Middle GA lawmaker’s bill would require felony suspects’ DNA before they’re found guilty
A Middle Georgia lawmaker Monday filed a bill that would require law enforcement agencies to swab for DNA of people arrested with felony charges before they are actually found guilty.
This is currently only required at individual agencies’ discretion, and is not a statewide mandate.
State Sen. Rick Williams, R-Milledgeville, represents District 25, which includes Baldwin, Butts, Jones, Jasper and Putnam counties, and parts of Bibb and Henry counties. He said Senate Bill 29 would link suspects to unsolved cases and help investigators avoid mistaken arrests.
“This is not to invade someone’s privacy, but actually could prove them innocent,” Williams told The Telegraph.
Surrounding states including Florida, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina already mandate this practice. The same applies in Tennessee for sexual or violent felony arrests.
He mentioned a Georgia man, Dennis Perry, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2003 for the 1985 killing of a couple at a Baptist church in Woodbine.
Investigators took a fresh look at evidence in 2020 that revealed Perry’s DNA did not match DNA left at the scene. A superior Court judge dropped all charges and he was released from jail in 2021.
Williams argued this would not happen if the state took DNA tests upon Perry’s arrest.
“If we can stop the innocent from being sent to prison and get the bad guys, then we have accomplished a lot,” Williams said.
The Republican-backed bill would also keep a database of felony suspects’ DNA profiles to help investigators archive their history of charges. Similarly, the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System tracks profiles of convicted felons, unsolved crime scene evidence and missing person cases from local, state and federal forensic laboratories.
“It goes into the database and that’s where they’ll see hits from other crimes ... because its almost instantaneous,” Williams said.
If a person is exonerated from charges, their DNA profile would be removed from the database, he said.
Each DNA test kit would cost around $1.44, and an additional $37 to $195 for technicians at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab to analyze each sample, Williams estimated. It would cost a total of over $5.4 million to hire more analysists and process the tests, according to Williams.
Fourteen Republicans were listed as co-sponsors of the bill, though none represented Middle Georgia. No Democrats sponsored the bill.
This is the second time Williams has proposed the bill. He believes the first attempt around four or five years ago did not get traction because the technology was less advanced.
“It has helped put some bad guys behind bars in other states. I think its just time for it to come out,” Williams said.
This story was originally published January 28, 2025 at 12:16 PM.