Washington

Enhanced Budget Items

• Unidentified human remains — FGG funding (2024). The Legislature approved a $500,000 AG-request budget item in the 2024 supplemental budget directing funds to the Washington State Patrol to provide financial assistance to local jurisdictions for DNA testing — and, where DNA alone fails to identify, forensic genetic genealogy — covering the state’s entire backlog of 163 unidentified remains. Cost is the principal barrier: roughly $2,500 per remains for DNA testing and $8,000 for FGG, with the free NamUs alternative running up to 18-month delays and excluding some remains. The item originated as a December 2023 recommendation of the AG’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force.

Arrestees: No

Convicted Offenders: Yes – adults and juveniles.

Qualifying Crimes: Felonies, plus enumerated misdemeanors (and equivalent juvenile offenses): fourth-degree assault where domestic violence was pleaded and proven; fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation; communication with a minor for immoral purposes; second-degree custodial sexual misconduct; failure to register as a sex or kidnapping offender; harassment; patronizing a prostitute; second-degree sexual misconduct with a minor; stalking; indecent exposure; and violation of a sexual assault protection order. Also: anyone required to register as a sex or kidnapping offender.

Time of Collection: For persons confined in a Department of Corrections or Department of Children, Youth, and Families facility, the sample is taken during intake — or, failing that, as soon as practicable before release. If the sample is not collected prior to release, the responsible department shall notify the sentencing court, and the sentencing court shall schedule for the collection of the sample. For convicted people who will not serve a term of confinement, the court shall order the person to be administratively booked at a city or county jail facility for providing a sample, unless the local police department or sheriff’s office has a protocol for collecting the biological sample in the courtroom.

Expungement: By written request with a certified copy of the court order vacating the conviction based on its reversal. A trial court may also order expungement for a defendant who was charged and acquitted — or whose conviction was overturned — in connection with a violent or sex offense.

Statutes / Case Law

RCW 43.43.754. DNA identification system–Biological samples–Collection, use, testing–Scope and application of section

RCW 5.70.020. Destruction of DNA Reference Samples—Expungement of DNA Reference Sample Data

W.A.C. § 446-75-070. Expungement of DNA Data.

State v. Munoz-Hernandez, 574 P.3d 136 (Wash. Ct. App. 2025) (it was not a violation of due process for the State to not inform a person of his vacated conviction or that he had a right to expunge his DNA profile, or by not immediately expunging his DNA profile from the database)

