MADISON — Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle said this week he supports a bill calling for DNA to be collected at the time a person is arrested for a felony instead of upon conviction.

A bill to do just that was introduced on Monday and is expected to be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Legislature this fall.

Doyle said he would sign the proposal, which he said made "good sense," takes the state in the right direction and would simplify the intake of DNA by making it the responsibility of the police department instead of multiple agencies.

Currently, a person must be convicted of a felony before he or she must submit DNA. Prison officials take a biological sample from inmates upon arrival, while sheriffs take it from felons sentenced to jail or probation.

"When you have these different points of collection ... there are cases that fall through the cracks," said Doyle, a former three-term attorney general.

Rep. Ann Hraychuck, D-Balsam Lake — who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, and appeared with Doyle at the news conference where he announced his support — said expanding the database would help solve old crimes and exonerate the innocent.

The proposal would vastly expand the number of samples that flow into the state crime labs even as state officials reel from reports that DNA samples from thousands of offenders are missing. The state Justice Department discovered DNA samples from as many as 12,000 offenders in the state corrections system never made it to the agency's crime labs.

Doyle said he did not think testing people upon arrest instead of conviction would result in a significantly larger burden on the crime labs, despite an initial influx of samples.

The American Civil Liberties Union has criticized the bill. Chris Ahmuty, executive director of the ACLU's Wisconsin chapter, has said taking DNA at arrest would be too expensive, too invasive and too difficult to track.

Doyle said he understood those concerns, but that anyone who argues against taking DNA upon arrest would also have to be against taking a mug shot or fingerprint, which is standard protocol.

The DNA sample is used as an identifier and nothing more, he said.

Twenty-one other states already take DNA upon arrest for certain felonies, including murder and sex crimes.

Under the bill, people could ask that their DNA be expunged from the databank if no charges are filed within a year; they are found not guilty; or a conviction is reversed.

Hraychuck said she didn't know how much the bill would cost or how it would be paid for, but that a number of options including instituting some sort of fee were being considered.