KC clients urged to refuse DNA sampling agreements

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Plea bargains in Jackson County Circuit Court come with a catch: Defendants must surrender a DNA sample as a condition of any agreement involving a felony charge.

Prosecutors like the plan for two reasons: Plea agreements keep the court calendar relatively clear, and the DNA sample can be used as a tool in investigating any crimes the defendant might later commit.

The county public defender's office, however, is advising its clients to reject such agreements -- advice that, if taken, could clog the jail and courts.

About 95 percent of the county's 4,000 felonies a year are resolved through plea agreements. Without them, more cases would go to trial, meaning more defendants would have to be held in jail.

Prosecutor Mike Sanders started the DNA policy this month, after the Missouri legislature failed to approve a bill that would have required all convicted felons to surrender DNA.

To Leon Munday, deputy county public defender, the new policy smacks of "Big Brother."

The approach, he said Tuesday, violates privacy rights and amounts to Sanders' "usurping power."

"It's a decision to be made not by prosecutors like Mike Sanders, but by the legislatures and courts of this country," Munday said.

Prosecutors from as far away as New York and California have expressed interest in the case, Sanders said.

Munday's staff of about 30 lawyers has advised clients not to accept the pleas -- and so far Munday said, he knows of none who has. Public defenders represent most of the county's 4,000 felony defendants.

"Our jurisdiction is a guilty plea model," Munday said. "We're going in another direction, and there are going to be consequences."

Sanders played down Munday's claims, saying defendants would take the plea deals.

"It's not the public defenders who decide this, it's their clients," Sanders said. He said the policy would be evaluated after six months.

Jackson County Presiding Judge Jay A. Daugherty said there seemed to be fewer pleas because of the policy, "but I don't believe in the long term it will have much negative impact."

Prosecutors and defense lawyers will adjust to the policy and get business done, Daugherty said. Sanders, he said, has already spoken of starting two levels of pleas for crimes such as minor drug felonies. A defendant who surrendered DNA would get a slightly better deal than one who did not.

In some cases, defendants plead guilty without a deal and leave sentencing to the judge. Prosecutors said they would ask judges to order DNA samples in such cases. Whether a judge does so, Daugherty said, will be up to individual judges.

Sanders is a strong proponent of DNA evidence. DNA from those who take plea deals will go into a state database that authorities use to solve crimes.

His policy brings Jackson County in line with at least 32 states, including Kansas, which require DNA from all felons, Sanders said. Missouri's 1994 law requires DNA only from killers, severe sex offenders and some other violent criminals.

Sanders said that there was widespread support in the Missouri General Assembly for including all felons and that the bill failed only because of cost considerations.

There is little dispute that taking DNA from all felons would solve more crimes. Virginia has done so and has logged more than 1,200 DNA matches from crime scenes to criminals. Missouri's limited database has logged fewer than 70.

The argument that DNA violates privacy rights is the same one used in a debate over fingerprints a century ago, said Sanders, who advocates getting DNA only from felons.

But Munday said legislatures and the courts must draw a line on how far to go in collecting DNA.

"If you had everybody's DNA, you'd never have an unsolved crime that had DNA evidence, but what's the social cost of that?" Munday asked. "We don't want to live in a police state."

Sanders said he advocates getting DNA only from felons.