The editors of The Evidence Log strive to provide information to our members and readers regarding events and trends that affect law enforcement and the management of the property room. We continually scan the environment for information that has some significant relationship to the long-term storage of property and evidence.

More and more frequently we receive news from media outlets throughout the nation regarding the use of DNA evidence to solve crimes as well as overturn wrongful convictions. Here are several news items that we found worth sharing:

Los Angeles Times
April 6, 2006
By: Richard Winton

Expanded Cold-Case Operation Is Sought; LAPD chief wants to double the homicide group and create a rape unit to capitalize on DNA use to solve crimes.

Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton wants to triple the size of the department's cold­case operations, saying that 18 extra detectives are needed to keep up with the growing number of potential DNA matches in old cases.

Bratton said that in taking a fresh look at some of the city's more than 9,000 unsolved slayings, the department would be using technology not available to the original detectives and perhaps nabbing assailants before they strike again. Since the unit was formed four years ago, detectives have made arrests in 30 old homicides.

Perhaps the best-known case involves Chester D. Turner, who is awaiting trial in the killings of more than 10 women in South Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s. Turner was charged after detectives matched DNA from victims to a sample he was forced to give state prison officials while serving time for rape.

In another case, DNA evidence from a coffee cup led to the arrest of a 77-year-old man in the slaying of a woman in the San Pedro area in the 1970s. He had been a suspect in the slaying at the time but had never been arrested.

Under Bratton's plan, the cold-case homicide unit of nine detectives would double in size. An eight­member cold-case rape unit also would be created and a detective lieutenant would be added. The expansion would cost about $1.7 million, but Bratton said it would result in a worthwhile crime-fighting tool.

"Very often these predators aren't only in unsolved cases, but they are out there actively committing crimes," he said. "This isn't just a matter of going back into past history. We are dealing with contemporary issues." Detectives have been aided in their cold-case work by some recent developments. A state proposition approved in 2004 requires all state prisoners to give DNA samples that would be submitted to an expanded state DNA database. Police laboratories would be allowed to maintain local databases.

Additionally, a state-of-the-art crime laboratory slated to open within a year in Monterey Park will allow detectives to process DNA tests more quickly and make it easier for detectives to examine some of the 6,000 fingerprints in cases from 1960 to 1987.L.A. City Councilman Jack Weiss, head of the council's Public Safety Committee, said he supported expanding the unit.