Font ResizeSANTA FE - Jayann and Dave Sepich say DNA testing can do more than solve murders and free the wrongly convicted.
They believe it also can prevent crimes.
The Sepiches' daughter, Katie, died in Las Cruces in 2003, the victim of a man who raped and strangled her. DNA testing in 2006 pinpointed the killer, and prosecutor Susana Martinez, now New Mexico's governor, obtained a guilty plea from him.
Martinez and the Sepiches say the case could have been solved years earlier had DNA testing been used. The killer, Gabriel Avila, was arrested in a burglary three months after Katie's murder. But police did not connect him to her death and, at that time, they could not compel him to provide a DNA sample.
Avila, a Mexican national, made bail and fled. Seventeen months passed before police caught him.
Only then, after he pleaded guilty to the burglary, did the law require him to submit to a cheek swab for DNA. The test connected him to the murder of Katie, who had her attacker's skin and blood under her fingernails.
New Mexico's Legislature subsequently approved Katie's Law, requiring suspects in certain felonies to supply DNA.
Martinez, a Republican, on Tuesday will outline a bill that would expand Katie's Law to mandate DNA testing in every felony arrest. Her spokesman said the bill's sponsors will include Democratic Rep. Al Park, an attorney who chairs the House Judiciary Committee.
Jayann Sepich said expanding Katie's Law to test every felony suspect would save lives
She cited a case in California, in which testing on a career criminal named Chester Turner linked him to the murders of 10 women.
Just as important, detectives found that a retarded man had been convicted in three of the murders that Turner committed. The innocent man, David Allen Jones, went free in 2004 after serving 12 years in prison.
Police used confessions from Jones to convict him. Jones said they coerced him to admit to crimes he did not commit.
Jayann Sepich said violent criminals may survive day to day through forgery or theft. Testing people arrested in every felony, she said, can stop them from hurting or killing somebody.
"The power of DNA can save lives and prevent crimes," Sepich said in a telephone interview from Carlsbad.
But not everybody in the legal system is convinced that more expansive DNA testing will lead to justice.
"It casts the net too wide," said Bennett Baur, president of the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. "Very often people who are arrested in a felony are never charged, but there is no mechanism in place to expunge their DNA from the database."
Even if they have the means to hire a lawyer, the possibility of the criminal case being refiled might make it impossible for them to remove their DNA from the system, Baur said.
Peter Simonson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, said his organization also has worries about the law Martinez wants. Simonson said he was concerned about the fairness of testing everybody arrested in a felony, and courts do as well.
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California is considering the case of an Oakland woman who was arrested at an anti-war protest, allegedly for using force to free another demonstrator. The woman said she agreed to provide a DNA sample after police told her she would be charged with more crimes if she refused.
Jayann Sepich said police fingerprint every suspect. DNA, with all its potential to convict the guilty and free the innocent, should be used just as routinely, she said.
Sepich said Martinez approached her family about trying to expand the law. By then, Jayann Sepich had testified in Colorado for a law requiring a DNA test in every felony arrest.
Colorado legislators approved the law last year, but the ACLU is mounting a legal challenge on grounds that it presumes guilt and violates privacy.
In all, 24 states require DNA testing in arrests for select felonies. Twelve mandate it in every felony arrest.
Jayann Sepich said her daughter always said she would do something with her life that would "change the world." She never had the chance.
Katie Sepich grew up in Carlsbad and received a business degree from New Mexico State University. At 22, she enrolled in graduate school at the Las Cruces school.
She left a party in August 2003 and set out for her apartment, a couple blocks away. Avila attacked her outside her bedroom window.
Martinez, who wants to reinstate the death penalty in New Mexico, decided as the Do-a Ana County district attorney not to pursue a death sentence.
Jayann Sepich said she and her husband were comfortable with Martinez's decision. Sepich said they had no philosophical opposition to the death penalty, but they did not want to go through years of hearings and appeals as Avila fought for his life.
Upon pleading guilty, Avila, then 27, received a 69-year prison sentence.
With her daughter taken from her, Sepich has committed herself to a cause that she says will spare other parents from pain.
DNA is an excellent way of finding truth and taking criminals off the streets, she said, so police should be able to use it more.
Santa Fe Bureau Chief Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or (505) 820-6898. His blog is at http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/newmexico.
