Information Gathering Stage

Preserve Evidence and Information

Immediately after the initial request, contact the applicable clerk of the court, court reporter, investigating agency, crime laboratories, trial prosecutor, and defense counsel and request that any remaining evidence be preserved and that applicable files and court reporter's transcripts or notes be forwarded to your office for review.

Make Preliminary Evaluation of Availability of Evidence

Based on the issues involved in the case, attempt to locate relevant physical evidence. Consider the possibility of testing items not traditionally thought to contain DNA evidence, such as slides taken by medical personnel during sexual assault examinations and paraffin-imbedded tissue samples taken at the time of an autopsy.

Try to determine if there is sufficient sample to achieve as many as possible of the following goals:

• Test the evidence now.
• Retain a portion of the sample for duplicate and/or additional genetic marker testing.
• Test the evidence on systems that will allow access to and entry into criminal identification DNA databanks.
• Retest for comparison with suspect standard samples when actual perpetrators are identified. (Even though the statute of limitations may have run out as to crimes committed by the true perpetrators, the evidence may still be useful in subsequent prosecutions as "other crimes" or penalty phase evidence.)
• Retest, if necessary, with newer genetic tests when they become available.

If, from initial contact with the investigating officer or review of case files, it appears that evidence suitable for DNA analysis was never collected, or has since been destroyed, it may prove impossible to continue with the rest of this guideline. (See Category 4 cases.) However, no final decision or notification should be made until it has been carefully verified that evidence did not or does not still exist.