Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I commend Senator Cornyn and the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, for their work on the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2016, which today passed the Senate. I also want to thank the sponsors for agreeing to accept, as part of this reauthorization measure, some transparency language that I developed. This language also passed the Senate today by unanimous consent in the form of a floor amendment to the Justice for All Reauthorization Act.

The purpose of the original Justice for All Act, on which many of us worked during congressional consideration of the measure in 2004, is to protect crime victims' rights, authorize resources to reduce backlogs of unanalyzed DNA evidence from crime scenes and convicted offenders, and expand the DNA testing capacity of the Nation's crime laboratories. The statute also authorizes resources for testing DNA evidence to protect the innocent from wrongful convictions. By working together in a bipartisan fashion, our colleagues have produced legislation that will extend these programs for several more years.

The purpose of my amendment to this reauthorization measure is to increase the transparency and promote accountability of many DNA- related programs and activities that are administered by the Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs. We have all seen the recent articles in USA Today, ProPublica, and elsewhere that suggest we may need to take additional steps to effectively accomplish the goals of these programs. In particular, these articles have raised questions about the DNA capacity enhancement and backlog reduction program, which is administered by OJP's National Institute of Justice.

We don't fully understand, for example, why significant backlogs of DNA evidence from crimes of murder and sexual violence persist, despite the appropriation of more than $1 billion by Congress for the DNA programs that are authorized under the Justice for All Act. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, in a 2013 report entitled ``DOJ Could Improve Decision-Making Documentation and Better Assess Results of DNA Backlog Reduction Program Funds,'' suggested that NIJ could better document the rationale for its yearly funding priorities and take additional steps to verify the reliability of grantee performance data. The Justice Department's inspector general also suggested, in a March 2016 audit report of the DNA program, that NIJ's process for identifying grantees with the potential for generating program income needs improvement.

My transparency language, which is modeled on accountability language that already applies to grant recipients under the STOP grant program, is designed to elicit more information about how the funds appropriated for Justice for All Act programs are being used in practice. First, it would require the Attorney General to annually report to Congress, for each recipient of DNA grants, the amounts distributed to each grant recipient, the purposes for which these funds were used, and each recipient's progress in achieving those purposes. Second, under this amendment, the Attorney General must summarize the types of DNA samples submitted to crime labs, the average time it took to test these DNA samples, and the proportion of each grant that went to private crime labs. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it would require the Attorney General to evaluate the effectiveness of grant amounts in increasing crime labs' capacity and reducing backlogs of DNA evidence.

The amendment I sponsored also includes some language that is designed to ensure we avoid duplication in grant programs, as well as a provision that is intended to enhance crime victims' access to restitution. I thank Senator Lankford, who cosponsored the amendment, for suggesting the inclusion of the antiduplication language, which is modeled on language that I led the Judiciary Committee in approving as part of several other measures before our committee. Senator Feinstein, who also cosponsored this amendment, also deserves credit for suggesting the addition of restitution language.

In closing, I want to again extend my appreciation to Senators Cornyn and Leahy for their hard work on this measure, which our Judiciary Committee reported last month and congratulate them on Senate passage of the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2016.

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