Posted on 11/25/2016 7:18:48 AM PST by Tarasaramozart
Blind faith in any technology can be dangerous — especially when it comes to areas of forensic science such as DNA fingerprinting. For example, if police have "DNA evidence" against a suspect, most juries will assume that's proof of guilt. But while the technology for analyzing DNA has become vastly more sensitive since it was first introduced in courts in the 1990s, crime labs are working with ever more minute traces — sometimes just a few molecules — and drawing inconsistent or erroneous conclusions from them. In fact, there's good reason to believe DNA evidence has sent people to prison for crimes they didn't commit....
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
It’s the quality assurance/quality control of supposedly certified forensic laboratories that is the problem, especially with county-, state- and federal-owned forensic laboratories.
If QA/QC management positions are filled with politically-influenced appointments, which then influence technical hirings, overall lab QA/QC only goes downhill.
Always and every day. Prob the shortage of highly skilled, experienced techs. I did learn if I ate cheetos by the mass spec, doc would frown.. but that was twenty years ago when we ate pizza in the morgue, after a long autopsy.
DNA is useless against bias.
In 2006, DNA testing by two separate labs cleared the entire Duke lacrosse team of any contact with their accuser,
and before anyone in that case was even arrested.
Durham DA Mike Nifong had claimed, as justification for testing the entire team, that DNA evidence was “bulletproof” and would immediately rule out the innocent.
But as soon as it did so, he did a 180 and asked, “How does DNA exonerate anyone?” and said he would try the case “the old-fashioned way”, before DNA testing was available.
And the compliant media let him get away with that for another year.
That is part of what a defense lawyer is supposed to do. If you can show evidence collected in a certain way means the probability of error is one in two instead of one in a billion, you’ll be in good shape.
Or should be. But then, people who watch too much TV wonder why cops don’t shoot the gun out of a bad guy’s hand...
Your skin sheds in entirety every month or so. Instead of sloughing off all at once like a snake, it’s constantly being shed and replaced.
As such, everywhere you go you’re dropping DNA. When the wind blows, or the air condition runs in your home, your DNA can be blown into places you haven’t actually been to recently.
So using a microscopic piece of DNA is actually an absurd concept. You’d have to prove determine how that bitty speck actually arrived at your point of collection to make any kind of conclusion.
lol
so my DNA might just randomly fall on a rape victim that id’d me as the perp?
and it’s all a horrible accident?
right.
The truth is that DNA evidence can EXCLUDE one (from being a member of a group whose DNA is almost identical to the tested sample), but it cannot positively identify ONE person.
Bad conclusions from no DNA have freed many guilty people also
“How DNA evidence went from air-tight to error-prone”
Lawyers.
It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is
Anything that involves a human element is subject to error. This has always been true and it will always be true.
April 5, 2006
Nancy Grace: “DNA test results pending at this moment will make or break not only the team but the state`s case!”
April 6, 2006
Nancy Grace: “The clock is ticking down on DNA results. They will make or break the case!”
April 10, 2006
Nancy Grace: “Tonight, breaking news, a major blow tonight to the state. DNA results in the Duke University lacrosse team rape scandal are in, and according to the defense, no DNA — not no DNA match, but no DNA whatsoever!”
KEVIN MILLER, WPTF RADIO: No DNA period, according to defense attorneys today, where they held their impromptu newser about two hours ago, Nancy.
GRACE: OK, question. What about the fingernails that were broken off on the bathroom floor?
MILLER: According defense attorney Joe Cheshire, no DNA there, no DNA of the accuser in the bathroom.
Nancy Grace: “Wendy [Murphy], I know that this is a huge blow to the state. Now, you and I have prosecuted long enough to have prosecuted rape cases, serious rape cases, before we had DNA, all right? I didn`t have DNA in my original rape prosecutions. We didn`t have it to use it.”
April 11, 2006
Richard Herman, Defense Attorney: “There`s no DNA in her, on her, or in the bathroom. Come on, Nancy!”
Nancy Grace: “I prosecuted cases long before we had DNA in rape cases, so believe me, it can be done and it can be done successfully without DNA. ... And in this case, without DNA, it all boils down to credibility. Who will the jury believe? That`s where circumstantial evidence comes in, the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape.”
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/05/ng.01.html
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/06/ng.01.html
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/10/ng.01.html
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/11/ng.01.html
Not only lawyers, but DNA techs. Our education system is producing a bunch of dunces so the quality of DNA techs is probably also dropping. Add to that minority hires and you have some very questionable results. Not saying all minorities but those who are pushed along in the education system because of their minority status.
Any system devised by humans will always be prone to human error and/or manipulation (it’s part of Murphy’s Law). Innocent people will continue to be convicted and people as guilty as Hell (Clintons) will continue to go free. It’s just part of life.
30 years ago I knew an attorney who, while visiting the Tuolomne County Jail, noticed that its breathalyzer unit was hung on the wall just over the fingerprint desk. Fingerprint ink in those days was wiped off with alcohol rubs. And fumes rise.
So he took a photo of it with a camera he had in his and sold prints, with an authenticating written declaration by him, to drunk driving defense attorneys for $50 each.
?Mass Spec???
Probably a machine used in a lab...
Back in the day, smoking messed up trace element analyses.
I’ll take the chance...DNA is as close to perfect as we have ever been.
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