DNA in the Courtroom - Preface

PREFACE This book was originally conceived as a fifty-page technical guide for reporters covering the Simpson trial. As we assembled our material and talked with people, it became clear that just providing information on the scientific aspects was not enough, and that more than a media guide was required. n order to understand what is happening with !"A in the courtroom, it is necessary to e#amine the conte#t and environment in which science and the law meet. The !"A war is a clash of the different approaches and interests of law and science. t would be difficult to think of two disciplines that have more disparate approaches to seeking the truth. Scientific truth evolves by the building of consensus through peer review and replicating e#periments. $or the law, truth is less absolute and more relative to the case at hand. %egal truth is achieved through adversarial argument and judgement. The !"A war is a dramatic, hard fought conflict between these two worlds. n this short book we have tried to provide a brief overview of !"A issues in advance of the Simpson trial. &e are simultaneously working on a more comprehensive book, Silent &itness' !"A, (rime and )ustice in America, which will tell the full story of the !"A war, the people who fight the battles, and the true crime stories that put a human face on forensic science. %et us emphasi*e at the start that we strongly believe that !"A testing properly performed belongs in the courtroom. &e share this view with the +.S. (ongress ,ffice of Technology Assessment, the "ational Academy of Sciences and the vast majority of scientists in America. The continuing controversy over the admissibility of !"A evidence makes little sense e#cept to the very few people who benefit from continued confusion. INTRODUCTION !"A was discovered in -./., at about the same time that the Austrian monk 0regor 1endel formulated the laws of heredity, which laid the foundation for the modern science of genetics. A major breakthrough which eventually made possible forensic uses of !"A occurred in the early -234s when )ames &atson and $rancis (rick solved the pu**le of !"A5s structure and precipitated the revolution in molecular biology which followed.

The 6io-Technology 7evolution plays a major and ever-e#panding role in our life. 1edical genetics and gene therapy already have given us tremendous tools to diagnose and treat inherited diseases. &ith !"A, parentage testing has become a virtually certain procedure. &e use !"A to improve animal and vegetable foodstocks, protect endangered species, verify animal pedigrees, detect war crimes and identify human remains. 1any 8,&-1 A families have had the satisfaction of finally learning the fate of their loved ones through !"A testing of bones recovered in 9iet "am. !"A testing was used to make sure that the correct remains were returned to families following the war with raq. After the inferno at the 6ranch !avidian comple# in &aco, Te#as, !"A was the only way to confirm identities from many of the charred remains. ,ur knowledge of the past is considerably strengthened by anthropological and paleontological !"A testing. &hile )urassic 8arkstyle reincarnations are fantasy, !"A has been e#tracted from such remnants of ancient life as fossils, prehistoric bones, and mummies. n the past year, Scotland :ard analy*ed a skull fragment and confirmed the identity of 7ussia5s last c*ar. ronically, a few months later, a contemporary pretender to the 7omanoff name and fortune was unmasked by !"A testing. &hile these are notable uses of the tests, many people believe !"A5s most fascinating use is in criminal identification. (ertainly no methodology to emerge thus far from the 6io-Technology 7evolution has had a greater impact on the public. The basic techniques of !"A typing were developed and proven in research and medical laboratories long before they were used in the crime lab. 6ut as we try to reach a fair and just result in the trial of ,.). Simpson, where !"A evidence plays such a prominent role, and as we evaluate the use of !"A testing in the criminal justice system, it helps to remember that the first use of !"A in an American courtroom occurred only seven short years ago. Since forensic !"A testing was introduced in -2./, it already has been used in appro#imately 34,444 criminal investigations in the +.S. alone. !"A evidence is most often found in se#ual assaults. About threefourths of the !"A evidence e#amined by the $6 and other labs consists of semen specimens. About a third of all $6 tests e#onerate wrongfully accused men. A quarter of the tests are inconclusive, and about ;4< match the suspect5s profile. 1ost of the !"A casework is performed in 34 or so federal, state and local police crime laboratories =appro#imately >44 are found throughout the +.S.?. As a result, !"A testing is often regarded as a prosecution tool. (ertainly, when !"A is used in court and reported in

the media it almost always is being used to prove the prosecutor5s case. @owever, it is important to remember that thousands of tests are performed annually which eliminate innocent persons as suspects. There also are now almost a score of cases in which !"A testing has been used to free previously convicted and incarcerated individuals, some of whom have been in prison for up to twelve years. Another advantage of !"A typing is that it leads to considerable savings in the criminal justice system because suspects confronted with !"A evidence often will plead guilty, thereby saving the considerable costs of a trial. !"A evidence is a powerful tool for justice to be used by both the prosecution and the defense to benefit us all.

Chapter 1: The DNA Wars: cience !eets the "a#

The publication of this book coincides with the beginning of the trial of the century. The 8eople of (alifornia versus ,renthal )ames Simpson combines the celebrity and media circus aspects of the %indbergh kidnapping case with the science under attack scenario of the Scopes 1onkey trial over the teaching of evolution in Tennessee public schools. The celebrity element in the Simpson case is especially fascinating because it involves the suspect instead of the victim. There has never been any trial in history that cuts across as many issues. t covers se# and gender, fame and the media, public opinion and the jury system, race and violence, entertainment and commerciali*ation, even of murder. 6efore the start of the actual trial, Simpson5s lawyers are putting !"A testing on trial. f !"A loses everyone loses, because forensic !"A testing is such a revolutionary improvement to fairness in the criminal justice system. Avery year hundreds of thousands of !"A tests are performed in both forensic and paternity cases. These replace older, often uncertain, testing methods, or help to solve cases where other testing would not have been possible. !espite the proven value of !"A testing, its reception by the courts can be characteri*ed by the ebb and flow of an ongoing war between prosecutors and defense attorneys and their !"A e#perts. The blame for this war lies partly with the laboratories which developed and

introduced the testing, partly with the contentious and fragmented nature of our legal system, and partly with inaccurate media coverage. The !"A showdown in the Simpson case could be the last major battle in the !"A war or it could be just another skirmish in this e#pensive and senseless war fought with academic trivia and specious arguments. 6oth sides have e#perienced !"A lawyers to argue their positions and a stable of veteran e#pert witnesses. Aven as the adversaries prepare for battle, the battlefield is shifting with almost weekly court decisions and scientific events that impact the testimony and arguments. t is certain that the pre-trial evidentiary hearing will go on for weeks as both sides commit all their forces to persuading )udge %ance to to rule in their favor.

In the $e%innin%
The forensic use of !"A started with the work of Alec )effreys, a geneticist at the +niversity of %eicester in 6ritain5s 1idlands. n -2.;, )effreys invented the techniques that took human identification from the laboratory to the courtroom. &ith his co-workers, he also demonstrated that forensic samples, dried stains several years old, contained sufficient !"A to yield conclusive results. )effreys proved that even small fragments of !"A molecules were virtually unique to individuals. &ith appropriate dramatic flair, he called the process he invented B!"A fingerprinting,B a term most forensic scientists dislike because it is confusing and can be misleading. The BfingerprintB produced by the test bears a superficial resemblance to a supermar-ket bar code with the differences between individuals revealed by the spacing between the -3 or C4 lines called bands. The differences between specimens are measured by a process called 7estriction $ragment %ength 8olymorphism =7$%8? analysis. )effreys5 new form of genetic typing and the law were linked from the beginning. @e sought high-profile forensic tests for his brainchild. $irst, he applied it to an immigration case. A boy from 0hana sought to emigrate to 6ritain, claiming that his mother was already a resident. (onventional blood tests were not conclusive beyond confirming that the two could be related. !"A analysis showed beyond reasonable doubt that the relationship was as claimed, and the @ome ,ffice put its stamp of approval on the new technology.

Fin&in% the Pitchfor' in the (a)stac'

A detective in the Aast 1idlands read of the case and sought )effreys5 help in solving the vicious murder and rape of two 6ritish schoolgirls.

The police held a prime suspect in the case, a kitchen porter at an insane asylum who had confessed to one of the murders. They brought )effreys semen samples from the murder scenes and a blood sample from the suspect. )effreys confirmed that the same person committed both crimes but it was not the suspect the police held. ,n "ovember C-, -2./, the kitchen porter became the first person in the world to have his innocence proven by !"A testing. 6oth the police and villagers in the area felt strongly that the killer was someone in their midst. 8olice were prompted to try something entirely new. All male residents between the ages of -D and >; were asked to voluntarily submit a blood sample. &ithin a month, a thousand men had been Bblooded.B 6y 1ay -2.D the number had risen to more than >,/44. Summer turned to $all, it seemed that this e#periment was destined to be as unproductive as the previous, more conventional efforts. Then the police received an une#pected tip. A bakery manager chatting in a pub with some of her employees learned that one of their colleagues, (olin 8itchfork, had convinced another baker to be blooded in his stead. After four long years and the disappointment of the porter5s false confession, the detectives felt this was the break they were looking for. They went to 8itchfork5s home and moments after arresting him, he confessed. @e became the ;,3.>rd and last man to be tested in the hunt for the 1idlands killer. @is sample provided a perfect match to the sperm taken from his two young victims. t was September of -2.D and forensic !"A was on its way.

Commercia* De+e*opment in the Unite& tates

t also was in -2.D that the 6ritish firm of (ellmark !iagnostics opened a branch in 0ermantown, 1aryland and introduced )effreys5 methods in the +nited States =(ellmark is the private laboratory performing testing for the prosecutor in the Simpson case?. The firm is part of mperial (hemical ndustries, a giant 6ritish company, which previously established a !"A laboratory in Abingdon, Angland. &hen (ellmark set up its operation in this country, it had only one other competitor, %ifecodes (orporation of 9alhalla, "ew :ork. $ounded in -2.C, %ifecodes began forensic !"A testing in -2.D and took the lion5s share of the market early. %ifecodes performed the tests in the first case in the +nited States in which a criminal was identified by !"A. The trial of accused rapist Tommy %ee Andrews began in ,rlando, $lorida on "ovember >, -2.D. A scientist from %ifecodes and a 1. .T. biologist testified that semen from the victim matched Andrews5 !"A, and that Andrews5 print would be found in only - in -4 billion individuals. ,n "ovember /, -2.D, the

jury returned a guilty verdict and Andrews was subsequently sentenced to CC years in prison. This case was heavily reported by the press, creating a media blit* favor- able to the new technology. !efense attorneys were caught off guard by the technology and largely accepted it without question. ,ther cases quickly followed with the same result. )udges and juries were clearly impressed with this new technology. The introduction of !"A methods to the courtroom by private companies was unique in the history of forensic science. The sharp competition, the proprietary approach of the industry and their desire to keep their products and processes under wraps did not create a favorable environment in which to launch a new technology with such vast potential for changing the criminal justice system. 8atent challenges, litigation, and technology-licensing questions became the norm and continue to impede the introduction of technological improvements. The usual methods of testing new scientific methods are publication and peer review. The requirements for standardi*ation and replication in multiple labs and evaluation of test performance under e#acting environmental conditions are of paramount importance in the validation of a forensic test. These did not occur as the commercial laboratories maintained secrecy while rushing to get a return on their substantial investment and start-up costs. n essence, the major private companies were racing with each other to the courtroom. They hoped to license their procedures and sell their proprietary materials and reagents to as many crime laboratories as they could. They used different tools that produced incompatible results which precluded comparison. As !"A testing became established, some labs were overwhelmed with casework. Systems were not yet in place to ensure quality control, nor had the labs performed sufficient validation studies. They were run like research labs, having been started by academic scientists, not forensic scientists. &hile the juggernaut of !"A seemed unstoppable, the very speed with which it was moving boded ill.

