Pelosi goes over health bill, leaves March 18 vote possibility open - TheHill.com

Pelosi goes over health bill, leaves March 18 vote possibility open - TheHill.com

Penn State Law Professor on DNA Evidence

Penn State Law Professor David Kaye discusses his book Double Helix and the Law of Evidence published by Harvard University Press.

Professor Says Use Of DNA Evidence Is Not An Open And Shut Case

Professor Says Use Of DNA Evidence Is Not An Open And Shut Case

The Right to Confront Witnesses

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/opinion/11mon2.html

"Just last June, the Supreme Court decided that when prosecutors rely on lab reports they must call the experts who prepared them to testify. It was an important ruling, based on a defendant’s right to be confronted with witnesses against him, but the court is about to revisit it. The justices should reaffirm that the Sixth Amendment requires prosecutors to call the lab analysts whose work they rely on."

Continued Attempts To Use Bitemarks As Evidence

The use of Bite Marks as forensic evidence was in some trouble before it became widely attacked. I doubt that it meets the requirements of scientific evidence in any way. Witnesses are under a great deal of fire for using it, even though some of the investigative programs in television seem to still sell it as viable.

However, one commentator says, "He (Michael West) also asserts that he has made 600 dental I.D’s and 300 bite mark I.D.’s. Of the 100 board certified forensic odontologists in the United States, about 90% of them have testified for the opposite side when Dr. West is called as an expert witness.”

There seems to be no such thing as "Board Certified Forensic Odonologists," though the "Board," referred to is not a professional organization like a medical association or bar of attorneys with powers to certify authorized by a state or to remove the ability to practice. If there is a state or federal agency which has requirements outside their own lab for certification and sanctioning, I have yet to discover it.

According to the Chicago Tribune:
"This is the epitome of junk science cloaked as academic research," said Dr. Michael Bowers, a California odontologist and a frequent critic of bite-mark comparisons. "I don't think his claims are supported. The study just doesn't pass muster."

Many of the techniques or their error rates are coming under the microscope of the court system in much the same way as the polygraph did decades ago. This includes DNA.

NPR CLAIMS Regarding National Academy of Science Report on Forensics

The committee found there isn't enough research behind many forensic techniques to show how accurate and reliable they are.

It also says forensic labs are underfunded and understaffed, and there's no mandatory certification to ensure quality.

It says forensic analysts' court testimony commonly refers to evidence being a "match" or "consistent with" a suspect, even though no forensic method except for DNA analysis "has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source."

While autosomal DNA has passed a Daubert test on whether it is scientific, it receives very little needed review that would show it is not the "gold standard" of forensics.

In Illinois they found 903 pairs of profiles of separate individuals matching at nine or more loci in a database of about 220,000.

In Maryland, in a database of fewer than 30,000 profiles, 32 pairs matched at nine or more loci. Three of those pairs were identical at 13 out of 13 loci.


RECOMMENDED READING:
The danger of DNA: It isn't perfect
The verdict is out on DNA profiles
Top lab repeatedly botched DNA tests
Crime labs finding questionable DNA matches:
FBI tries to keep national database away from lawyers

Beware When They Claim a "DNA Match"

Not with any case particularly, but in general, not all DNA tests are equal. They depend on suspect samples which may not be of high quality. If you have no other evidence, they should not be automatically considered as a gold standard in determining guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Autosomal DNA is dependent on how many loci are found. The FBI tests and records 13 loci. Suspect samples may have 13, 10, 8, 5, or only one loci that show up. The fewer the loci, the more the matches.