Would DNA check after 2015 felony arrest have averted later assault? – Athens NEWS

Since 2011, Ohio law has required that any person charged with a felony must submit to a DNA collection.

But a man now charged in connection with two rapes and one attempted rape in uptown Athens over a 10-year period starting in 2006 managed to avoid DNA collection when he was arrested by the Ohio State Highway Patrol for a felony firearm offense in November 2015.

Thus, Shawn J. Lawson, Jr., 26, was not arrested in connection with the alleged rapes until earlier this month, when a DNA sample was obtained from him after an alleged sexual assault in Lancaster two months earlier.

If law-enforcement had hit on the DNA match for Lawson after the June 2016 alleged rape in Athens, he at least wouldnt have been free to commit the later sexual assault hes been accused of in Lancaster.

Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith and county Prosecutor Keller Blackburn have now worked out an arrangement where any person arraigned for a felony in Athens County Common Pleas Court will have his or her DNA collected by the Sheriffs Office unless that persons DNA is already on record.

Athens Police had been hunting for what they described as a serial rapist since at least January 2016. They suspected him of being involved in three sexual assaults in uptown Athens between 2006 and 2015. Lawsons grand-jury indictment states that the crimes occurred against three separate victims on June 11, 2006; June 20, 2015; and Dec. 12, 2015 (Lawson was arrested for an OVI/felony firearm charges on Nov. 22, 2015, and indicted in Athens County Common Pleas Court on Dec. 14, 2015).

The sexual assaults all occurred under similar circumstances, police have said, when the college-aged victism were walking home alone from the uptown Athens area early in the morning. Lawson would have been 15 years old at the time of the first incident in June 2006.

In the June 2015 case, Athens Police Lt. Jeff McCall used a technique called touch DNA to collect evidence, where DNA can be obtained from areas on the victims body that a perpetrator touched. The DNA obtained in that case led to a match with the DNA from the both the June 2006 case and the later, December 2015 case, thus launching the search for the alleged serial rapist.

McCall said after Lawsons arrest that police obtained DNA samples from as many as 30 community members voluntarily in their search for the perpetrator.

But when the Ohio State Highway Patrol arrested Lawson in November 2015 in Athens County for OVI (drunk-driving) and a felony charge of having a firearm in a vehicle while driving intoxicated, his DNA was not collected, Prosecutor Blackburn confirmed.

DNA collection for felony offenses occurs at the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail in Nelsonville, Blackburn said, but in this case from what he understands Lawson was released into the custody of his then-wife without being taken to the jail, and thus his DNA was never collected.

Ohio Revised Code 2901.07 outlines state law with regard to DNA specimen collection procedure.

Subsection (B)(1)(a) states that after July 1, 2011, any person 18 years old or older arrested for a felony offense shall submit to a DNA specimen collection procedure administered by the head of the arresting law-enforcement agency. The head of the arresting law-enforcement agency shall cause the DNA specimen to be collected from the person during the intake process at the jail, community-based correctional facility, detention facility, or law enforcement agency office or station to which the arrested person is taken after the arrest.

The Athens NEWS sent the Ohio State Highway Patrol media contact an email on Friday morning asking why this had not occurred in Lawsons case but had not received a response as of our print deadline on Sunday.

Section (B)(1)(b) of ORC 2901.07 states that if the head of the arresting law-enforcement agency has not administered a DNA specimen collection procedure upon the person arrested for a felony in accordance with division (B)(1)(a) of this section by the time of the arraignment or first appearance of the person, the court shall order the person to appear before the sheriff or chief of police of the county or municipal corporation within 24 hours to submit to a DNA specimen collection procedure administered by the sheriff or chief of police.

Court records for Lawsons felony firearm case do not show the court ordering a DNA collection. This issue likely would not have been raised unless the court had been informed that DNA collection hadnt taken place due to Lawson not undergoing intake at the regional jail.

On Friday, Sheriff Smith said that his office has obtained hundreds of DNA testing kits from the Ohio State Bureau of Criminal Investigation and will now collect DNA specimens from those arraigned on felony charges in Athens County Common Pleas Court as a catch-all, even if they were arrested by some other law-enforcement agency.

He said that his office began doing so last week after having never done so in the past. The office is able to tell whether a person has had DNA collected previously by running his or her fingerprints through the Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway database, Smith said. If he or she has not, the Sheriffs Office will gather a sample, he said.

If its never been done, thats when we do the DNA test, he said. Its needed and its something thats very important and we want to make sure it gets done.

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Would DNA check after 2015 felony arrest have averted later assault? - Athens NEWS