Rush to ,u&%ment
(ase after case involving !"A evidence was won by the prosecution on the basis of testing and testimony provided by %ifecodes and (ellmark. The two companies, while competing for the same business, often joined forces to promote the new technology to the bench, bar, and law enforcement. Their job was made easier by an adulatory press that wrote numerous stories about the miracle technology that fingered criminals with unerring accuracy.

)udges accepted the assertions of industry witnesses at face value and juries were wowed by the big numbers they were offered. n the words of a 1assachusetts Supreme (ourt justice, !"A had acquired an Baura of infallibility.B ,ne juror in Eueens put it succinctly when he said, B:ou can5t argue with science.B )udge )oseph @arris of Albany, ".:., after sentencing a defendant on a murder and rape charge that hinged on !"A evidence, called it the Bsingle greatest advance in the search for truth since the advent of cross-e#amination.B The reaction within the defense bar ranged from bemusement to shell shock. ,ne $lorida prosecutor commiserated with attorneys representing guilty clients. B f they print your guy with this stuff, you5re dead. :ou can5t combat it. There is no defense to it.B !efense attorney 7obert 6rower5s assessment was equally unequivocal. @e felt that !"A evidence threatened the constitutional right to a fair trial. B n rape cases, when the semen has been matched with the defendant5s and the chance that it came from another person is >> billion to -, you don5t need a jury.B Across the board, the new technology was changing the criminal justice system, and defense attorneys didn5t like this development. ,f course, they could hope that at least some of the !"A convictions would be reversed on appeal. n the meantime, they were clearly on the defensive as they never had been before.

Ne# -or' +. Castro: The Chin' in the Armor

&hen police arrived at the 6ron# apartment of )effrey ,tero in $ebruary -2.D, they discovered a scene of terrible carnage. 9ilma 8once, ,tero5s seven months pregnant common-law wife, lay on the living room floor, nude from the waist down. She was perforated by more than si#ty knife wounds. n the bathroom, police found the body of her two-year-old daughter, "atasha, also repeatedly stabbed. 8olice interviewed )ose (astro, the janitor of a neighboring building who fit ,tero5s description of the suspect. The detective noticed what he thought might be a dried bloodstain on (astro5s watch and asked if he could retain it for e#amination. Shortly thereafter, (astro was arrested and charged with the double murder. The dried blood on )ose (astro5s watch and how it was handled led to the first notable courtroom challenge to !"A typing. 8olice turned the watch, along with blood samples from (astro and the two victims, over to the %ifecodes (orporation. Scientists analy*ed the dried blood and during the -3 week long pre-trial evidentiary hearing, testified that the !"A from the stain matched that of 9ilma 8once, and that the frequency of her patterns in the @ispanic population were -'-.2,C44,444.

The defense undertook a thorough e#amination of the genetic analyses and mounted the first e#tended =and eventually successful? effort to have !"A evidence e#cluded. &hat also occurred in the (astro case that contributed to this turn of events was an unprecedented out-ofcourt meeting between two defense and two prosecution scientific witnesses after they had testified. These scientists all agreed that %ifecodes had failed to use generally accepted scientific techniques in reaching their results matching the blood found on (astro5s watch with that of 9ilma 8once. The quality of the data they produced was poor and they did not even follow their own procedures for interpreting the data. ,ne key player in this drama was Aric %ander, an academician who received his doctorate in mathematics from ,#ford +niversity and now directed a genetics research institute at the 1assachusetts nstitute of Technology. %ander is a powerful personality. Aven his friends admit that %ander is arrogant, just as his enemies concede that he is brilliant. As a result of the testimony of %ander et al, the judge ruled that the inclusionary tests suggesting that 8once was the source of the blood stain were inadmissible, while allowing the e#clusionary evidence that the blood did not come from (astro. After almost one hundred cases where !"A evidence met little or no resistance and never was ruled inadmissible, the defense obtained their first victory. %ater that year, in what was to be the anti-clima# to the case, (astro confessed to the murders, admitting that the blood on his watch came from 9ilma 8once, and pled guilty.

The F$I an& !ounties Ri&e to the Rescue

$ortunately, the $ederal 6ureau of nvestigation and the 7oyal (anadian 1ounted 8olice entered the picture at about this time, with a salutary effect. The $6 saw the potential for the forensic use of !"A testing at about the same time that Alec )effreys was conducting his breakthrough e#periments. Along with the "ational nstitutes of @ealth, the $6 began collaborative research and in -2.D, set up its own research unit to establish !"A identification techniques for the 6ureau. After one year of testing, ending in late -2.., the $6 set up their own !"A laboratory at their 8ennsylvania Avenue headquarters. The 7(18 soon followed with their own !"A laboratory. The 6ureau benefitted from the e#perience of !"A lab pioneers here and in Aurope, and was not locked into a single technology or product. &hen the $6 lab went on-line, it used a combination of four different !"A probes, including those developed by 0ene%e#, !r. 7aymond &hite of the @oward @ughes 1edical (enter, %ifecodes, and (ellmark. !"A probes and primers are the key patented biochemicals used to identify individual genetic differences.

The main result of the $6 and 7(18 beginning their own !"A testing was standardi*ation of a chaotic industry. The $ederal agency established detailed laboratory protocols, performed appropriate validation studies, and cut through the competing systems, methods, and tools to establish a standardi*ed system that is used in almost all "orth American laboratories today. The raising of standards became easier once standardi*ation was achieved.

Defense $ar

trate%)

As a result of the evidentiary hearing in the (astro case, the "ational Association of (riminal !efense %awyers ="A(!%? set up a !"A Task $orce in the $all of -2.2. The new group was headed by (astro5s =and now ,.). Simpson5s? !"A defense team, 6arry Scheck, a professor at 6enjamin ". (ardo*o %aw School, and 8eter "eufeld, a private attorney in 1anhattan. They asserted that the evidence introduced in the (astro case did more than prove that the !"A industry was fallible. They felt it was simply a case of Bthe emperor having no clothes.B As ,.). Simpson5s !"A attorneys they will continue their crusade against !"A, having already filed a more than one hundred page motion to e#clude all !"A testing evidence from the trial. Time has shown that (astro provided a needed psychological boost to defense attorneys and cannon fodder for !"A critics, but otherwise had very little effect on the legal system. The prosecution rendered the key opinion of the trial court moot by agreeing that some of the evidence was inadmissible. Since (astro pled guilty, there was no review on appeal. At the time, however, at least to hopeful commentators, (astro looked like a &aterloo for %ifecodes and the prosecutors who depended on the services of that and similar labs The task force announced that its first effort would be to try to reopen all convictions involving evidence tested by %ifecodes. "eufeld even suggested that the thousands of court orders in paternity suits decided by !"A testing also were of questionable validity because of the signal victory in (astro. &hile this wholesale repudiation of !"A testing has remained an unreali*ed dream, "A(!%5s !"A task force has been a large factor in the !"A war, by leveling the playing field, escalating the conflict, and keeping the conflict alive against all odds. 8art of their catching up with the competition consisted of taking the offensive and mounting a public relations campaign. Some of the press printed new articles which were as critical of !"A typing as previous accounts had been enthusiastic.

Unite&

tates +. -ee

n the Spring of -224, Scheck and "eufeld began to prepare for a trial in ,hio, +nited States vs. :ee, that would be a rigorous judicial inquiry into the soundness of !"A testing. Three members of the (leveland chapter of the @ell5s Angels motorcycle gang, Steven :ee, 1ark 9erdi, and )ohn 6onds, were accused of killing !avid @artlaub of Sandusky, ,hio. The defendants allegedly killed @artlaub because they mistakenly thought him to be a member of the rival ,utlaw5s 1otorcycle (lub, with whom they were having a turf war. The victim was shot fourteen times with a silenced 1A( -4 machine gun inside his own van. 1ost of the blood was later determined to be @artlaub5s, but blood typing tests revealed that some was not. !etectives theori*ed that a ricocheting bullet had hit one of the suspects. !"A analysis by the $6 showed a match between blood from the van, from :ee5s car, and from )ohn 6onds. t was this evidence that the defense planned to challenge. n a way, (astro was a dress rehearsal for :ee. 1any of the rising stars in the !"A constellation appeared as witnesses for one side or the other at the )une -224 hearing in Toledo before +.S. 1agistrate )ames (arr. The prosecutor called si# witnessesF including Thomas (askey of the 6aylor (ollege of 1edicine, who had just finished serving as head of a panel that e#amined forensic !"A for the (ongressional ,ffice of Technology AssessmentF Genneth Gidd, a :ale geneticistF and 6ruce 6udowle, the $6 5s main !"A scientist. The defense had five e#perts including 7ichard %ewontin, and !aniel @artl, geneticists at @arvard and &ashington +niversity, respectively. The court called Aric %ander, the 1. .T. mathematician-turned-geneticist who had testified in (astro. The defense launched a full-scale attack on the $6 and its work. They claimed that the 6ureau5s published articles on its matching criteria were ambiguous or inconsistent and sought access to the supporting data. The prosecutor fought the motion for discovery, but the court granted the defense access to these materials. The e#perts pored over the data and had a field day, citing what they claimed to be errors, omissions, lack of controls, and faulty analysis. )ames &ooley, the federal prosecutor, countered the criticism by reiterating two telling points. $irst, regardless of disputes over match criteria, the multi-probe match produced by the $6 was highly unlikely if specimens came from two different people. @ence the chance of an innocent person being incriminated was virtually nil. Second, =and the court noted that there were Btroublesome questions about the quality of the 6ureau5s workB?, whatever deficiencies e#isted went to the weight not the admissibility of the evidence. The magistrate concurred and the !"A matches were admitted. They also were admitted at the homicide trial in state court and passed muster on appeal. 6arry Scheck considered the :ee case to be far more significant than (astro to the defense bar. The documents procured from the $6 and others through the discovery process were to find their way into many

courtrooms throughout the land. &hile they had lost the battle at Toledo, Scheck, "eufeld, and their cohorts had sei*ed reams of ammunition and gained new recruits for the many battles that lay ahead.

