The meeting convened at 9:42 a.m. Present at the meeting were Carll Ladd, Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP)-Forensic Lab, Patricia Johannes, DESPP-Forensic Lab; Dahong Sun, DESPP- Forensic Lab; Megan Olt, DESPP-Forensic Lab; Darcy McGraw, CT Innocence Project; Antoinette Webster DESPP-legal, Robert Dearington, Office of the Attorney General; Michael Gailor, Office of the Chief State’s Attorney; and Joe Lopez as a member of the public. 

The minutes of the meeting of December 9, 2014, were unanimously approved.    

On behalf of the laboratory, Ms. Johannes reported that as of March 1, 2015, approximately 106,389 convicted offender samples (the number has not been corrected for duplicates) have been submitted to the lab. Of these samples, 101,410 (up 1117 from the last report) have been profiled and reside in CODIS. The backlog of convicted offender samples waiting to be processed is 369. There are 7,173 profiles in the Forensic Index.

The lab reported that 3,019 investigations have been aided so far based on 2,989 confirmed hits (an increase of 107 hits). Approximately 12 candidate matches are under evaluation. Average turnaround time is now approximately 1 week.

The lab further reported that number of incomplete cases in LIMS assigned to the DNA Section is 250.   

The lab reported that five (5) new CODIS workstations were installed in December 19^th bringing all of the lab’s equipment into compliance with FBI requirements in advance of the deadline. 

Mr. Ladd reported that CODIS is mandating that the number of loci of the profiles entered in the system be increased from 13 to 20 by the end of 2016. The lab currently is validating kits that are in compliance with the new standards and anticipates that the new kits will be online sometime during 2015, well before the 2016 deadline.

Darcy McGraw from the CT Innocence Project reported that there are approximately 10 cases that were started under a grant that has since expired that need to be finished up and that she will consult with the appropriate parties to determine how those cases will be handled.    

Although he was not present, David Maiga from the Department of Correction reported that the DOC has collected 421 samples to date and that the number of people in DOC custody that have refused to provide samples is 250. 

The next meeting of the Oversight Committee was scheduled for June 9, 2015, at 9:30 a.m. at the Forensic Science Laboratory.