BILL WILL PROVIDE FUNDING FOR DNA COLD-CASE PROBES GALLEGLY LISTENS TO TOP PROSECUTOR ON MODIFYING OF ADAM WALSH ACT.

Byline: ERIC LEACH Staff Writer

When the body of 18-year-old Crystal Nicole Hamilton floated onto Mussel Shoals beach in April 2001, investigators took DNA samples.

A year later, the state Department of Justice matched the DNA to Douglas Dworak, who had previously been convicted in a rape case. In April 2005, he was convicted of raping and murdering Hamilton and was sentenced to death.

It's a case Ventura County District Attorney Gregory Totten cited in supporting a provision in the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which was signed July 27 by President George W. Bush.

Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, wrote a provision adopted in the Adam Walsh act to provide federal money to fund investigations like the one by Totten's office, when the DNA in semen found on Hamilton's body was linked to Dworak, now 40.

Gallegly said it was Totten who brought to his attention the need for funding investigations that are becoming increasingly necessary to prosecute so-called ``cold hit'' DNA cases -- in which DNA on file matches evidence in previously unsolved crimes.

Totten estimated that DNA cold hits could identify a perpetrator in more than 300 unsolved homicide cases in Ventura County alone.

``The number of rape and homicide cases solved through DNA technology is increasing at an astonishing rate every year and is quickly outpacing the ability of prosecutors to keep up,'' Totten had said in 2005 as he advocated federal funding to meet the new situation, calling Gallegly's bill ``a direct aid to victims in Ventura County and elsewhere who have longed to finally see justice done for their loved ones.''

Gallegly's funding proposal came originally from his Grants for DNA Backlog Prosecutions Act, which was introduced last year to provide $100 million a year for five years to help prosecutors bring cold-hit cases to court.

In November 2004, California voters passed Proposition 69 to require the state to collect DNA samples from all convicted felons for a statewide DNA database. Now, the database averages three cold-hit cases a day, according to the California District Attorney's Association.

Also in 2004, Bush asked Congress to begin funding a five-year, billion-dollar program to process old DNA samples from crime scenes and enter them into a matching database.

But Gallegly said no money was earmarked for prosecution of the cases that developed out of the DNA matches.

``Once a crime has been solved, society owes it to the victim to prosecute the perpetrator,'' he said. ``Equally, society needs to be assured that known criminals are not out in the streets committing more crimes and victimizing more people.''

Gallegly's original bill was eventually incorporated into the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act that Bush signed.

The Walsh act will also create a National Sex Offender Registry with uniform standards for the registration of sex offenders.

The bill is named for the 6-year-old son of John Walsh, host of ``America's Most Wanted,'' who was kidnapped and murdered 25 years ago.

eric.leach(at)dailynews.com

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