/oo& Intentions $ac'fire: The NRC Report

)ust after the (ongressional ,ffice of Technology Assessment published a report recommending the continued use of forensic !"A in -2.2, a second federal study was initiated in response to Ba crescendo of questions.B $unding was procured for a more definitive study of the problems, this time by the "ational Academy of Science5s "ational 7esearch (ouncil ="7(?. ,ne of the deans of American genetics, 9ictor 1cGusick, was picked to chair the fourteen person panel. They began their work in )anuary -224. $rom the beginning, the courtroom battles over !"A were refought in the "ational Academy of Sciences committee rooms, and with nearly the same ferocity. The most contentious issue was the matter of how to calculate statistical probability, the odds that a match between !"A found at the crime crime and !"A taken from the suspect could be the result of coincidence. To find a match, crime labs look at several sites where the !"A is known to vary. f these sites match, there is an e#tremely high probability that the samples came from the same person. To quantify these findings, investigators calculate the frequency with which each variation occurs in the suspect5s population group. The frequencies for each site are then multiplied together to arrive at a figure for the complete !"A profile. !atabases of !"A profiles for various populations have been gathered for use in making these calculations. To some population geneticists, there5s the rub. $riction over this point provided the spark that was fanned by the theory of the two geneticists, 7ichard %ewontin and !aniel @artl. They maintained that the frequencies of genetic markers in sub-groups could differ widely from the frequencies found in larger population groups. f this is so, then any estimates calculated using the widely accepted $6 matchbinning methods could be considerably wide of the mark. 8roponents of this theory insisted that e#tensive and e#pensive population studies must be completed before reliable estimates could be introduced into the courtroom, even if this takes a decade or more. &hile Aric %ander didn5t go all the way down this road, he was a fellow traveler enough of the distance to become the champion of e#treme caution, representing the e#treme view on the panel. At the other end was Thomas (askey, then president of the American Society of @uman 0enetics, an advisor to the $6 , and developer of technology used in !"A analysis. (askey took the widely predominant

view that while population subgroups do e#ist, current methods of calculation were so conservative that they would compensate for such variations and actually already favored the suspect. &hile %ewontin and @artl5s ideas might have a legitimate place in academic discussions, the pragmatists argued that they didn5t belong in the courtroom because even if they were sound, the chance of a false match was negligible. "evertheless a compromise was struck and called the interim ceiling principle. t was a clearcut effort to design a standard so biased in favor of the defendant that all sides would accept it. The committee5s report, !"A Technology in $orensic Science, was released in mid-April -22C. t endorsed the continued use of !"A typing in the courts, pushed for standardi*ation, mandatory accreditation and proficiency testing for !"A labs, and called for an e#pert committee that would provide oversight and advisory assistance. The committee hoped their work might write a finish to the costly pre-trial hearings and inconsistent rulings that were increasingly the result when !"A evidence was introduced. They didn5t have to wait long to be proven wrong. (ritics such as 8eter "eufeld howled Bfoul.B They claimed there was an inherent bias to the project because it had been largely funded by the !epartment of )ustice, which had a stake in its outcome. They cited the lengthy criticism of the statistics chapter by the $6 as undue pressure. They charged Thomas (askey, who had resigned from the panel a few months before it released its report, with conflict of interest since he had proprietary interests in !"A technology. Chapter 0: DNA as E1IDENCE

The Da#n of Forensic

ero*o%)

Aver since the early -244s when Garl %andsteiner discovered the A,6, and , blood types, it has been the dream of forensic serologists =scientists who study body fluids? to be able to positively identify the individual source of a small blood stain. Advances were made during the -2>4s in discovering new blood types such as the 7h factor and again in the -2D4s with the invention of electrophoresis, a new method for separating and identifying some of the variable proteins found in blood that are the keys to classic genetic typing. 8roteins comprise the majority of the structural and functional substances that make up our bodies. Application of more and more of these typing systems allowed an increasing percentage of the wrongly suspected individuals to be e#cluded as the source of an evidence stain.

A major problem with the classical systems that test proteins found in blood, is that very few of these proteins are also found in semen and other body fluids. 6ecause the majority of cases that require genetic typing are se#ual assaults, the lack of a definitive set of useful genetic markers in semen has long been a great handicap to the scientific analysis of rape evidence. !"A is found in almost every cell in the body. !"A typing has greatly e#panded the sources of evidence that can be tested, while simultaneously reducing the amount of evidence necessary to perform a conclusive test.

ources of DNA for Testin%

$*oo& The surface or substrate on which a bloodstain is found can profoundly affect the ability to successfully perform an analysis. A#tracting !"A from dried blood found on glass, metal, hard plastics or lightweight cloth is straightforward. !enim, vinyl, carpet, automobile seats and other dense and heavily colored fibers require additional steps. They often contain substances that inhibit the !"A testing process and which must be removed by a variety of purification methods. (oncrete and other similar porous surfaces are difficult simply because it is difficult to separate the blood from the concrete. Soil is an almost impossible substrate from which to obtain usable !"A because current e#traction methods are not capable of releasing the !"A from soil. 6lood stains may be mi#tures of blood from two different people and can produce !"A profiles that are more comple# than those from a single individual. !"A profiling may be the only way to determine if a given stain is a mi#ture. !"A testing can also determine if specimens are from individuals of a different se#. 0ender is the only physical characteristic that can be determined by forensic !"A analysis. Specimens drawn from suspects or victims are called known e#emplars and usually consist of liquid blood. The simplest and most reliable samples to work up are liquid whole blood. &hile the best storage method for blood is fro*en, !"A has been successfully isolated after refrigeration for several months. The most common way in which forensic blood samples are handled, following collection, is as a series of dime-si*ed stains on washed cotton sheeting. This method makes for convenient transport and storage of large numbers of samples. ,ccasionally buccal =inside cheek? swabs are supplied as e#emplars. All +.S armed forces recruits give both blood and buccal cell samples. This process has the advantage of being non-invasive. t can be used with infants to determine paternity and with other individuals who cannot have blood drawn for medical or religious reasons.

A#emplars may also be obtained from the B0uthrie (ards,B widely collected at birth for newborn screening of genetic disease and saved by many states. These have been used in body identification. Similarly a seventeen-year-old band-aid was used to determine the paternity of a young man killed in a car wreck. The question of paternity came up after he was buried, as part of a dispute over insurance benefits. emen Semen stains are the most common evidence to be submitted for !"A analysis and are typically e#amined and tested by conventional methods prior to !"A analysis. Sperm cell specific staining and microscopy help determine if a stain is the result of vaginal drainage. 9aginal swabs or stains resulting from post-coital drainage will typically contain sperm cells mi#ed with vaginal cells. Sperm cells as dried stains on furniture or clothing may be identifiable for years. Semen and condoms are surprisingly common in many environments. dentification of one or a few sperm cells, for e#ample, is not considered highly probative. Se#ually active women will often have sperm present in the vagina for DC or more hours following intercourse. That is why it is useful to also test the boyfriend or consenting se#ual partner of rape victims. 1i#tures of cells are usually a confounding factor when performing standard blood typing. n the case of !"A analysis, the process of differential lysis =a controlled disintegration of the cells?, is used to separate the sperm cells or male fraction from the non-sperm cells, Bthe female fraction.B Tissues solation of !"A from tissues taken at autopsy is a simple, straightforward process. 1ore often, soft tissues received in the laboratory are from partially decomposed bodies. !"A survival times are low in soft tissues such as liver and kidney, longer in muscle and brain, and longest yet in dense bone and teeth. 1inute remnants of brain or other tissues that have been scattered by gunshot or other trauma or tissue that might still adhere to the weapon or a bullet can sometimes yield sufficient !"A for testing. 6its of tissue such as these can be used if a body is not recovered and then identified by Breverse paternity,B by comparison with surviving family members. Chemica**) Treate& Tissues The two common chemical treatments are formaldehyde fi#ation for medical purposes and embalming. !"A can be successfully tested from both tissues. 6odies that have been buried for several years can even yield results. 1ost commonly, e#humations are required in

paternity determinations, but they may also provide a known e#emplar to compare with evidence in a forensic case. (air Roots ,ne to five hair roots can contain sufficient tissue for 7$%8 analysis. Shed, or telogen, hairs contain only trace amounts of !"A, and are generally not suitable for testing by current methods in routine forensic use. A highly speciali*ed method known as mitochondrial sequencing is beginning to be used more and more. t was this method that was recently used to identify one of "apoleon5s hairs and members of the 7omanoff family. a*i+a !"A can be typed from saliva deposited on envelope flaps or stamps, as was done in the "ew :ork &orld Trade (enter bombings. t can also be taken from cigarette butts found at crime scenes, and even from cups, bottles, telephone mouthpieces, bite marks and penile swabs. Urine Success with !"A analysis of urine is less common, as healthy individuals do not shed nucleated cells into the urine. (onventional testing is more likely to yield results, and is used in disputes over samples that have been tested for drugs. Pro&ucts of Conception The non-living products of conception most often analy*ed are abortuses. +sually these cases stem from allegations of criminal paternity where a teenaged girl has been impregnated by a relative or other adult. ,ther cases might involve a prison guard accused of having se#ual relations with an inmate or a rape resulting in pregnancy. Chapter 2: DNA IN T(E "A$ORATOR-

$asic /enetics: Wh) DNA T)pin% Wor's

There are about -44 trillion cells in the adult human body. 1ost of them have a nucleus, or center, that contains thread-like bundles of chromosomes. n these chromosomes are all of the instructions and information needed to make a human being. Aach parent contributes one chromosome to each of the C> pairs found in all normal people. &ithin the chromosomes, are up to -44,444 paired genes, the fundamental units of heredity. Aach gene can have different versions

=as many as -44 or more in rare cases? called alleles, but most are the same from person to person. 0enes determine all inherited traits including those that give the individual specific characteristics =blue eyes rather than brown eyes? as well as common characteristics =two eyes, two arms, etc.?. 0enes are made of deo#yribonucleic acid =!"A?. @ence, !"A is the master molecule of life and controls the growth and development of every living thing. t is a polymer, i.e., a long string of simple repeating units. These repeating units are called nucleotides and are of four types' adenine =A?, cytosine =(?, guanine =0?, and thymine =T?. )ust as the order of the letters of the alphabet determines the information content of words, the order in which these four bases are strung together is what gives !"A its information content. The complete !"A molecule consists of two of these strands of the four bases. n the two strands, A always is across from or paired with T and 0 always is paired with (. These are the base pairs that are the unit of measurement in determining the si*e of a given segment of !"A. This structure suggests a natural mechanism for the duplication or replication of the !"A molecule, as occurs during cell division. These pairings are what connect the two strands of !"A together to form a tightly coiled, twisted ladder. This spiral staircase, the famous double heli#, is the natural form in which !"A is found within the nucleus of the cells. f uncoiled, the !"A molecules in every human cell would measure si# feet in length. That is the total length of the >.> billion base pairs that make up the total human genetic complement or genome. A#cept for identical twins, the sequence of the base pairs within the !"A heli# is unique for every person, and forms the individual5s genetic code or blueprint. 8erhaps the basis of !"A typing can be best understood by comparing the way in which genetic information is stored in the !"A to the way in which printed information is stored in books. $or e#ample, if we were to cut all the sentences in forty volumes of the Ancyclopedia 6ritannica into strips, and tape them together end to end, then we would have an amount of information equivalent to that contained in the !"A within each of the cells that make up our bodies. $urthermore, the information would then be in the same physical form as the !"A information, i.e., a long linear strip sometimes likened to a computer punch tape. The genetic information contained in the !"A is organi*ed and packaged into chromosomes, much as printed information is organi*ed into volumes. )ust as a specific passage in the encyclopedia can be identified by specifying a volume, page, and line number, a specific genetic passage or location, known as a locus, can be identified. A specific naming system identifies genes by numbers issued by the @uman 0ene 1apping (ommittee. $or e#ample, if we see the designa-

tion !;S->2 in a report, then we know e#actly what gene has been analy*ed, that it is on chromosome four, and that it is the ->2th !"A probe to be mapped to chromosome four. A significant difference between the way information is stored in the cell and in the encyclopedia is that there are two copies of the information in each of the cells, one from the mother and one from the father. These two copies of the genetic information which are largely identical, come together at the moment of conception when the sperm and the egg join together. All of the child5s cells contain !"A derived from this original fertili*ed cell, half from the mother and half from the father. t is this basic principle of heredity, first discovered over -34 years ago, that allows us to reliably perform parentage tests.

