Government
Aug. 17, 2002
Bill on Inmates' DNA Advances
SACRAMENTO - A measure that would allow prison officials to use force to gather DNA samples from inmates cleared the Assembly on Thursday and is headed to the governor's desk.
SB1242, introduced by Sen. Jim Brulte, R-Rancho Cucamonga, passed the Assembly by a vote of 68-0.
The measure has been sought by district attorneys frustrated at being unable to collect genetic samples from inmates suspected of committing additional crimes. Once collected, the DNA samples are checked against the state's database of biological evidence from unsolved crimes.
"There had been 900 instances of prison inmates refusing to provide DNA samples essentially with impunity," said Larry Brown, executive director of the California District Attorneys Association, which supports the bill.
The current remedies for those situations are insufficient, Brown argued.
The inmates, many of them serving life sentences, can refuse to give samples and face only a misdemeanor prosecution, which means little to someone with no hope of parole.
"That is a wholly inadequate incentive for life prisoners to provide samples," Brown said.
The other option is for officials to seek court orders allowing the use of force on a case-by-case basis, a process Brown called "unnecessarily laborious."
The American Civil Liberties Union and criminal defense lawyers have opposed the bill, saying it could lead to the use of excessive force.
"The bottom line is that when you do the cell extractions to get people out of their cells, we've often seen the use of excessive force," said ACLU lobbyist Valerie Small Navarro.
As amended, the bill requires that inmate cell extractions be videotaped. Small Navarro said she hoped that would prevent help prevent unnecessary violence.
But she also said the bill includes a standard definition of reasonable force that is inadequate to prevent the use of excessive force because it "folds back on itself."
The definition included in the bill is that reasonable force is "the force that an objective, trained and competent correctional employee, faced with similar facts and circumstances, would consider necessary and reasonable to gain compliance with this chapter."
"If you read that carefully it could mean anything," said Small Navarro. "There's no end to the potential escalation [of violence]. It's a very poor definition."
In the Senate, the bill was considered doomed in the public safety committee, where many observers assumed Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, would kill it.
But Burton surprised everyone by voting for the bill, once the amendments were provided that required reasonable force and the taping of cell extractions.
The bill goes next for a pro forma concurrence vote in the Senate and then to the desk of Gov. Gray Davis.
The governor's office has a policy of not commenting on pending legislation. The Department of Corrections has supported the bill, which proponents take as a sign that Davis intends to sign the measure.
Hudson Sangree
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