DNA tests are raising concerns
By JENNIFER BROWN Associated Press
5/31/01

Large-scale genetic dragnets raise the chance of police coercion, some say.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Police know who murdered Juli Busken. Not by name, but by
the genetic code he left behind in the victim's car five years ago.
In their search for John Doe, police took blood from 200 men and compared
their DNA to that of the man who left behind semen in Busken's car. There
were no matches.

Police plan to test 200 more men who either lived near the victim and have a
criminal record of violence, resemble the police sketch or have been
identified as a possible suspect.

There is a growing debate about whether innocent people should have to hand
over their blood. Besides concern over unreasonable searches, even
supporters of DNA testing say such large-scale genetic dragnets raise the
possibility of police coercion.

For Busken's father, the answer is easy. Besides a rough sketch of someone
who was seen with Busken before her death, a DNA match is about all he has
to cling to in hopes of finding his daughter's killer.

"If you don't want to give your DNA, you've got something to hide," said Bud
Busken, who runs a golf course in Benton, Ark. "I'll stand by that until my
dying day."

Busken, 21, had just finished her last semester at the University of
Oklahoma when she was last seen on Dec. 20, 1996, and was about to drive
home to Arkansas for Christmas vacation. Police believe she was abducted
from the parking lot of her apartment building.

Her body was found near a lake. The aspiring ballerina had been raped and
shot in the head.

Cleveland County District Attorney Tim Kuykendall turned to the DNA testing
last year.

Some of those tested gave DNA samples to exonerate themselves. Others were
people associated with Busken, including fellow college dancers and even
stagehands who worked at the university.

Defense attorneys and civil libertarians call the sweeps an improper
violation of the constitutional right to privacy.

A few such DNA dragnets have taken place in this coun try, but there's
little precedent for determining their legality. Mass blood screenings are
more common abroad, where the first was in 1987 in England when 5,000 people
were tested after two teenagers were murdered.

Fred Leatherman, chairman of the Forensic Evidence Committee of the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said he knew of no legal challenges
to block mass screenings in the United States. He predicted they would be
challenged, calling them "a clear violation of the right to privacy."

Critics fear what happens to DNA samples after they're collected. Some
suspect they would be used in future investigations by forensic scientists
who sometimes make errors, or that they might end up in the hands of health
insurance companies that could see which diseases a person is predisposed to
develop.

"This is just horrendous, appalling," said Doug Parr, a board member of the
Oklahoma Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. "It smacks of the kind of
police state tactics that this country has gone to war against."

Most of the 200 men tested so far gave their blood voluntarily, but
prosecutors obtained search warrants in a few cases where people declined to
provide the sample.

One of those was Dennis Stuermer, 23, who said his reputation has been
tarnished be cause Oklahoma City police forced him to give a blood sample.

Stuermer's photograph ran on the front page of a state newspaper after a
woman in jail who knew his family said he might be Busken's killer.

In the months it took to get the results of the DNA test, his landlord tried
to evict him, a boss threatened to fire him and a few personal relationships
deteriorated.

"I was scared to death," he said. "I didn't have anything to be scared of,
but people were breathing down my throat."

Attorney Doug Wall said he and Stuermer, who has no criminal background, may
sue the police.

"Police are basically saying, `If we pop a needle into enough arms we're
bound to get lucky sooner or later,"' Wall said.

Arthur Spitzer, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union in
Washington, said requiring people to give DNA samples without other evidence
linking them to the crime would be an unconstitutional search and seizure.

Attorney Barry Scheck, who co-founded The Innocence Project, a group that
helps inmates challenge convictions with DNA evidence, said there are
potential problems whenever so much testing is done.

Some people might feel coerced to give blood.

"It's inherently coercive when a policeman comes to your door and says `Give
us a sample of your blood and if you don't give it to us, you're a
suspect,"' he said.

Bud Busken believes if authorities found his daughter's killer, it might
stop the emotional roller coaster he and his wife have been on since that
day.

"Our life is never going to go back the way it was," he said.