1aria3*e DNA: The 4e) to DNA T)pin%

The !"A and hence the genetic code of humans is almost the same for all individuals. t is the very small amount that differs from person to person that forensic scientists analy*e to identify people. These differences are called polymorphisms =from the 0reek for Bmany formsB? and are the key to !"A typing. Two major kinds of polymorphisms are most useful to forensic scientists. The first consists of variations in the length of the !"A at specific locations =loci? known as 9"T7s =variable number of tandem repeats?. These 9"T7 regions consist of stretches of !"A made up of short repeating !"A sequences. The number of times the short !"A sequence is repeated determines the physical length of the !"A molecule at these specific loci. Aach of the many versions that may be found in the population are known as alleles. These variations are e#amined by the method known as the 7$%8 technique. The second type of variation in the !"A is simply a difference in the nucleotide letters found at a specific pair of bases. These are e#amined by the method known as 8(7. The goals are the same for both types of !"A tests' to isolate a distinctive !"A sequence and record its presence in a way that can be e#amined visually. The basic procedure of 7$%8 analysis is known as BSouthern blottingB after Adward Southern, a Scottish bio-chemist who developed the technique in the early -2D4s. The basic procedures of 8(7 based testing were invented in the early -2.4s by Gary 1ullis while working for a (alifornia biotechnology company. !eciding which method to use is determined by the amount of !"A that is available and how deteriorated or degraded it is. 7$%8 analysis is more often performed because it is more discriminating. f there is only a small amount of material or it is highly degraded, 8(7 analysis is used, because this method requires less material and can produce a

result on !"A of poor quality. As little as two billionths of a gram =C ng?, the amount of !"A contained in about D44 sperm cells will suffice for 8(7 analysis. The 7$%8 test requires C4 to 34 ng of !"A. 8(7 tests can be performed in a matter of days as compared to weeks for 7$%8 tests.

DNA E+a*uation
,nce the evidence has been documented and screened in the laboratory, and deemed appropriate for !"A analysis, the initial step is to isolate or purify the !"A. $irst, it must be removed from whatever object it is attached to and removed from the cell. +nless the major non-!"A constituents of the cell such as proteins, fats and carbohydrates are removed, the en*ymes essential in the ne#t step will not be able to do their work. This isolation of !"A begins with the controlled destruction of cellular integrity, releasing the !"A from its nuclear and chromosomal packaging. The cell walls are dissolved with a detergent and the proteins are digested by en*ymes. The !"A then is purified by the methods of e#traction and precipitation. ,nce the !"A is isolated and concentrated, a small sample is tested to determine quality and quantity. f intact =high molecular weight? human !"A is present in sufficient amounts, 7$%8 testing can proceed. f the !"A is degraded, or present in minute amounts, 8(7 testing is used.

Restriction Fra%ment "en%th Po*)morphism 5RF"P6 Ana*)sis

7$%8 1. 2. ". &. typing of purified !"A consists of the following si# steps' Cutting the DNA into pieces (Restriction Enzyme Digestion); Separating the DNA by size ( e! E!ectrophoresis); #rans$erring the DNA to a so!i% support sur$ace (Southern #rans$er); #argeting an% 'isua!izing the DNA o$ interest ((ybri%ization an% Autora%iography); ). Rea%ing the DNA pro$i!e (*nterpretation o$ Data); an% +. Determining the rarity o$ the DNA pro$i!e (,opu!ation enetics an% -re.uency Estimates).

Restriction En7)me Di%estion

7estriction en*ymes reproducibly cut !"A at specific four or si#-basepair sequences called restriction sites. @ae =@aemophilus Aegyptius ?, the most commonly used en*yme in forensic science, cuts the !"A everywhere the bases are arranged in the sequence 00((. These sites are found throughout the human genome and are, for the most part, the same in everyone. @ae cuts human !"A into appro#imately -C million different restriction fragments ranging in si*e from a few hundred to -4,444 or more base pairs in length.

/e* E*ectrophoresis
The physical length of !"A restriction fragments in 9"T7s is one fundamental biochemical characteristic that varies from person to person. Alectrophoresis is the technique by which the different-si*ed fragments are separated. The !"A is loaded into a hole, or well, at one end of a slab of semi-solid gel, a porous, )ello-like substance. &hen an electrical field is applied to the gel containing the !"A, the !"A moves toward the positive electrode because it has a negative electrical charge. The sieving action of the gel allows the small restriction fragments to migrate at a faster rate than the larger ones, just as a small rabbit would move faster and farther through a thicket than a large hound in pursuit. The relative position of these fragments within the gel after overnight current application is determined by their length or molecular weight. 0els have several lanes within them which contain !"A, including marker lanes that measure how far fragments move through the gel and a lane for control !"A that produces a known pattern and can be used to verify that the test was properly conducted. The !"A in the gel can be stained and seen under ultraviolet =black? light.

outhern Transfer
6ecause the gel is fragile, it is necessary to remove the !"A from the gel and permanently attach it to a solid support. This is accomplished by the process of Southern blotting. The first step is to denature the !"A in the gel which means that the double-stranded restriction fragments are chemically separated into the single-stranded form. The !"A then is transferred by the process of blotting to a sheet of nylon. The nylon acts like an ink blotter and BblotsB up the separated !"A fragments. The restriction fragments, invisible at this stage, are

irreversibly attached to the positively-charged nylon membrane called the Bblot.B

DNA Pro3es
9isual observation of an individual5s !"A pattern requires the use of !"A probes. The !"A probe, like a guided missile, will seek out and find its target sequence. There are appro#imately a do*en 9"T7 !"A probes in common usage in forensic 7$%8 testing. These probes have been patented and are commercially available from biotechnology suppliers. Aach !"A probe can be used to develop the !"A profile at a particular 9"T7 locus. 1ost of these are located on different chromosomes, an important factor to be considered when performing a statistical analysis. 1ost forensic tests use a combination of at least four to si# separate !"A probes in a sequential manner. All of these !"A probes have been obtained by the process of cloning, which simply means that they are free of all other human !"A. Therefore, large quantities of probe !"A can be made and labeled with a radioactive or other tracer in the laboratory.

()3ri&i7ation
To detect a 9"T7 locus immobili*ed on the Southern blot, one uses a !"A probe that has a base pair sequence complimentary to the !"A sequence at the 9"T7 locus. The double-stranded nature of !"A and a phenomenon called hybridi*ation provide the scientific basis for the usefulness of !"A probes. !ouble-stranded !"A fragments will separate when heated. &hen the !"A cools down, the two strands will reconnect and become double-stranded again. This is not a random process. 6ecause of the complementarity of the two !"A strands, the single strands will only reconnect with another strand that has a complimentary sequence. )ust prior to its use, the !"A probe is labeled with a radioactive or other tracer and boiled to the single stranded form. The !"A on the blot, also single stranded, is soaked or incubated in a solution containing the !"A probe. The probe hybridi*es, or binds, to only the !"A fragments that bear the complimentary sequences of !"A bases. These will be the restriction fragments corresponding to the locus from which the probe was originally cloned.

Autora&io%raph)
The e#cess probe is washed off and the blot placed in contact with a sheet of film. The film, e#posed by the radioactive tracer instead of light, is developed and becomes an autoradiograph, commonly known as an autorad. The autorad is the final product of the 7$%8 analysis. t reveals the overall quality of the testing and can be copied, distributed and interpreted by other !"A e#perts. The autorad has darkened areas known as bands corresponding to the position of the !"A probes and hence the restriction fragments bound to the membrane. Typically, several probes are used sequentially in order to compile forensically significant !"A profiles. This requires that the blot be stripped of the first radioactive probe, hybridi*ed to a second, washed and e#posed to a new film to make another autorad. Aach round of hybridi*ation and autoradiography may take up to ten days. This is why 7$%8 testing takes longer than conventional blood or 8(7 testing.

Interpretation of Data
+p to this point in !"A analysis, there is little argument about its validity =provided that it is done correctly? because we are dealing with physical reality. The interpretation of the data, what is its meaning, is another story. This requires that inferences based on the science of statistics, population genetics and probability theory be applied to the measurements of physical reality that the auto7A!S reveal. $orensic scientists use these mathematical concepts to calculate and report an estimate of how frequently the genetic profile they have observed might be found in major population groups. f the genetic profiles found in two different samples, say one from a piece of evidence and one from a suspect are indistinguishable, they are said to match. A typical population frequency for conventional blood typing might be - in C44, for !"A - in 3,444,444. This means that only - in 3,444,444 people would have the same !"A profile. All others would be e#cluded from being the source of the matching evidence. rrespective of what calculation method is used, it is a physical fact that the genetic profiles match and that they would be found at some frequency in the population. n attempting to call the frequency estimates into question, attorneys are fond of pointing out that they are a comparison between the observed profile and randomly chosen individuals, and that a relative of the person with the profile is much more likely to share that profile than any of the random individuals.

&hen forensic scientists provide a report and testimony about the frequency estimates, their job is done. The judgment of guilt or innocence reached by the court may take these estimates into account, but they must be placed into the circumstances surrounding the crime and the intent, motive, means and opportunity available to the defendant.

CO!!ON FA""ACIE
The meaning of the genetic profile frequencies are often misconstrued by attorneys. $or e#ample, the argument might be made that if a pair of matching genetic profiles are found in - in C44 individuals then there is a - in C44 chance that they came from different sources. "ot true. &hat the chance is that they came from different sources cannot be determined by the genetic evidence alone. t depends on all of the circumstances surrounding the case. Another fallacy is the one heard in the Simpson case preliminary hearing. ,,). Simpson5s blood type matched blood found on the sidewalk trailing away from the murder scene. !efense attorneys pointed out that .4,444 people in %os Angeles share that blood type. True, but all of those .4,444 people didn5t visit .3 South 6undy where the homicides occurred. The prosecutor5s fallacy is to argue that as the genetic profile is found in - in -444 people then there is only a - in -444 chance that the defendant is innocent. ,nce again this ignores the other facts of the case and asks the scientific evidence to determine guilt or innocence. Science cannot do that. 0uilt or innocence must be determined by the judge or jury.

E1A"UATIN/ T(E AR/U!ENT

(ritics of !"A testing have generated and sei*ed upon disagreements about the best way to interpret the data as a reason not to admit !"A evidence. $orensic scientists themselves have given the critics ammunition by not always following widely used scientific conventions for rounding off and reporting the significance of the numbers that are reported. n evaluating the criticisms that are made, primarily of the validity of the population data on which probability estimates are made, it is important to remember that the critics' *$ they are geneticists at a!!/ stu%y non0human organisms or came to the stu%y o$ human genetics $rom other $ie!%s. None are $orensic scientists.

