County Attorneys push for DNA registry

Local prosecutors are urging the Iowa legislature to provide more money to help develop a computer catalog of genetic clues from criminals. Fred McCaw, the Dubuque County Attorney, is the Iowa County Attorneys Association’s Legislative Chairperson. McCaw says everyone in law enforcement believes its a good idea to force all those convicted of a felony to submit a D-N-A sample. Those samples would be put in a database that could be cross-referenced when D-N-A is recovered from crime scenes. McCaw says they now need to move ahead. McCaw says to get the project up and running, legislators need to put up the money to buy the computer system and then commit to paying the salaries of technicians who would enter the D-N-A evidence and then make repeated cross-checks to see if D-N-A from one crime points to someone who’s already behind bars, or who was in prison and has been paroled. The Iowa County Attorneys Association met earlier this month and this D-N-A catalog was among their list of legislative priorities.