Tobacco Urges Assembly To Follow Senate, Expand State’s DNA Databank

February 1, 2012

Assemblyman Lou Tobacco (R,I,C-Staten Island) is urging his Assembly colleagues to follow the state Senate’s lead and expand New York’s DNA databank to provide law enforcement with an enhanced tool to help solve more crimes and make the state’s neighborhoods safer for our families.

“I applaud Governor Cuomo for including this important public safety measure in his proposed budget, and I commend my colleagues in the state Senate for passing the DNA databank bill,” said Tobacco. “Now, it is the duty of the “People’s House” to pass this vital tool to help make our streets and neighborhoods safer for families and to ensure that people are not wrongly convicted for crimes they did not commit.”

Assemblyman Tobacco noted that the new legislation would require DNA samples to be collected from anyone convicted of all remaining Penal Law misdemeanors and any felony under other state laws, such as felony driving while intoxicated under the Vehicle and Traffic Law, aggravated animal cruelty under the Agriculture and Markets Law, and prescription-drug offenses under the Public Health Law. Currently, anyone convicted of a felony or one of 36 misdemeanors under the Penal Law must provide a DNA sample.

“This is not a civil rights issue, it is an issue about public safety. By expanding the DNA databank, we will give law enforcement officials and prosecutors enhanced and needed access to a proven crime-fighting tool,” said Tobacco. “Furthermore, no one wants to see anyone wrongly convicted of a crime, and I believe expanding the DNA databank will greatly reduce wrongful convictions while helping to exonerate those serving jail time for crimes they did not commit.”

The DNA databank was created in 1996. Since that time, DNA evidence has helped prosecutors solve more than 2,700 crimes and has exonerated 27 New Yorkers.

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