{"id":12731,"date":"2010-02-08T12:33:58","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T19:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=12731"},"modified":"2010-02-08T13:46:45","modified_gmt":"2010-02-08T20:46:45","slug":"teague-wants-more-states-to-collect-dna-from-felony-arrestees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/02\/teague-wants-more-states-to-collect-dna-from-felony-arrestees\/","title":{"rendered":"Teague wants more states to collect DNA from felony arrestees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Jayann Sepich, the mother of slain NMSU student Katie Sepich, speaks today at a news conference in Santa Fe about the new legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Harry Teague. (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Congressman announces legislation at the Roundhouse, where he and others promote the success of Katie\u2019s Law in solving crimes in New Mexico<\/h4>\n

U.S. Rep. Harry Teague<\/a> has introduced legislation<\/a> that would encourage additional states to collect DNA from people arrested for felony crimes so it can be checked against DNA gathered from unsolved crimes.<\/p>\n

The announcement that Teague, D-N.M., has introduced a federal version of New Mexico\u2019s Katie\u2019s Law<\/a> came today at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe. He was joined at the news conference by Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a>, state legislators and others.<\/p>\n

Since Katie\u2019s Law was passed on a state level in New Mexico in 2006, it\u2019s led to 101 successful convictions, Denish said. Some 6,500 felony arrestees have had their DNA entered into the state system, she said, adding that 125 other cases have been \u201cdirectly aided\u201d by the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statistics show that Katie\u2019s Law works,\u201d Denish said. \u201cWe\u2019re putting away more criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The law is named for Katie Sepich, who was a 22-year-old graduate student at New Mexico State when she was murdered in Las Cruces in 2003. The crime wasn\u2019t solved until after the state enacted the law mandating that those arrested for felonies have their DNA entered into a state system so it can be checked against DNA from other unsolved crimes.<\/p>\n

Twenty-one states and the federal government already have laws that allow their law enforcement agencies to collect DNA from those arrested for felonies, and Teague said a federal law that pushes other states to do the same \u201ccould save countless lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would allow law enforcement to treat DNA evidence left at the scene of the crime as they do fingerprints,\u201d Teague said.<\/p>\n

Financial incentives to states<\/h3>\n

Teague said his legislation would encourage other states to start collecting DNA by funding 10 percent of the cost of taking DNA samples.<\/p>\n

Katie\u2019s mother Jayann Sepich, speaking at the news conference, said such a system will save states money. Katie\u2019s killer was arrested for a separate crime three months after murdering her, but her death wasn\u2019t linked to the killer until 3.5 years later when New Mexico\u2019s law was passed and the DNA could be matched.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, law enforcement spent $200,000 investigating Katie\u2019s murder, Jayann Sepich said.<\/p>\n

She said the new statistics on how Katie\u2019s law has helped lead to convictions \u2013 released today for the first time \u2013 prove that Katie\u2019s Law is working.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so grateful that those monsters are being stopped,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Teague sounded optimistic about the legislation\u2019s chances in Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the success we\u2019ve had in New Mexico and other places will help us get it passed nationally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Rep. Harry Teague has introduced legislation that would encourage additional states to collect DNA from people arrested for felony crimes so it can be checked against DNA gathered from unsolved crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[142,107,116],"class_list":["post-12731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-crime","tag-roundhouse","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}