1se the same assumptions in their o2n 2or3 that they argue against in $orensic science. 4ase their criti.ues on o'er%ra2n hypothetica! an% theoretica! arguments $or 2hich no %ata e5ists. *gnore the sa$eguar%s an% .ua!ity programs that are routine!y use% by $orensic DNA !abs.

1uch of the population genetics controversy has been generated by an elementary misunderstanding of the basics of 7$%8 testing in the early writing of Aric %ander. Another source of misunderstanding was an article published in -2DC by 7ichard %ewontin and since repudiated by the author. %ong after %ewontin changed his mind, the article continued to be used to support defense motions to quash !"A evidence. &hat this reveals is that one defense strategy is the shotgun approachF throw up a barrage of flak and hope that the judge or jury accepts the validity of at least one of the arguments. The critics also change their arguments over time. As various lines of attack are countered or e#posed as spurious, new objections are raised. $requency estimates are fertile territory for the attackers because most people are not conversant with the methods of statistics and the meaning of probability.

Rea&in% the Autora&

6efore an opinion can be formed as to the forensic significance of a set of !"A profiles, a series of data interpretation steps must be completed. -irst/ the e5aminer inspects the case speci$ic %ata an% recor%s to %etermine i$ proce%ures ha'e been $o!!o2e% an% interpretab!e resu!ts ha'e been pro%uce%. Secon%/ a 'isua! inspection o$ the autora% is ma%e an% an opinion o$ the testing resu!ts is $orme%. *s the suspect inc!u%e% or e5c!u%e% $rom the group o$ in%i'i%ua!s 2ho cou!% be the source o$ the e'i%ence6 #hir%/ computerize% e!ectronic measurements an% statistica! ca!cu!ations are ma%e that must con$irm the e5aminer7s 'isua! 8match8 ca!!s. -ina!!y/ probabi!ity ca!cu!ations using popu!ation genetic %ata are use% to ca!cu!ate a conser'ati'e estimate o$ the occurrence o$ the DNA pro$i!e in ma9or popu!ation groups. n forensic science, statistics are used to ensure that the data is interpreted in a conservative fashion, that it can be guaranteed to be an overstatement of the true occurrence of a !"A profile in the

population. $or e#ample, if we were to test everybody in the entire world then we would know e#actly how often a given genetic profile occurs. %et5s say that it is - in a million. f we report that profile out at - in 344,444, that is acceptable because it is an understatement. The data has been systematically skewed in favor of the defendant.

1isua* Interpretation
The purpose of the visual inspection is to form an opinion as to which of the !"A samples in the various lanes in the autorad could have come from the same individual source and which could not. ncluded in the autorad are bands from any !"A that was tested as well as control specimens from known individuals. n order to be valid, the opinion formed at this stage must be confirmed by the following quantitative tests.

DNA Fra%ment

i7e Estimation

(entral to the analysis are the series of Bsi*ing laddersB containing up to >4 closely spaced bands. Aach of the bands in the si*ing ladders corresponds to a fragment of !"A of e#actly known si*e. These are the rulers which computeri*ed video devices use to measure the !"A fragments in each of the sample lanes. The estimated si*e of the fragments being measured are reported in base pairs. At least one sample of a human !"A, known as G3/C, is run on virtually every membrane used in forensic casework. The G3/C !"A is available as a standard reference material from the "ational nstitute of Standards and Technology. Si*ing estimates of the G3/C must be within established tolerances before si*ing estimates from that membrane are acceptable.

$an& Comparisons 3) 8!atch Criteria8

(omparisons are made between the !"A profiles of the known samples =generally blood samples taken from the suspect andHor victim? and !"A profiles of the evidence samples =for e#ample, bloodstains from the crime scene or dried vaginal swabs?. There are three possible results' #here is a match bet2een t2o specimens being compare%. *$ the match is

1. bet2een a suspect an% the DNA in the e'i%ence/ then that suspect is inc!u%e% in the group o$ in%i'i%ua!s 2ho cou!% be the source o$ that e'i%ence; 2. #here is not a match bet2een the samp!es. #he suspect cou!% not be the source o$ the e'i%ence. #hey are e5c!u%e% $rom the group o$ in%i'i%ua!s 2ho cou!% ha'e contribute% the specimen; or ". #he %ata is inconc!usi'e/ meaning that it is not possib!e to ma3e a %etermi0 nation. #his can be cause% by a 'ariety o$ $actors/ an% usua!!y occurs 2hen the DNA is o!% an% hea'i!y contaminate%. nterpretation of 7$%8 data has required the adoption of statistical techniques new to forensic serology because of the numeric nature of the data. n A6, and other typing systems, the data is a non-numeric listing of discrete types. n the 7$%8 technique, the si*ing estimates form a continuous distribution because restriction fragments differing by one 9"T7 repeat unit cannot be distinguished. Therefore, it becomes necessary to perform statistical calculations to determine if two bands on an autorad can be distinguished from one another. $or forensic purposes, two !"A profiles are said to match if they are statistically indistinguishable and are therefore consistent with having been produced by !"A from the same individual. $irst a quantitative match range for each appropriate 9"T7 band is calculated. "e#t the match ranges of corresponding bands are compared lane to lane. f these ranges overlap then the bands are indistinguishable from one another and are said to match. The process continues until all bands at a locus, and all bands at all the loci e#amined have been compared. n order for two composite !"A profiles to be declared a match and therefore included in the group of !"A profiles that could have come from an individual source, all bands must match. 1ost laboratories use a match range, or BwindowB, on the order of I C.3< of the measured si*e or molecular weight of the band. This match window has been determined by comparing the !"A profiles obtained from vaginal swabs and fresh blood from rape victims. &hen working with fresh blood samples, such as in a parentage laboratory, the measurement error is less than -< of the measured si*e of the bands.

$an&shiftin%
The relatively large si*e of the forensic match window compensates for the phenomenon known as BbandshiftingB. &hen !"A fragments are separated by electrophoresis, each sample is loaded into its own lane on the gel.

Chapter 9: DNA IN PARENTA/E TE TIN/ UPDATED FOR T(E WE$ EDITION: Apri* 0;;; n the +nited States, establishing paternity has become a major industry. 0overnment efforts to recover child support funds bring in over five billion dollars a year at a cost of one-and-a-half billion dollars. State and local child support agencies, working under Title 9! of the federal Social Security Act, Aid to $amilies with !ependent (hildren, administer these programs for the benefit of unsupported children. This statute requires that when a woman obtains public assistance for her children, she 1+ST name the possible fathers. These programs generate the bulk of more than CC4,444 paternity tests performed annually. n a country where >4< of births are to single mothers, and -3< of fathers of record are not the biological father, the large number of tests is not surprising. 8arentage testing cases are numerically the largest user of !"A testing. 1ore than C44,444 of the paternity tests performed in the +nited States every year use !"A testing e#clusively or as a supplement to conventional blood testing. @%A =@uman %eukocyte Antigen? and other classical blood typing tests often can resolve a routine paternity case without resorting to !"A testing. The @%A blood types are the types that must be matched before an organ transplant, such as bone marrow, kidney or heart, can succeed. %imitations of conventional blood testing are that the blood must be fresh when tested, and only a limited amount of genetic information is obtainable. Also non-blood cell types, such as those found in semen, do not have an @%A and most other common blood types, rendering this type of testing much less useful in forensic cases. The advantage of !"A testing is that many more variable genes, up to thirty or more, are available. n effect, our ability to do paternity testing is no longer limited by the amount of genetic information that we are able to obtain. 1ost paternity testing is done for financial reasons, i.e., to establish legal responsibility and provide for child support. Aven more important are the emotional and social issues. &hen testing can demonstrate conclusively to a man that he is the father of a child, then he is more likely to provide not only financial support, but emotional support as well. @e may bond with the child and take an active part in its life. The importance of establishing paternity early is nowhere more clearly

shown than in the testing of adult children, some of whom are in middle age. B&ho is my fatherJB is a question that may have haunted them their entire lives. t wasn5t very long ago that obtaining a paternity test was an uncertain, e#pensive and inconvenient process. t was hard to find a place to have the blood drawn to initiate the testing and redraws were common as the blood had to reach the laboratory in one or two days. A doctor5s or a lawyer5s involvement might have been required, and, even after the effort and e#pense, the results often came back with a considerable degree of uncertainty. Also, there were no inspection and certification programs available to parentage testing laboratories which provide an assurance of quality. !"A testing has made the process convenient and the results conclusive. The testing is still e#pensive and takes a week or two to complete, but anyone can order it. n all but the rarest of instances, the !"A test results provide a level of certainty so high that paternity will, for all practical purposes, be proven or disproved. ,ne of the greatest benefits !"A has brought to parentage testing is the ability to solve many more types of cases. n the usual case, tests include all three parties, i.e., the mother, child and alleged father. &ith !"A, it is not necessary to have the mother5s sample in order to provide a conclusive test result. t is possible to distinguish between two brothers provided they are not identical twins. n many cases, it is possible to perform the !"A tests when the alleged father is deceased or otherwise unavailable. t also is possible, using !"A, to perform testing before or at the time of birth. Tests also can be performed on some very unusual samples such as envelope flaps, cigarette butts, and very old blood stains.

What (appens at the Co**ection

amp*e

Throughout this country, and the entire world, is a network of individuals licensed and e#perienced in the legal sample collections that are necessary in paternity testing. These collections differ from medical collections by the e#tent to which they are documented. (lients who are being tested for paternity will be asked to show a picture !, fill out and sign release forms and identification labels, and a photo or thumbprint will be taken. n this way the chain of custody =(,(? that must be maintained throughout the transport and testing

can be assured. n order for the (,( to have ma#imum integrity the tested parties should not be involved in the shipping or handling of the transport kit. t should be sent directly to the collection site or personal physician, and include pre-addressed return airbills with instructions. ,nly a small volume of blood, a teaspoon or less, will be taken in a draw. (hildren, even babies, usually tolerate it quite well. The blood samples from babies also are drawn from the arm because it is less painful and much quicker than a heel or finger stick. +nlike former practices, blood now can be drawn any day of the week, and all parties need not be drawn at the same time or place.

$ucca* or Chee' Paternit) Tests

#a3s an& (ome DNA

1ore and more collections are performed using a Bbuccal swab,B a Etip that has been rubbed on the inside of the cheek. This type of collection has made the Bhome paternity !"A testB possible. The home test is the ultimate in convenience. +nfortunately, it has minimal legal standing because it is generally impossible to independantly verify the identity of the individuals who have been tested. There is no chain of custody. Another type of home !"A test overcomes these obstacles because the collection is performed in home by a medical professional who comes to the home. This level of service is not available everywhere but is becoming more available all the time.

PARENTA/E TE TIN/ APP"ICATION

Prenata* an& Ne#3orn Paternit) Testin%

$ormerly, it was impossible to test babies until they were si# months old. Testing blood from the umbilical cord of a newborn now is one of the most convenient and effective ways to obtain a paternity test. At the time of birth labor and delivery staff will take blood from the umbilical cord after the baby is born, collect from the mother and ship the samples to the laboratory. Arrangements must be made in advance and if the alleged father has been drawn prior to the birth, testing can start immediately. ,ne of the fastest growing areas !"A paternity tests is prenatal testing. &hile it has been possible for many years to perform a prenatal test for paternity, it has not been routinely done because of the small risk to the fetus and the long turn around time =si# to eight weeks.? That is changing as the amniocentesis and chorionic villus

sampling procedures become more accepted and routine. These are the procedures for obtaining cells from the unborn baby which, in the past, have been limited to women over thirty-five or for families with a history of genetic disease. &ith the latest in !"A testing methods results can be obtained in a matter of days.

