{"id":17454,"date":"2010-05-18T21:31:08","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T03:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=17454"},"modified":"2010-05-18T21:31:10","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T03:31:10","slug":"u-s-house-passes-teague%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98katie%e2%80%99s-law%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/05\/u-s-house-passes-teague%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98katie%e2%80%99s-law%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. House passes Teague\u2019s \u2018Katie\u2019s Law\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_7915\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7915\" title=\"Teague\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/Teague.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S. Rep. Harry Teague (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The U.S. House has overwhelmingly approved legislation sponsored by Rep.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/teague.house.gov\/\">Harry Teague<\/a>, D-N.M., that would encourage states to collect DNA from people arrested for felony crimes so it can be checked against DNA gathered from unsolved crimes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKatie\u2019s Law\u201d passed on a vote of 357-32.<\/p>\n<p>Teague announced\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/02\/teague-wants-more-states-to-collect-dna-from-felony-arrestees\/\">in February<\/a> that he was introducing a federal version of New Mexico\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.katieslaw.org\/\">Katie\u2019s Law<\/a>. In New Mexico, the law requiring DNA collection from people arrested for felony crimes has led to more than 100 successful convictions.<\/p>\n<p>The New Mexico law and federal legislation are named for Katie Sepich, who was a 22-year-old graduate student at New Mexico State University 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.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>More than 20 states, and the federal government, already have laws that allow their law enforcement agencies to collect DNA from those arrested for felonies. Teague\u2019s legislation, which now heads to the Senate for consideration, would encourage other states to start collecting DNA by funding 10 percent of the cost of taking DNA samples.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile today was a bittersweet moment, it is such an important milestone in the fight to use DNA evidence to take predators off our streets,\u201d Katie\u2019s mother Jayann said in a news release from Teague\u2019s office. \u201cWe\u2019re very proud of this measure and how it will help save lives across all 50 states. We are so grateful to Congressman Teague for his courageous leadership on this bill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before the House vote, Teague spoke in support of the bill. Watch him here:<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"460\" height=\"368\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/6ydUyrLUV-g&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"460\" height=\"368\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/6ydUyrLUV-g&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. House has overwhelmingly approved legislation sponsored by Rep. Harry Teague, D-N.M., that would encourage 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":[142,116],"class_list":["post-17454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-crime","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17454","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=17454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}