CODIS

So, if you're a convicted felon, you lose not only the right to vote - you lose your genetic privacy.

This has some troubling implications, sure. Once a convict, always a suspect? Maybe. It certainly says something that the government has so little faith in the likelihood that felons will be "rehabilitated" in prison, right? And the database can be used to determine whether, for example, DNA from an unsolved crime scene might belong to the sibling of a convict. The sibling of the convict might complain from a purely technical standpoint that this is unfair.

I don't want to make this too personal or dramatic, but an old co-worker of mine was recently murdered in her apartment. While initial reports were vague, we now know that the murderer was her building's super-intendent; he had access to all the apartments in the complex; he was a recovering addict with previous convictions for a number of offenses; and while initial reports didn't indicate a motive, we know now that he raped her before beating her to death.

Thanks to CODIS, this vile human should never see the world from outside a cell again. Virginia can seek the death penalty, which raises a number of other issues that are not worth getting into. What matters is that - at the risk of sounding like I'm trading freedom for security - a number of other single women who live in that same residential complex will know that they are safer in their apartments. And I hope that they will be able to demand that the management company disclose the kinds of historical information about this man that may have impacted Gini's or someone else's decision to live there.

Though I only worked with her for about a year, she was sweet, kind, and very generous. She was active in her church but fun-loving and always friendly. Looking back, I feel awful for my mild indifference to her, for being put off by her cheerful demeanor and for cynically scoffing at her unbridled optimism. The world needs more people like her and fewer people like me.

May she rest in peace.