Decease& A**e%e& Father

This type of !"A testing often is needed to obtain Social Security or insurance benefits, to settle an inheritance dispute or to establish standing in a wrongful death action. There are two basic approaches to solving these cases. The first is to obtain a postmortem sample of the father5s !"A. The second is to reconstruct his genotype based on surviving family members. Samples from the deceased may be obtained from the medical e#aminer, coroner or other pathologist who may have performed an autopsy, an associated to#icology or medical lab, the funeral home before or after embalming, or even following burial for up to several years.

4inship Ana*)sis - !issin% A**e%e& Father

f samples from the deceased are not readily available then the alleged father5s genotype can be reconstructed by testing close relatives. The most straightforward of these tests is a grandpaternity test in which the alleged father5s parents are tested. f one or both of his parents are missing, then samples from his siblings or other children can be used and e#tended typing performed. Any combination of three or four of these close relatives will result in a highly conclusive test. &hen fewer relatives are available for testing, the ability to provide a conclusive result decreases. 7elatives farther removed from the alleged father such as cousins are not related closely enough to provide useful information. ,ne caution to this type of testing is that if the relationships are misrepresented to the laboratory, a false negative may result.

i3ship Ana*)sis

The most difficult kinship analysis is to determine if two individuals are full or half siblings when those individuals are the only ones available for !"A testing. f the number of tested siblings increases or other relatives become available, the degree of certainty increases dramatically. t also is easier to determine if two individuals are full siblings or completely unrelated. Advanced genetic methods and speciali*ed computer programs are required to reliably solve these cases. t may be necessary to test twelve or fifteen or more genes in order to make a determination.

Crimina* Paternit)
The most common and most disturbing criminal paternity cases are those involving the se#ual abuse of a child. %aboratory testing is not possible in many of these cases because the abuser is a relative or close friend of the family, and the crime comes to light after the physical evidence is gone. Sometimes these unlawful se#ual contacts do result in a pregnancy, especially if they continue over an e#tended period of time. n this instance, the !"A testing is usually routine and can be performed on the child or an abortus that is older than si# weeks. !"A testing may be especially useful if there are closely related suspects, such as a father and son or two brothers. (riminal cases also may require the application of non-routine statistical and reporting techniques depending on the requirements of the court. (ases where the victim of se#ual abuse is underage rarely go to court. The offender usually will receive a lower prison term if he pleads guilty. (onviction in the face of !"A evidence is almost inevitable. n cases where the victim is an adult and consent is a defense, the defendant may change his story when he reali*es that the !"A testing results are almost impossible to refute. The jury is usually unaware of this change of story and so often will vote to acquit the defendant. !"A parentage testing has been questioned by the courts in only a handful of cases. Typically, less than - or C percent of civil cases result in a case contested in trial. The opportunity to have testing repeated by the same or another laboratory usually can settle most disputes to the satisfaction of all tested parties. n criminal cases, when the testing is scrutini*ed e#tensively in court, it is almost universally accepted.

/enetic Reconstruction or Re+erse Paternit)

These techniques often are used in homicide investigations. Suppose that there is a tissue sample from an unidentified deceased individual, or a stain from a crime scene and investigators have an idea of who may be the sample5s source. f the decedent5s parents or children are available, it will be possible to compare the related survivors5 !"A profiles with that of the deceased to conclusively determine whom the remains came from.

Test Resu*ts
8aternity testing is possible because everyone has two copies of their genetic information, half from each of the parents. f a child has a gene that didn5t come from the mother, then it must have come from that child5s biological father. f the alleged father does not have that gene, the obligate gene as it is called, then he cannot possibly be the father. @e is e#cluded from the group of men who could be the father of the child. There is one e#ception. f a mutation has occurred, which means the gene changed when it was passed from the father to the child. These mutations rarely occur, but they occur often enough that statistical methods are available for dealing with them and two !"A e#clusions are required before reporting out a !"A paternity test result. The other possible outcome is that the alleged father has the obligate gene and so is included in the group of men who could be the father of the child. n effect, what paternity testing does is e#amine a series of genes until the group of men who could be the father of the child is narrowed down to the point that we can, for all practical purposes, be certain that he is the father. n !"A testing, this can be accomplished by testing as few as three highly variable genes. Two different ways are used to report the two possible testing outcomes. An e#clusion is reported as a simple statement that the alleged father is e#cluded from the group of men who could be the father. n the case of an inclusion, a statistical analysis is performed based on how common or rare are the obligate genes. These are the genes that the alleged father could have contributed to the child and that must have come from the child5s biological father. The inclusionary results are e#pressed in the following two ways'

The Paternit) In&e<

The first is the paternity inde# =8 ?, which is a simple odds ratio. 6ecause of the increased accuracy possible with !"A testing, the

generally accepted minimum standard for an inclusionary result has risen to a 8 of -44. This means that the alleged father has a 22 to better chance of being the father than a random man. t does not mean that the test is only 22 percent accurate. A more realistic way to look at this result is to consider that the alleged father has a 8 of -44 and that the genetic profile he must donate is found in appro#imately in -44 randomly chosen men. f he has been falsely accused, then he has the required - in -44 profile. The probability of these two events occurring together is more realistically thought of as - in -4,444. !"A test results typically produce odds ratios of hundreds or thousands to one. As a practical matter, once a 8 of -44 is reached, the probability of overturning that result with further testing becomes e#tremely small. n practice, the test results are reported out according to the race of the alleged father. &hile the results can vary slightly from race to race, as a practical matter, when modern !"A testing methods are used, the race of the father doesn5t make a significant difference.

Pro3a3i*it) of Paternit)
n the second way, the probability of paternity is calculated simply by converting the 8 to a percentage. @owever, it can be the most confusing because the equation that is used for the calculation contains a term called the Bprior probability.B This term takes into account the non-genetic factors that would have a bearing on paternity. n the laboratory a neutral value of 4.3 is universally used. t favors neither the alleged father nor the mother. The paternity inde# and probability of paternity represent a comparison of the alleged father against a random man in the population. f there is a close relative who also could be the father he also should be tested. f he is unavailable, then the laboratory can take that fact into account when doing the testing and calculations.

Choosin% a "a3orator)
6ecause paternity laboratory inspection is not mandatory, there is a wide range of quality among the laboratories. ,n the fringe are a number of small laboratories which do a low volume of testing and do not subscribe to the established quality control assurance programs. n evaluating a parentage testing laboratory, one should ask if it is accredited in !"A testing by the American Association of 6lood 6anks.

%abs may be accredited in the older types of testing, such as @%A and red blood cell testing, but not in !"A testing. &hen contacting a laboratory, if it is not possible to talk with an understanding, helpful and knowledgeable client services representative, it might be advisable to look elsewhere. A lab may do fine work, but if there is not someone available to clearly e#plain the process and results, it can be frustrating. Another factor which can help in laboratory selection is whether or not the laboratory has provided testing and testimony in criminal cases, which require the most advanced e#pertise. Chapter =: DNA IN T(E COURTROO!

The Nature of E+i&ence

Avidence is any statement or material object from which reasonable conclusions can be drawn. t is a broad category embracing anything perceptible to the five senses including documents, e#hibits, facts agreed to by both sides, and the testimony of witnesses. Avidence in a criminal trial concerns the intent, motive, means, and opportunity to commit a crime. n general, evidence is divided into two categories' circumstantial and physical. (ircumstantial evidence consists of information gleaned from witnesses and documents that point to an individual as the perpetrator of a crime. 8hysical evidence consists of actual objects K bodies, weapons, body fluid stains, fingerprints, hairs, fibers, etc. K that are associated with the crime and may be linked to the perpetrator. t is the work of forensic scientists to e#amine the physical evidence, and using the methods of science, to reconstruct the events that constituted the crime. The prosecutor must then combine this data with statements of witnesses and evidence from documents such as correspondence, telephone records and credit card receipts to develop an overall theory of the case which can be presented in court. Scientific evidence is an increasingly important part of both civil and criminal trials. $orensic science is a growth industry. "ew technologies for analy*ing physical evidence are growing rapidly and private companies are becoming an increasingly important resource for the legal system. The testimony of e#perts is the primary means of introducing scientific evidence. 6ecause these e#perts are imparting information Bbeyond the kenB of the layperson, they must present information that goes beyond first hand observation, opinions and hearsay not permitted under ordinary rules of evidence. %ay witnesses are constrained to testify only about matters they have directly

observed. A#pert witnesses are allowed to draw inferences from facts which the judge or jury is not competent to draw. They may also rely on seminars, publications, records and conversations with other e#perts that are part of their normal course of business.

Disco+er)
!espite fictional presentations to the contrary =8erry 1ason is a prime e#ample?, there are very few surprises in actual trials. This is because of the process called discovery, whereby opposing attorneys are permitted to learn the facts and e#pert opinions upon which the other side is basing its case prior to the actual trial. n addition, each side is required to provide the other side with a list of its witnesses before the start of trial. 8roviding discovery materials in criminal cases is binding only upon the prosecution in all but a few states and (anada. Access to materials through the discovery process is the main avenue the defense has for learning what evidence will be presented against the accused at trial. This allows the defense to re-e#amine the evidence and develop alternative hypotheses to the prosecutor5s case. n (alifornia, the defense5s access to scientific evidence is defined in the 0riffin decision which provides that the defense can have the evidence only after the prosecution has completed their testing. Also, under both 0riffin and a +.S. Supreme (ourt decision in Ari*ona v. :oungblood, the prosecution may consume the evidence in the testing process, as long as they act in good faith. 6eginning in -2.2, furious battles erupted over discovery efforts in the !"A war. 0en-erally the defense has been able to e#amine autoradiographs from the case in question, laboratory reports, and the lab notes that support them in addition to the lab procedure manuals and proficiency testing results. 7equests for additional materials such as other autoradiographs, validation studies, population data bases, and raw data face harsher scrutiny and often were not honored. Aarly !"A cases were marked by long and costly litigation over discovery. The defense claims that the prosecution and the labs they employ Bstonewall5 discovery requests. The lab resist discovery, maintaining that the requested materials are privileged, constitute trade secrets, are legally irrelevant. $orensic labs also claim that the defense regularly makes overly burdensome and duplicitous requests for reams of material. f they were required to comply, lab personnel would be doing little else than identifying and duplicating discovery materials. !"A discovery battles are still being strenuously fought. ndeed, ,.). Simpson5s chief lawyer, 7obert Shapiro, has labeled (ellmark a Bdiscovery outlaw.B @owever

most commentators would agree that many of the issues surrounding discovery already have been litigated or settled in other ways.

cientific E+i&ence A&missi3i*it) tan&ar&s

The key element in whether scientific evidence is admissible is whether it is trustworthy. To be considered trustworthy, it must demonstrate accuracy =validity? and consistency =reliability?. Admissibility is determined by the $rye rule, which stresses Bgeneral acceptanceB or by the $ederal 7ules of Avidence =followed by some state courts? which stress helpfulness, reliability, and relevance. n all of the trials to date in which !"A evidence has been involved, courts have ruled it as evidence or, on appeal, have remanded the case to the trial court in CC reported cases and have limited its admissibility in -/ cases, generally because of statistical questions.

