Posted on 06/11/2019 9:24:44 AM PDT by FoxInSocks
Some of the databases are proprietary, but I think there are about three that are completely open to the public, and those are ones the police have used in similar cases.
I think the issue is whether the suspect had a reasonable expectation of privacy when he submitted his DNA to the private company 23&Me, or whoever it was. Clearly he did not, since he agreed that his DNA profile could be compared to that of strangers and the results published to 3rd parties.
And a really small population base as is found in rural Canadian villages. Probably doesn’t work so well in Toronto or Montreal.
Typically the subject/suspect DNA is obtained from a discarded object, usually a drink cup or container. Once that is matched to the evidentiary DNA, getting a warrant to compel a “clean” sample from a cheek swab is next.
I don’t see how in that chain, he has anything to argue. Each of these steps has been adjudicated on its own previously in case law already.
If each step is constitutional in it’s own right, I don’t see how you argue that combined, they suddenly violate the constitution.
In these cases I believe it is not the suspect who has submitted the DNA sample. The connection comes from relatives who have submitted their own DNA, which then allows investigators to trace the family tree to the suspect. That said, no suspect has a protected right of privacy from relatives’ actions.
The Mountie technique is not so different that what you find from the Sherlock Holmes/Scotland Yard era. Many former British Colonies employ the same techniques with good results. That includes the United States, at one time, before we got overly concerned with profiling and diversity that the police got overwhelmed.
Most older law enforcement people will tell you that it is a very small subset (1% or so) which accounts for the vast majority of crimes. An Indonesian colleague I knew from a previous life told me the local police in some areas there have it down to such a science that they actually go through files on slow nights and arrange to have the worst offenders disappear in circumstances like street fights.
They even investigate such mysterious killings but are unable to find anything conclusive, if you catch my drift.
The Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) works by finding the best match from its database of fingerprints. However, an FBI fingerprint expert still has to make the final determination.
The same concept applies to these genealogy DNA databases. They can help narrow down the list but someone still has to make the final determination with a sample from the suspect. The Geneology database is not admissible is court. Only a true DNA sample fro the suspect is allowed as evidence.
This case will go nowhere.
Well that remains to be seen. It would cheer me greatly if there was enough other evidence and testimony to lock him away for a few hundred years.
I’m not sure what you mean by profiling in this case, at least as far as enabling the accused to walk away. A DNA profile is based on scientific tests and categorization, not on general, suspect class based characteristics.
It means sometimes, we jump to conclusions.
The question arises from how the police initially found the suspect and knew to follow him and collect that DNA evidence.
He works as a nurse.
https://mugshots.com/Current-Events/JESSE-BJERKE.175109070.html
That’s not what the suspect is challenging. He is challenging the retrieval of publicly discarded straws and drink containers without a warrant. Not even from his home trash, but public trash.
He has no case.
Or use an iPhone to commit a crime, since Apple refuses to help LEO’s unlock them...
“While it is legal for police to pick up a discarded item, Leibig argues that extracting a DNA profile from that item requires a warrant — and that the Parabon report would not be enough to support one. He compared it with searching the contents of a lawfully seized cellphone, which the Supreme Court has ruled requires a warrant — as does getting cell-tower data mapping a person’s location.”
Cops can pick up a discarded item without a warrant, but not test it unless they have a warrant. That is essentially the argument and it is BS. As is speciaously comparing dna to cell phone contents.
But props to the lawyer, he is providing the vigorous defense he is being paid for.
This Perfect Day" by Ira Levin.
Also, The Blooding" by Joseph Wambaugh
These two books, one fiction and the other non-fiction, help to illustrate my concern over use of DNA databases.
Many dystopian novels center around the horrors of living in a surveillance state. In the limit one can imagine a state in which no act goes unnoticed, no movement is unrecorded, and no utterance is ever forgotten.
Even further, the technology to monitor THOUGHTS may well be possible. Polygraphs are inadmissible in court, not because they are overly intrusive, but because they are unreliable. Would a perfectly reliable lie detection process gain acceptance?
There is a program on cable which solves crimes mainly by collecting videos from the many surveillance cameras that people have voluntarily installed.
Presently I think the courts use as a standard whether or not a person has "a reasonable expectation of privacy". The problem with that standard is that expectations are going to change over time.
We are definitely heading toward a "brave, new world". The year 1984 didn't bring the prophesied horrors. I am not convinced that 2084 won't.
The ancestry thing solved an old murder because it limited the suspects to a specific family; I honestly don’t know why anyone would use those “services”, since their results have been questionable.
“It led to him being the suspect”
I think that’s the key. A relative’s DNA put them on a path that pointed to a suspect to investigate. To me it’s a lot like using info from a tip line, but maybe that’s not the best comparison.
My point is that to a large measure, black criminal defense has developed and forced into common law the concept “thou shall not profile”. Profiling is a politically incorrect no no
To allow a DNA profile puts the black psudoprofiling concept at risk.
At root the black defenders are doing our system a racist dis service because to do almost anything, one must make choices, discriminate. Profiling is discrimination, eliminating or chosing those factors that seem relevant
The black political cabal can not let it stand
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