FRANKFORT, Ky. (WHAS11) -- By a sliver of a margin, a bill that would extend DNA collection of felony suspects cleared a Kentucky Senate committee Thursday.
Testimony during a hearing for Senate Bill 150, also known as the “Arrestee DNA Bill”, was emotional. The hearing featured a sexual assault survivor, a man wrongfully accused of rape and the mother of a murdered woman facing lawmakers opposed stating fears of government overreach.
SB150 is similar to legislation in several states which require anyone arrested for a felony to undergo a DNA swab. The collection at the point of arrest is different than Kentucky law which currently requires DNA collection after a felony conviction. Investigators sometimes link that DNA information to unsolved cases.
"My blood, my piss, my spittle is mine unless there's a conviction, unless there's an order to give that up,” exclaimed Senator Perry Clark, Democrat from District 37. “And I very don't like to give up that.”
Senator Clark was not alone in his opposition to SB 150. In front of the senate committee were three people professing faith in the science that they say has put away killers and rapists and freed men like James Tillman.
“DNA is the truth. DNA is justice. DNA didn't look at the color of my skin or the neighborhood that I lived in”, Mr. Tillman testified.
Tillman spent eighteen and a half years in prison for a rape he did not commit. "Arrestee DNA", he argues, would have cleared him before he spent a day behind bars.
Jayann Sepich speaks for her daughter Katie who was raped, murdered and set ablaze by a man who walked free 3 years committing other crimes. The suspect’s felony conviction on another crime lead to a DNA test in New Mexico which revealed his connection to the Sepich case.
“I think their rights (crime victims) trump the rights of a felony arrestee to hide their identity, to hide the acts that they have committed,” said Mrs. Sepich.
Michelle Kuiper survived an attack by a serial rapist. She admits that this plan would not have saved her, but DNA gathered from her rape kit in 1994 could have taken her attacker off of the street. Instead there were more attacks and it took more than a decade for justice.
"I was sitting on my front porch, a freshman in college and I was pulled off of it and drug to a neighbor's deck and sexually assaulted,” Mrs. Kuiper told the Senate panel.
When the testimony concluded, some in opposition began voicing their concern.
“I can tell you, and I understand your pain, but I can tell you, and I have eight children and twenty one grandkids that, over the years, this government through its intrusion has done more damage to me than any of these criminals out there ever did,” said Senator Dan Seum, Majority Caucus Leader.
Six senators voted for the measure, four against and Senator Clark voted “pass” which meant the bill is now sent to the full Senate for consideration.