witnesses on scope and safeguards. Representative Schusterman asked Roman to clarify comparative statistics; Representative Kinkade said she could not support collection at arrest and invoked Riley v. California on phone privacy to argue for judicial oversight. Witnesses debated whether limiting collection to felony convictions or to particular violent felonies would reduce racial disparities, and whether automatic expungement procedures are needed for those whose charges are dropped — witnesses noted most bill proposals lack automatic expungement and place the burden on the individual to seek removal.

No formal motion, vote or directive resulted from the hearing. Chairman Briggs closed the session by thanking witnesses and members; the Committee adjourned with no schedule for additional meetings on the topic this year.

What happens next: The hearing provided material that lawmakers can use while drafting or amending proposals such as SB 912. Committee members raised questions about legal authority, data security safeguards and expungement mechanics that would need resolution before any statutory expansion of preconviction collection.