Recently, the police involved you in a criminal investigation, saying they found your DNA at the crime scene. You may have a loose understanding of DNA fingerprinting, which law enforcement uses to identify individuals using strands of DNA, but do you know its...
“The Defense Never Rests.”
Forensics
How reliable is DNA evidence?
When it comes to criminal cases, courts consider DNA evidence as a reliable indication of a person's guilt or innocence. A technician will collect DNA samples at the scene of the crime, take them to a lab, and test them to look for a potential match. When there is a...
Understanding post-conviction DNA testing laws
While DNA testing is a major component in many criminal trials in Maryland and across the United States, it has not always been a part of the evidence process. Some defendants did not have access to DNA evidence gathered during the case, which could potentially lead...
Study uncovers errors over crime scene blood evidence
The most rigorous study ever done on a widely-used forensic technique – bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) – reveals disturbing error rates and disagreements among certified analysts. The study, published in the August edition of Forensic Science International,...
What is “trace DNA”?
DNA plays a huge role in the modern court system when determining guilt or innocence. It also may be used in appeals or when cracking “cold cases” that investigators could not solve in the past. Experts sometimes refer to “trace” DNA as “touch” DNA. According to...
What are the requirements of pre-conviction DNA collection?
DNA evidence plays a significant role in the criminal justice system. In some cases, it can convict a person of a crime. In others, it establishes the innocence of a person who has spent years of their life in prison. Because it is a deciding factor in so many...
Federal Defendants With Negotiated Plea Can Benefit From Later Reduction In Guidelines
On June 4, 2018, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Hughes v. United States, which held, in a 6-3 Opinion by Justice Kennedy, that a defendant who pleads guilty in a negotiated plea can benefit from later changes in the sentencing guidelines if the district...
The Golden State Killer: Why DNA Searches For Family Should Worry You
Investigators employed a new and vastly more powerful familial searching technology to identify the person now charged as the Golden State Killer. This new technology types over 700,000 locations on the human genome for ancestry and medical information, instead of the...
Unregulated Public and Private DNA Databanks Need Legislative Supervision
DNA databanks are proliferating outside of the FBI’s CODIS network of law enforcement databanks and the regulatory framework that presently governs the collection, retention and distribution of DNA samples and records. These shadow DNA databanks primarily exist at the...
Ancestry DNA: Consider Privacy Risks of Familial Searching
People who submit DNA for ancestry testing can unwittingly become genetic informants on their innocent family members when the police search an ancestry DNA databanks for partial matches. Until there are meaningful statutory protections and robust quality assurance...