34 U.S.C. § 12591 — Quality assurance and proficiency testing standards

(a) Publication of quality assurance and proficiency testing standards. (1)(A) Within 180 days of September 13, 1994, the Director of the FBI had to appoint an advisory board on DNA quality assurance methods. Board members came from nominations by the head of the National Academy of Sciences and by professional societies of crime lab officials. (B) The board had to include scientists from state, local, and private forensic labs; molecular and population geneticists who do not work for a forensic lab; and a representative from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. (C) The board writes, and can later revise, recommended quality assurance standards — including proficiency tests for both forensic labs and the analysts who work in them. (2) After considering the board's recommendations, the FBI Director issues (and can later revise) the actual quality assurance and proficiency testing standards. (3) These standards must set criteria for quality assurance and proficiency tests for each different type of DNA analysis labs use. They must also include a grading system to decide whether a lab is performing acceptably. (4) Until the board makes recommendations and the Director acts on them, the quality assurance guidelines already adopted by the technical working group on DNA analysis methods count as the Director's official standards. (5)(A) The Director must also issue standards and procedures for using "Rapid DNA instruments" and their results. (B) A "Rapid DNA instrument" is defined as equipment that automatically produces a DNA analysis from a sample, without a person doing the lab work by hand. (b) Administration of advisory board. (1) For administrative purposes, this board reports to the FBI Director. (2) Section 1013 of title 5 does not apply to this board. (3) This DNA advisory board is separate from any other FBI advisory board and must be run separately. (4) The board stops existing five years after its first members are appointed, unless the Director extends it. (c) Proficiency testing program. (1) Within one year of the law's effective date, the Director of the National Institute of Justice had to certify to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees one of three things: (A) that the Institute had funded, or otherwise ensured, a "blind" external proficiency testing program for DNA analyses that would be available to public and private labs within two years of September 13, 1994; (B) that such a program already existed and was available; or (C) that blind external testing was not feasible. (2) A "blind external proficiency test" is a test sent to a lab through a second agency, designed to look like ordinary evidence so the analysts do not know it's a test. (3) During the first year that funding is handed out under this subtitle, the Attorney General must give the National Institute of Justice Director up to $250,000 — taken from funds available under part X of title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 — to carry out this proficiency testing program.