Follow Agency Procedures for Submitting DNA to CODIS

On successful laboratory analysis resulting in a DNA profile developed from crime scene evidence, existing and/or new suspect DNA profiles should be compared with the evidence profile. If the laboratory determines a match between a suspect and the evidence, the prosecutor's office should be consulted on how to proceed. However, if a match is not found, agency procedures should be followed, in accordance with the crime laboratory, to submit the crime scene evidence DNA profile into CODIS.

Because CODIS contains hundreds of thousands of convicted offender DNA profiles, it is possible that the person who committed the unsolved crime being investigated was convicted of a qualifying offense that required submission of a DNA profile to the database. If that person has not previously been convicted of a qualifying offense, especially in light of expanding database law, it is possible that they will be convicted in the future. Further, because the forensic index of CODIS contains thousands of crime scene evidence profiles, the investigation could be aided if a match is made to another forensic DNA profile already in the database. Finally, an investigator should not assume that a new DNA profile generated from unsolved case evidence and submitted to the laboratory for entry into CODIS will be compared with every possible convicted offender or crime scene index profile. The investigator may need to proactively request that his CODIS administrator search the new profile against the local, State, and national DNA databases.

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