Posted on 04/20/2008 3:52:41 PM PDT by neverdem
A01
Twenty years after DNA fingerprints were first admitted by American courts as a way to link suspects to crime scenes, a new and very different class of genetic test is approaching the bench.
Rather than simply proving, for example, that the blood on a suspect's clothes does or does not match that of a murder victim, these "second generation" DNA tests seek to shed light on the biological traits and psychological states of the accused. In effect, they allow genes to "testify" in ways never before possible, in some cases resolving long-standing legal tangles but in others raising new ones.
Already, chemical companies facing "toxic tort" claims have persuaded courts to order DNA tests on the people suing them, part of an attempt to show that the plaintiffs' own genes made them sick -- not the companies' products.
In other cases, defense attorneys are asking judges to admit test results suggesting that their clients have a genetic predisposition for violent or impulsive behavior, adding a potential "DNA defense" to a legal system that until now has held virtually everyone accountable for their actions except the insane or mentally retarded.
Some gene tests are even being touted for their capacity to help judges predict the likelihood that a convict, if released, will break the law again -- a measure of "future dangerousness" that raises questions about how far courts can go to abort crimes that have not yet been committed.
Most of these tests are still research tools hovering on the margins of admissibility; only a few have made the leap from the lab bench to the courtroom. But scientists' expanding ability to query people's genes, and lawyers' efforts to introduce those findings as evidence, are forcing scholars and judges to think in new ways about the Constitution's protections against...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Written by someone with no background in biology.
This is on the margins of both science and psychology. Astrology would be more reliable.
"He lost his plea, but the written opinion of one lower court judge suggested that, had he won, the evidence might have done Landrigan more harm than good.
"The potential for future dangerousness . . . inherent in Landrigan's alleged genetic pre-disposition for violence would have negated its mitigating capacity for evoking compassion," the judge wrote.
"Similarly, in a rare case in which a court did accept evidence of a defendant's inborn 'propensity to commit murder,' that court, in Idaho, considered it an aggravating factor, not a mitigating one, and used it to help justify the death sentence."
You walked right into it. Read the story. It's quite interesting.
Phrenology has been neglected for too long.
Rick Weiss is a science and medical reporter for the Washington Post. He came to the Post's Health section in 1993 and moved to the national desk in January 1996, where he covers genetics, molecular biology and other topics in the life sciences.
Before coming to the Post, Weiss was a staff writer for Health magazine in San Francisco. Before that he was for four years a biology and biomedicine writer at Science News magazine, a Washington, D.C.-based weekly. He also spent a year as a science writer for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Weiss, 43, earned a B.S. in biology from Cornell University in 1974. For ten years he worked as a licensed medical technologist in hospital laboratories, specializing in microbiology, serology and blood banking. In 1983 he entered the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a Masters in Journalism in 1985. He has written articles for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Science, Discover and other publications.
Weiss lives in Takoma Park, Md., with his wife, New York Times science writer Natalie Angier, and their 14-month-old daughter, Katherine.
www.brainwavescience.com
Yes, it is interesting. It’s a good article the writer did not have enough time to improve.
Some of stuff about imputing certain psychological states from certain DNA patterns is not without precedent, but it is still very much on shaky ground.
Studies of twins separated at birth remain a fascinating set of accounts of how genetics and personality are intertwined. One story told of twin boys separated at birth who, when reunited many years later, found out, among other things, they liked the same brand of toothpaste. And there is a whole bunch of stuff that goes a whole lot deeper than that.
The aerosol man -- (global warming deniers)Part XXXIII
Bird flu in one way or another is wiping out poultry in South Korea
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
these "second generation" DNA tests seek to shed light on the biological traits and psychological states of the accusedGee, I sure hope these tests are used to identify possible vulnerabilities to serious illness. Wouldn't want anything to happen to these poor misunderstood victims of the so-called justice system. /rimshot
In the neighborhood where I work, I see little girls with babies all the time. And, the daddies are not limited to one or even five of these little “child mommas” but I have a feeling that if somebody wanted to compel a study of the DNA of these little girls and their babies we’d have another a race riot here.
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