Pursuant to G.S.15A-266.5A, the MDT must contact the State Crime Lab to request testing of their LEA’s untested SAECKs as soon as practicable no later than March 18, 2020. Please do not wait until then to form an MDT, prioritize pre-2018 cases in the LEA’s inventory, and request testing of your unsubmitted SAECKs.
We have the resources now to test your SAECKs. Reviews and submissions can certainly be done in phases and in cycles in order to quickly begin outsourcing portions of your untested inventory. This is what has been called a “modified fork-lift approach” in identifying kits for testing. This approach involves an initial selection of a random number of kits – for instance, selecting 50 out of 100 previously untested kits – from which to conduct the first “cycle” of case review by the MDT to determine whether they should be tested. Once those kits have been submitted, conduct another cycle to review the remaining 50 and then contact the lab to request testing of the second cycle.
This process will continue until the entire untested inventory has been reviewed and either a) tested or b) determined to fall into the following categories: i) Unreported (send to LESS Warehouse), ii) Determined Unfounded after MDT review; or iii) There was a criminal conviction and the perpetrator’s DNA is already in CODIS and the convicted person does not seek DNA testing. G.S. 15A-266.5A(d)(3).