00                      HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 34                                                                     
01 Urging the United States Congress to reauthorize the Debbie Smith DNA backlog grant                                     
02 program.                                                                                                                
03 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:                                                               
04       WHEREAS DNA technology is increasingly vital to ensuring accuracy and fairness                                  
05 in the criminal justice system, but is not yet considered a routine tool for criminal                                   
06 identification by law enforcement; and                                                                                  
07       WHEREAS over 50,000 law enforcement investigations have already been aided                                      
08 nationwide because of DNA matches made through the Federal Bureau of Investigation's                                    
09 Combined DNA Index System, bringing justice to victims and removing criminals from the                                  
10 streets; and                                                                                                            
11       WHEREAS the Innocence Project has used DNA in over 200 cases to exonerate                                       
12 persons who were wrongfully convicted of crimes; and                                                                    
13       WHEREAS Alaska and other states throughout the nation have significantly                                        
14 expanded their DNA programs to include a growing number of convicted and arrested felons                                
15 to match against unsolved crimes; and                                                                                   
16       WHEREAS the demand for DNA testing in both violent and nonviolent crimes has                                    

01 continued to increase as the reliability of this evidence is proven; and                                                
02       WHEREAS many laboratories still maintain DNA backlogs of six months or longer                                   
03 and are unable to meet the growing demand for DNA testing, despite funding commitments                                  
04 from state and local governments; and                                                                                   
05       WHEREAS the Debbie Smith DNA backlog grant program has permitted state and                                      
06 local governments an opportunity to begin to maximize the full potential of forensic DNA                                
07 through backlog reduction, but much work remains to be done;                                                            
08       BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature strongly urges the United States                               
09 Congress to reauthorize the Debbie Smith DNA backlog grant program at current or increased                              
10 levels.                                                                                                                 
11       COPIES of this resolution shall be sent to the Honorable Richard B. Cheney, Vice-                               
12 President of the United States and President of the U.S. Senate; the Honorable Nancy Pelosi,                            
13 Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; and the Honorable Ted Stevens and the                                     
14 Honorable Lisa Murkowski, U.S. Senators, and the Honorable Don Young, U.S.                                              
15 Representative, members of the Alaska delegation in Congress.