Legislative History

• 2SSB 5375 (1989) → Ch. 350, Laws of 1989 (partial veto). “AN ACT Relating to DNA identification; adding new sections to chapter 43.43 RCW; creating a new section; and making an appropriation.” Created Washington’s DNA identification system from scratch. Opened with legislative findings that developments in molecular biology and genetics have important forensic applications and that the chemical structure of DNA in each cell is unique. Established Washington State Patrol authority to collect biological samples and build a DNA database, and appropriated funds for it.
• SSB 6729 (1990) → Ch. 230, Laws of 1990 (partial veto). “AN ACT Relating to DNA identification; amending RCW 43.43.758 and 43.43.754; adding new sections to chapter 43.43 RCW; and declaring an emergency.” First expansion of the 1989 system, strengthening the mandatory collection requirements. The emergency clause made it effective immediately.
• HB 1757 (1999) → Ch. 329, Laws of 1999. Established the modern database targeting violent and sex offenders and significantly expanded the offender categories subject to mandatory collection. Passed 96–0 in the House and 42–2 in the Senate.
• SHB 2468 (2002) → Ch. 289, Laws of 2002, effective July 1, 2002; passed the House 97–0. “AN ACT Relating to the convicted offender DNA data base.” Amended RCW 43.43.754, 43.43.759 and 9.94A.505, and — unusually — amended the uncodified legislative findings at 1989 c 350 § 1, updating the rationale from the accuracy of identification to the value of DNA databases. Added new sections to chapter 43.43 RCW and extended the program to additional offender categories.
• 2SHB 2713 (2008) → Ch. 97, Laws of 2008, effective June 12, 2008; passed the House 94–1. “AN ACT Relating to DNA identification of convicted sex offenders and other persons.” Amended RCW 43.43.753, 43.43.754, 43.43.7541 and 43.43.756, again rewriting the findings section and making significant changes to collection requirements and database administration.
• SSB 5154 (2015) → Ch. 261, Laws of 2015. Comprehensive sex offender registration reform that added enforcement teeth to the collection mandate by making refusal to submit a biological sample under RCW 43.43.754(1)(b) a gross misdemeanor.
• E2SHB 1163 (2017) → Ch. 272, Laws of 2017. Domestic violence legislation that added fourth-degree assault where domestic violence was pleaded and proven as a standalone qualifying offense, bringing certain misdemeanor-level DV convictions into the mandatory collection requirement.
• SHB 1326 (2019) → Ch. 443, Laws of 2019 — “Jennifer and Michella’s law.” Amended RCW 43.43.754 and 9A.44.132. Its findings recite that DNA matches have focused investigative resources, identified recidivist and cold case offenders, and absolved wrongly suspected and convicted persons, and frame the act as “procedural improvements and measured expansions” to solve cold cases and support exoneration. Three substantive additions: a municipal submission pathway at new subsection (2), letting a municipality submit a sample collected on a municipal-ordinance conviction equivalent to a listed state offense — for samples collected between June 12, 2008 and January 1, 2020, with a signed affidavit from the municipal prosecutor specifying the equivalent state crime; a new subsection (3) allowing law enforcement to submit any lawfully obtained sample from a deceased offenderpreviously convicted of a qualifying offense, regardless of conviction date; and a new subsection (4) confirming that no subsequent submission is required where the crime laboratory already holds a sample for a qualifying offense.
• ESHB 2318 (2020) → Ch. 26, Laws of 2020. “AN ACT Relating to advancing criminal investigatory practices,” amending ten sections including RCW 43.43.754. Section 7 rewrote the qualifying offenses list, which as amended covers every felony conviction plus eleven enumerated misdemeanor-level offenses — fourth-degree assault with domestic violence or with sexual motivation, communication with a minor for immoral purposes, second-degree custodial sexual misconduct, failure to register, harassment, patronizing a prostitute, second-degree sexual misconduct with a minor, stalking, indecent exposure, and violation of a sexual assault protection order — along with everyone required to register under RCW 9A.44.130.
• 2SHB 1028 (2023) → Ch. 197, Laws of 2023. “AN ACT Relating to supporting crime victims and witnesses by promoting victim-centered, trauma-informed responses in the legal system,” amending seven sections including RCW 43.43.754. Section 7 amended the collection trigger to read “every adult or juvenile individual convicted of a felony, or adjudicated of an offense which if committed by an adult would be a felony” — making explicit that juvenile felony-equivalent adjudications trigger collection.

• No program or law identified, but evidence of use:
  • Rapid DNA machine in King County being used for casework (2026)
  • Possible Rapid DNA in Yakima County (2026
  • WSP Rapid DNA Pilot Program (2025) – $1.3M for Rapid DNA (2021)

• No program or law identified.

Program – The Attorney General’s Office runs the Lawfully Owed DNA Project under WASAKI, funded through federal DOJ Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grants, in three phases beginning with registered sex offenders and expanding to all offenders who owe samples. A 2019 estimate put the gap at roughly 30,000 convicted felons statewide. The Office completed the registered sex offender phase, and by 2024 the project had added about 3,000 profiles of serious offenders to CODIS (earlier milestone: 2,000+).

Legislation

• HB 1326 (2019, enacted — “Jennifer and Michella’s Law”) amended RCW 43.43.754 to authorize submission of deceased offenders’ samples; allow municipal jurisdictions to submit samples for municipal offenses equivalent to qualifying state offenses; require the Department of Corrections and the Department of Children, Youth, and Families to collect at intake or as soon as practicable; extend the crime of refusing to provide DNA to all offenses requiring a sample; and redirect Washington State Patrol collection priority from sex and violent offenders to those convicted before June 12, 2008 who had never given a sample and are nearest to release. For non-incarcerated offenders, the court must order the person to report to police or the sheriff within a set timeframe and advise that refusal is a gross misdemeanor.
• HB 1028 (2023, enacted, effective 7/23/2023) restructured that collection framework to ensure timely collection at the front end, directing courts to adopt a time-sensitive sentencing protocol — if DNA is not collected at sentencing, the court must schedule a compliance hearing within 10 days. The AG’s Office subsequently announced collection from more than 2,600 serious offenders.

• No program or law found.