DNA Project Hampered by Lack of Funding

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Posted: 12:25 PM May 8, 2008 DNA Project Hampered by Lack of Funding A Virginia DNA project aimed at exonerating wrongfully convicted people of serious crimes has stalled because of a lack of funding.

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May 8, 2008

A massive forensic project aimed at exonerating wrongfully convicted people of serious crimes has stalled because of a lack of funding.

Virginia Department of Forensic Science director Peter Marone
says the department has applied for a $4.5 million federal grant to
complete the effort.

The project was the result of an order by then-Governor Mark Warner.
In 2005 he called for the examination of all case files kept by former state forensic serologist Mary Jane Burton from 1973 through 1988 after five men were cleared of rape due to biological evidence she kept in their cases. Burton meticulously preserved pieces of clothing smeared
with blood, semen or saliva even before DNA testing got underway in
the early 1990s.

$1.4 million was put aside for the project, which was
expected to require searches of 164,000 old case files. Instead,
more than 534,000 old paper case files have had to be searched, and
samples in 366 cases have been sent off to an independent lab for
testing.

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