The Fr)e

tan&ar&

n the -2C> decision +nited States v. $rye, a !istrict of (olumbia circuit court ruled against the admissibility of lie detector evidence in a murder case because the technology had not been accepted in the relevant scientific community. Since then, most state courts have followed this general standard on whether or not to allow novel scientific evidence. The so-called $rye hearing gives the prosecution and defense the opportunity to attack adverse scientific evidence and try to keep it out of the trial. The key paragraph in this decision reads' :ust 2hen a scienti$ic princip!e or %isco'ery crosses the !ine bet2een e5perimenta! an% %emonstratab!e stages is %i$$icu!t to %e$ine. Some2here in the t2i!ight zone the e'i%entia! $orce o$ the princip!e must be recognize%/ an% 2hi!e courts 2i!! go a !ong 2ay in a%mitting e5pert testimony %e%uce% $rom 2e!!0recognize% scienti$ic princip!e or %isco'ery/ the thing $rom 2hich the %e%uction is ma%e must be su$$icient!y estab!ishe% to ha'e gaine% genera! acceptance in the particu!ar $ie!% in 2hich it be!ongs. !etermining Bgeneral acceptanceB according to the $rye standard is a two-step procedure' =-? identifying the particular field=s? into which the scientific principle or discovery falls and the relevant scientific communityF and =C? determining whether that community accepts the

technology, principle, or discovery. 6oth the underlying theory and the procedures used to produce results must be generally accepted by scientists in the relevant fields. To these two criteria has been added a third in some jurisdictions. n (alifornia, the additional standard evolved from the -2D/ decision in 8eople v. Gelly which held that Bthe proponent of the evidence must demonstrate that correct scientific procedures were done in the particular case.B This third BprongB also was accepted by the court in the -2.2 landmark "ew :ork v. (astro, the first case in history of where !"A evidence was e#cluded. A distinction lost on some courts is that the Gelly rule only requires that correct procedures be used, not that the court must determine that these procedures were performed correctly. %egal evidence rules generally hold that how well work is performed should not be the subject of an admissibility hearing because the quality of testing in a particular case goes to the weight of the evidence and not its admissibility. t is up to the trier of fact, the judge or the jury, to determine how much weight or consideration to give that evidence. n practice, the legal distinction between the admissibility of scientific testing and the weight that should be given that testing has become increasingly blurred in !"A evidenciary hearings. t should be noted that, at least in (alifornia, the $rye rule does not require absolute Bunanimity of views within the scientific community,B which, according to the (alifornia (ourt of Appeals, would Bdemand the impossible.B n 8eople v. 0uerra =restated in the 7eilly case?, the court ruled that, Bthe test is met if the use of the technique is supported by a clear majority of the members of that community.B "evertheless, some courts have interpreted Bgeneral acceptanceB to mean the absence of controversy, an unrealistic standard in almost any scientific or technical area. ,ne result of this interpretation is that $rye hearings often last longer than many trials. The mother of all $rye hearings took place in San !iego in -2.D. At issue was the methodology of pre-!"A blood typing. A personal vendetta between two e#perts, known as the Bstarch wars,B e#acerbated the controversy which dragged on for a full year. &hile courts and attorneys are often reluctant to reveal the costs of proceedings, $rye hearings are e#pensive. n Ging (ounty =Seattle?, &ashington the situation may be the worst in the country. There have been over a do*en pre-trial !"A evidentiary hearings in this jurisdiction, each requiring two to si# weeks of courtroom time. 1ost have concerned identical technologies and laboratories. n total, these hearings are estimated to have cost the local government over L-,444,444, not counting the time that personnel such as bailiffs and guards, attorneys, e#perts and others have lost to more productive tasks. This might be a reasonable price to

pay if the controversy had been finally settled, but at this point there is no end in sight. All costs are paid by the state in more than 24< of these cases because the defendant is indigent. The $rye rule has been critici*ed for its overly conservative approach and its vulnerability to manipulation by those seeking to e#clude novel scientific evidence. After the $ederal 7ules of Avidence were enacted, a number of jurisdictions abandoned $rye.

The Fe&era*

tan&ar&

The $ederal 7ules of Avidence currently in force were promulgated by the Supreme (ourt and enacted by (ongress in -2D3. &hile they are applicable directly only to proceedings in federal courts, they serve as the model for evidence codes in >C states. !espite this state recognition of federal standards, the majority of states profess to follow the $rye rule, creating evidenciary ambiguity that may not be resolved until appellate courts or legislatures address the issue. &hile not e#plicitly repudiating the $rye rule, the $ederal 7ules adopt a more permissive approach. They liken the standard for scientific evidence to that for other evidence, i.e. whether the probativeness, materiality, and reliability of the evidence outweighs its tendency to mislead, prejudice, and confuse the jury. The judge has more discretion under the $ederal 7ules. Rule 702, which concerns admissibility, states: i$ scienti$ic/ technica!/ or other specia!ize% 3no2!e%ge 2i!! assist the trier o$ $act to un%erstan% the e'i%ence or to %etermine a $act in issue/ a 2itness .ua!i$ie% as an e5pert by 3no2!e%ge/ s3i!!/ e5perience/ training/ or e%ucation/ may testi$y thereto in the $orm o$ an opinion or other2ise. 7ule D4> requires that the facts or data presented be Bof a type reasonably relied on by e#perts in the particular field.B 7ule ;4> e#cludes evidence that would cause undue prejudice or confusion. 8roponents of the $ederal 7ules approach to admissibility believe that taken together, these rules address all the concerns embodied in the $rye rule.

Dau3ert +. !erre** Do#

(ritics of the $ederal 7ules fear that the courts may be opening themselves to Bjunk scienceB by rela#ing $rye, but a landmark case heard by the Supreme (ourt in -22> rejected that claim. n !aubert v.

1errell !ow 8harmaceutical, nc., the court unanimously held that the $rye rule was incompatible with and had been superseded by the adoption of the $ederal 7ules. t found that Bvigorous crosse#amination, presentation of contrary evidence, and careful MjuryN instruction are the traditional and appropriate means of attacking shaky but admissible evidence.B Trial courts also could still render summary judgments and directed verdicts where there was an insufficient showing of reliability. The effect of !aubert on states where rules mirror federal standards has yet to be felt. @owever, it is reasonable to assume that e#pert testimony on !"A will be admissible after a threshold finding that it is relevant and reliable. !efendants in these jurisdictions will have a harder time suppressing !"A evidence, although stiff challenges to its admissibility will undoubtedly continue, at least for the near future. !aubert will have little or no effect on states where $rye still prevails. Some of the states even have supreme court decisions affirming $rye. The most recent state to affirm $rye is (alifornia in the %eahy case, decided in ,ctober -22;. n these states, new high court decisions or legislation are the only means to change admissibility standards.

"e%is*ate& A&missi3i*it)
6y the $all of -22;, eleven states had statutes mandating the admissibility of !"A evidence. 1aryland became the first state to do so followed by 1innesota, %ouisiana, and "evada, all in -2.2. 1ost of the legislation contains language that !"A testing is acceptable Bwithout antecedent e#pert testimonyB that it is Ba trustworthy and reliable method.B Arguably, these laws do not cover !"A analysis methods introduced after their passage, and the defense may still challenge laboratory performance and the statistical interpretation of results. As a more sophisticated defense bar mounts increasing numbers of e#pensive challenges to !"A evidence, it is likely that additional state legislatures will address this issue.

E<pert Witnesses
&hile many e#pert witnesses represent the best in their profession, the proliferation of e#pert witnesses, often considered to be Bhired gunsB employed to shoot holes in the other side5s testimony, is a remarkable development in the criminal justice system. There is hardly any kind of case not affected by these duelling e#perts, but psychological, medical, and !"A testimony seems to bring out the

worst of them. t is difficult not to conclude that some of these individuals are willing to stretch or ignore the facts, distort the science, and become Bliars for hire.B 1any of these witnesses derive a substantial amount or even the bulk of their income from testifying, which should be considered in determining their credibility and weighing their testimony. ,ne (alifornia judge bemoaned the use of such witnesses by candidly calling them the beneficiaries of Ba welfare system for academics.B A recent article on the ethics and responsibility of e#pert witnesses suggests the following criteria for qualification' 1n%ergra%uate an% gra%uate %egrees in the re!e'ant $ie!% o$ e5pertise; Specia!ize% training in the sub9ect area as it re!ates to $orensic science; Some training in $orensics; ,ro$essiona! !icenses or certi$ications re.uire% by pro$essiona! groups in the e5pert7s %iscip!ine; E'i%ence o$ e5perimentation/ teaching/ an% pub!ication 2ithin the specia!ty area; an% ,rior %iscip!inary e'i%ence %irect!y re!e'ant to the issues being consi%ere%. ,ther elements that help to determine an e#pert5s qualifications include' post-graduate training, publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals, the development of accepted tests and procedures, membership or leadership in appropriate scientific societies, and, only lastly, e#perience as an e#pert witness. #en years ago the Ca!i$onia case ,eop!e '. 4ro2n a%%e% criteria that has pro'en %i$$icu!t to app!y/ ie./ that the 2itness 8must a!so be ;impartia!/7 that is/ not so persona!!y in'este% in estab!ishing the acceptance o$ a techni.ue that he might not be ob9ecti'e about %isagreements 2ithin the re!e'ant scienti$ic community.8 Neither shou!% a 2itness be so in'este% in %enigrating a techni.ue that he e5aggerates the %isagreement 2ithin the scienti$ic community. ,robab!y the best 2ay o$ gaining the testimony o$ impartia! 2itnesses is $or courts/ rather than !itigants/ to appoint an% pay $or e5pert 2itnesses. Such is the practice in many other countries. <hi!e it is unusua! in the 1.S/ this proce%ure is 2ithin the po2er o$ state an% $e%era! courts. A notab!e e5amp!e in a case in'o!'ing DNA 2as 1nite% States '. =ee/ 2here the magistrate ca!!e% Eric >an%er/ a mathematician0 turne%0geneticist/ as an e5pert 2itness to supp!ement the se'enteen e5pert 2itnesses ca!!e% by the prosecution an% %e$ense. *t is reporte% that :u%ge *to may ca!! his o2n e5pert 2itnesses %uring the Simpson case ?e!!y0-rye hearing.

Defense

trate%)

!efense witnesses mount various objections to !"A evidence. They no longer try to discredit the technology itself. :ears ago, !"A typing achieved such wide acceptance and proven reliability that opponents now concentrate on two principal points of attack' =-? the quality and methodology of the laboratory work, including the lab5s error rate, and

=C? the statistical interpretation of data. The focus of the attacks on admissibility have changed over time. As one objection was knocked down, !"A opponents came up with another. The quality and relevancy of the arguments and of the e#perts is decreasing, having gone from population geneticists to bio-statisticians to statisticians from completely unrelated fields. &hat follows is a summary of the most frequently heard complaints about !"A typing and the responses to them that might be e#pected from forensic scientists. 1ore technical objections, such as bandshifting and laboratory quality assurance, are addressed in (hapter Three.

