By John Wagner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 14, 2008

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler faced aggressive questions yesterday from a pair of legislative committees as they pitched a plan to expand the state's DNA database, one of the governor's top priorities for the General Assembly's 90-day session.

Under a bill introduced by O'Malley (D), the state would collect DNA samples from people arrested for violent crimes and burglaries, significantly expanding a database that includes information only about people who have been convicted of felonies.

O'Malley said expanding the collection of DNA, which he called "the modern-day fingerprint," would help police solve more cold cases and "allow Maryland to join states like Virginia and California who also are giving their officers the tools they need to improve public safety."

O'Malley rarely testifies directly before legislative panels. He appealed to lawmakers last year on an unsuccessful bill to replace the death penalty with life without parole.

Although some lawmakers appeared receptive to the DNA plan, others raised questions about whether the state should be collecting DNA from people who could later be exonerated, whether the class of offenses in the bill was too broad and whether it should be easier for people to have their information removed from the database if acquitted.

Sen. Lisa A. Gladden (D-Baltimore), vice chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, characterized the bill as a "dragnet" that would result in the collection of DNA samples from those arrested for crimes as minor as peering into a car.

"It's not necessarily the big nasty criminals you're trying to get," said Gladden, a public defender. "It's too broad."

Gansler (D), who accompanied O'Malley to hearings before Senate and House panels, was pressed by lawmakers in both parties about whether the state should keep DNA samples from people later acquitted by juries.

Gansler said the bill would allow people to apply to the state to have their information removed from the database. But he said it would be helpful to keep the information in case people could be linked to other crimes.

"Why not keep it?" Gansler asked. "Most people aren't arrested for violent crimes. . . . There's no downside for putting it in the database. It doesn't take up room."

That prompted Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery) to ask whether Gansler was aware of anyone who had volunteered to have DNA information included in the database. Gansler said he was not. Frosh, chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, said he found that telling.

"I think people are asking good questions, and asking those questions will hopefully make the bill better," O'Malley said after his appearance at the Senate hearing.

During his testimony, O'Malley relayed the case of a "career offender" who would have been compelled to give DNA samples after at least five arrests, any one of which could have allowed police to link him to a murder and rape years earlier. "At least one of our neighbors never would have become a victim," O'Malley said.

O'Malley has said the proposal, which would cost $1.7 million a year, is modeled after a law in Virginia, one of 11 states that have started taking DNA samples in recent years from people who have been arrested.