(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is calling on the legislature to pass a law requiring the collection of D-N-A from adults arrested for felonies or aggravated misdemeanors. “No family should have to wait years for answers about what happened to their loved one and no criminal should ever get away with murder, rape or other violent crime,” Bird said. “We need to give law enforcement the tools they need to investigate and to bring violent criminals to justice.”

All 50 states require D-N-A testing of adults CONVICTED of felonies. Over 30 states have also passed D-N-A collection requirements from those ARRESTED for violent crimes. They’re all named “Katie’s Law,” for a 22-year-old woman who was brutally attacked and murdered in New Mexico. Suzana Martinez, the former governor of New Mexico, joined Bird at a statehouse news conference yesterday (Tuesday).

“DNA…is the 21st century fingerprint,” Martinez said. “…Upon arrest, when we take your fingerprints, we should be taking the DNA as well.” Martinez was the district attorney who tried the case against the man who killed Katie Sepich — once the D-N-A he submitted following a CONVICTION for a different crime matched the D-N-A material found under Katie Sepich’s fingernails.

Martinez says by requiring D-N-A collection at the time of an arrest, Katie’s Law turns every booking station into a doorway to justice for a cold case. “It brings a level of scientific certainty to our justice system that gut feelings and that line-ups just don’t do,” Martinez said. “Katie Sepich’s death was a tragedy, but the three-year’s delay in identifying her killer was a failure of the system.”

Bird’s also proposing a bill that would let children and adults who are victims of sex crimes get a lifetime no-contact order. “One particularly troubling case that I will never forget where…a woman with children of her own ran into the person who sexually assaulted her as a child in a grocery store and didn’t realize the no-contact order didn’t exist anymore because she didn’t realize she had to extend it,” Bird said.

Under current law, criminal no-contact orders usually last a year. Bird also wants to change confidentiality rules and let a crime victim’s counselor notify law enforcement if they believe there’s an immediate risk of harm to their client or someone connected to their client. Mary Ingham is Executive Director of Crisis Intervention Services, which serves crime victims in 15 north central Iowa counties. “This is about fairness, this is about balance and it’s about time,” Ingham said. “For decades, defendants have had pages of rights guaranteed by law. Victims deserve the same commitment.”

Bird’s also seeking a tougher felony charge against some accused of threatening an Iowa judge or their family.