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The Combined DNA Index System

Report No. 01-26
September 17, 2001
Office of the Inspector General

APPENDIX III

AUDIT CRITERIA

Quality Assurance Standards

The QAS, recommended by the DNA Advisory Board and formally instituted by the Director of the FBI, are one of the key sources of criteria for an audit of a CODIS?participating laboratory. Two sets of standards have been instituted: the Quality Assurance Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Laboratories effective October 1, 1998 (Forensic QAS); and the Quality Assurance Standards for Convicted Offender DNA Databasing Laboratories effective April 1, 1999 (Offender QAS).

The Forensic QAS contain 155 elements organized under 15 headings, and the Offender QAS contain 136 elements also organized under 15 headings. The information below serves only as a synopsis of these headings, and does not capture many of the individual elements contained under each heading. The use of the QAS in this audit was specific to the laboratory unit being audited. In other words, the 155 Forensic QAS elements were used to audit the portion of a laboratory performing DNA analysis on forensic samples, and the 136 Offender QAS elements were used to audit the portion of the laboratory unit performing DNA analysis on convicted offender samples. To demonstrate the similarities between the two sets of QAS, the elements were separated into those that were either identical or similar and those that were unique to just one set of QAS. There are a total of 119 shared (identical or similar) elements, 36 elements unique to the Forensic QAS, and 17 elements unique to the Offender QAS (delineated by heading below).

NDIS Requirements

The standards specific to laboratories participating in the national index (generally referred to as NDIS requirements) are contained in the MOU that is enacted between each state index laboratory and the FBI. It is important to note that the MOU covers the participation of the state index laboratory and any local index laboratories that upload profiles to that state index laboratory. Therefore, even though these local index laboratories do not receive national index information or sign the MOU directly, they are to comply with NDIS requirements.

The MOU requires that its participants comply both with general requirements already issued (i.e., federal legislation, the QAS) as well as requirements specific to the national index that accompany the MOU in the form of appendices. These appendices are as follows: Appendix A-NDIS Responsibilities, Appendix B-NDIS Data Acceptance Standards, and Appendix C-NDIS Procedures Manual. 11 From these appendices, 17 elements were included as part of our audit criteria, as described in the remainder of this section.

Our audit criteria included the following 10 elements from Appendix A. Not included in our count are: (1) elements in Appendix A that are also included in the QAS, (2) elements not consistent with our audit scope or objectives, and (3) elements that only require compliance with other established criteria (such as the QAS, federal legislation, or other MOU appendices).

Our audit criteria included the following four elements from Appendix B. Not included in our count are: (1) elements in Appendix B that are also included in the QAS, (2) elements not consistent with our audit scope or objectives, and (3) elements that only require compliance with other established criteria (such as the QAS, federal legislation, or other MOU appendices).

Only one set of procedures from the NDIS Procedures Manual (considered to be MOU Appendix C) added to our audit criteria. The remainder of the manual consisted of sets of procedures outside the scope of our audit. The one set of relevant procedures contained detailed instructions on confirming and documenting candidate matches, both for case-to-case matches as well as case-to-offender matches. The following three specific elements from this set of procedures were included in our audit criteria.

Although not considered additional audit criteria, the NDIS Procedures Manual did contain helpful definitions that clarified the proficiency testing terms contained in the QAS. The 180-day maximum interval between completion of external proficiency tests is defined as the time between the completion of one proficiency test (i.e., submitting the test results to the external provider) and the start of the next test. External tests are further explained as obtained from and submitted to an external provider.

State Legislation

The collection of DNA samples from specified convicted offenders and the establishment of a convicted offender DNA database has been legislated in every state. However, the legislation varies from state to state, particularly in the number and types of crimes that require collection from an offender. The state statutes governing the laboratories we audited varied from the collection of a DNA sample from all felons (Virginia) to the collection of a DNA sample for crimes classified as or related to sexual assault (Illinois). All of the statutes include sexual crimes and, all but the California statute applied to offenders convicted previously and still incarcerated at the time the statute became effective. All applied to juveniles except the North Carolina statute.

The offender profiles reviewed were governed as follows:

Footnote

  1. The manual, a collection of operational procedures to be followed for various processes pertinent to the functioning of NDIS, was actually issued separate from the MOU although it is still considered an appendix to the MOU.