Conf*ict of Interest
8rosecution and defense e#pert witnesses in !"A cases are arguably the most contentious and disparaging in the business. Several judges have remarked that $rye hearings over !"A can be e#tremely vicious. Among the charges and countercharges hurled back and forth is that the opposing witnesses should be disqualified from testifying because of a conflict of interest. To a certain e#tent, both sides are correct. The prosecution believes that defense witnesses in !"A hearings often have a vested interest in making sure that the subject stays controversial so that they can continue the lucrative practice of testifying. The defense often believes that a practicing forensic scientist has a built-in bias or predisposition toward the prosecution5s side because of the close working relationship between crime labs and law enforcement. ndeed, criminalists often are police employees. f the forensic scientists are leaders in their field, they may be subject to a further conflict of interest. f they have developed or invented techniques or tools, they may have a proprietary interest in advancing !"A testing. They may have financial holdings in !"A labs or may have received grant funding from public or private agencies. (ertainly, a jury is entitled to know about all of these connections which should be fully disclosed. At the same time, courts acknowledge that, Bsimply because learned e#perts earn a living with their e#pertise should not prohibit the admissibility of their opinions,B as the court ruled in a recent "ew )ersey case.

Inte%rit) of

pecimen

,pposing e#pert witnesses try to raise doubts about the way !"A evidence was gathered and tested claiming that contamination may have occurred. The usual argument is that the underlying procedures

for forensic !"A testing were developed in laboratories where pure and known samples were used and retesting always was an option. &hile this is true, the argument doesn5t mention the usual results of contamination, the ease with which it can be detected, and the safeguards that are in place in most forensic !"A labs. n almost all cases, the results of using a specimen sufficiently contaminated to alter test results simply would be ruled inconclusive. ,ne way a specimen might be contaminated is by genetic material from the technician performing the analysis or from the person gathering the evidence. Again, this could not possibly harm the accused as an e#clusion would be the result of such mishandling. $inally, there is the possibility that some of the !"A drawn from the suspect could be accidentally mi#ed with !"A retrieved from the crime scene. Such an accident would yield false results, especially if 8(7 amplification is used. To avoid this possibility, crime labs that perform 8(7 do it in isolation and under stringent conditions that minimi*e the risk of contamination. !"A analysis is undeniably better than other tests in analy*ing mi#ed specimens and overcoming a variety of contaminants. 6ecause of its structure and relative stability, !"A can be tested even after mi#ture with acids, bases, gasoline, oil, or bleach.

Error Rate
The newest objection, which is at the heart of the Simpson defense team5s argument to e#clude !"A evidence, is the testing lab5s error rate. n a field as complicated as forensic science there are many sources of error, most of which will lead to an inconclusive or no result. A false positive or negative error rate is impossible to measure because these are such rare events. These are the types of errors caused by human error or fraud. t should be noted that most of these types of mi#-ups or failures in the chain of custody would lead to a false negative result which would be work in the accused5s favor. These also are more likely to occur before the evidence is received by the laboratory. There is no rate of these kinds of errors that is acceptable. $ortunately, an error resulting in a miscarriage of justice has yet to be demonstrated in forensic !"A casework, although it is perhaps inevitable that it will occur someday. Arrors intrinsic to the testing systems, such as the inability to precisely measure !"A restriction fragment lengths, are well compensated for by interpretation guidelines which take these kinds of errors into account. The series of quality control steps built into the process also provide an e#cellent assurance of the quality of individual and

laboratory performance. n most cases these steps should lead to corrective action long before a catastrophic error has occurred. 1inimi*ing laboratory errors requires a quality control program such as the ones which already are in place on a voluntary basis in the forensic laboratories. Almost all forensic !"A laboratories participate in programs which include proficiency testing and confirm that a minimum level of performance has been achieved. A#ternal proficiency testing also provides an ongoing comparison of inter-laboratory measurement error. These programs, led by the American Society of (rime %aboratory !irectors %aboratory Accreditation 6oard are rapidly gaining momentum. n the forensic field, the final arbiters of quality are the courts where e#perts under e#amination and cross-e#amination submit their results to the scrutiny of the opposing e#perts and the judge and jury. This added level of scrutiny is necessary to ensure quality forensic work and includes review of casework, retesting, and observation of particular tests by opposing e#perts. 6oth sides need to have equal access to forensic e#pertise in the interests of fairness and justice.

Popu*ation /enetics Estimates

The most contentious debate in forensic !"A involves the use of statistics to estimate the rarity of a given !"A profile. This is to be e#pected because the e#traordinary rarity of these profiles is what gives them their conclusiveness as evidence. The rarities of the genetic profiles depend on the number of genes e#amined =usually four or five, often more?. The frequencies of the results of each gene are multiplied to reach a combined profile frequency or the final estimate which is presented to the court. (ritics contend that among certain ethnic sub-groups, there may be arrangements of gene frequencies that differ markedly from those found in the general population. Chapter >: PEOP"E 1. ORENT(A" ,A!E I!P ON

Peop*e +. Orentha* ,ames Tria* of the Centur)

impson: The

At no time in history has someone as well-known and well-liked as ,.). Simpson been accused of such a heinous crime as slitting his e#- wife5s throat, almost decapitating her, and the knifing to death of her friend

who happened on the scene. $or the American public, obsessed as it is with celebrity, the Simpson case is proving to be a riveting spectacle. As this book goes to press in !ecember -22;, the trial itself has yet to start and but every legal proceeding e#cept for jury selection has been broadcast live, covered thoroughly, and analy*ed e#haustively. There is no escaping the Simpson trial. 1anagement consulting firms are predicting that once the trial starts, an epidemic of BSimpsonitisB is going to lower productivity in the American workplace. The case is the staple of television and radio shows, articles, editorials, and commentaries, jokes, and cartoons. Aven !oonesbury has assigned several characters to cover the trial and they are staying in a Bbig media encampment called ,.). (ity.B The case is being used as the basis for law classes at @arvard, :ale, +.(.%.A. and several other law schools =,.). -4-?. The trial will be broadcast on AS8", the all-sports cable network. t is likely that by the time the trial is over, it will have received more news coverage than any event since the 9iet "am &ar. As part of this media fren*y, !"A typing, the crucial evidence in the case, is receiving unprecedented attention. To people in the forensic sciences, this attention is greeted with the hope that the Simpson case will be the acid test for !"A in the courts, at least in the court of public opinion. At the same time, there is some concern that the defense is mounting the most concerted and well-funded attack ever on !"A evidence. &ill they succeed in confusing the judge or the juryJ The dollars versus !"A showdown at the Simpson evidentiary hearing and the trial will be a real test of the criminal justice system. The pre-trial hearing, called the Gelly-$rye hearing in (alifornia, where the judge will decide on the admissibility of the !"A testing was initiated by the defense motion to e#clude the !"A evidence. That document was submitted on ,ctober 3 and runs -4. pages. The motion is well written and goes back to the beginnings of !"A testing to cite a wide variety of articles, affidavits, and testimony which challenge the validity of !"A. t quotes two "obel laureates, one of whom will testify for the defense that the 8(7 test is not suitable for forensic use. This motion was rebutted by two documents from the prosecution, one asking the court to admit the 7$%8 testing and the other 8(7. t is highly unusual for jury selection to precede the Gelly-$rye hearing, as was done in the Simpson case. 6oth sides usually want to know the outcome of the hearing prior to selecting a jury because the judge5s ruling on admissibility affects the way in which they question prospective jurors. )udge to did not really have a choice in this case, however. All of the !"A test results were not yet back from the laboratories, so the full e#tent and kinds of evidence could not yet been determined. At this stage, an evidentiary hearing would have been able to address only generic and not specific issues.

The Gelly-$rye hearing, originally scheduled for "ov. -, and then !ec. -C, -22;, has now been postponed until )anuary 3, -223 at the earliest. Aven this date might prove unrealistic because 8eter "eufeld, co-counsel of the Simpson !"A defense team, is tied up with a murder trial in "ew :ork. Another unrealistic e#pectation is that the Gelly-$rye hearing will only take a month. 6etween C4 and >4 witnesses have been identified. f they averaged two days of testimony apiece, a two to three month hearing would ensue. n addition to defense and prosecution witnesses, )udge to may call his own e#perts to testify. f he does, Aric %ander from 1. .T. is bound to be one of them. to is being advised on !"A issues by )udge !ino $ulgoni, a %os Angeles Superior (ourt judge and former prosecutor speciali*ing in !"A issues. 6oth sides did get some early insight into how prospective jurors felt about !"A evidence. As part of jury selection, all members of the jury pool were required to complete a D.-page questionnaire probing their views on such subjects as race, religion, sports, politics, science, and, of course, !"A. ,f the C2; questions, the eight dealing with !"A are printed at right. The jury that was chosen for the Simpson case is composed of eight African-Americans, two @ispanics, one American ndian-(aucasian, and one (aucasian. $our are men and eight are women. The jury includes two people with more than a high school education. 6ased on their questionnaires, the Simpson jury, by and large, does not find !"A evidence to be reliable. n the Simpson case, it is a victory for the defense to have the jury selection come first. The longer the jury sits, the more chance there is for a mistrial, especially if the jury is sequestered. Avery time there is a mistrial, it is a victory for the defense even though the prosecution more often than not convicts the ne#t time around. )udge to was probably thinking about the length of the trial and the potential for BcontaminationB of the jurors by the media when he decided to qualify twelve alternate jurors instead of the more usual eight. )udge to probably reali*es that the Gelly-$rye hearing may well last considerably longer than the month for which it is currently scheduled, and that the trial itself may run far longer than anticipated. 6ecause both sides believe that alternate jurors will be used in this case, seating of the alternate jurors took longer than choosing the original panel.

Defense

trate%) an& Ar%uments

The defense began their !"A offensive by waging a pitched battle to convince )udge to to split the blood evidence samples in the Simpson case. This was a tactical move to reduce the amount of !"A available

to be tested by the prosecution. The defense probably doesn5t want to do any testing of its own because it would only add a fourth lab to the three which have already processed incriminating evidence against their client. They want to distance themselves from this evidence so much that they did not even observe the testing which was done. The most productive avenue for the defense in this case is to discredit the evidence by critici*ing how it was collected and documented on its way to the lab. To embellish this argument, they claim that the BcontaminatedB samples are unfit for re-testing. 6eginning with the pre-trial evidentiary hearing, the defense will try their utmost to blur the distinction between weight and admissibility so they can talk about issues such as laboratory error rates and contamination. These relate more properly to the weight of the evidence rather than to its admissibility. deally, the defense would like to have the scientists who did the testing testify about the results. They will reach far into the past to bring up any statements, cases or tests which support their position. The attacks the defense will make are based on trying to show that !"A testing is not reliable and that there is no agreement in the scientific community as to how the results should be interpreted. Statistical estimates and population genetics, especially as they relate to 7$%8, are still a major defense objection despite the fact that many of the e#perts who previously e#pressed concerns about the population genetics issues will no longer testify against the forensic use of !"A. This issue is further neutrali*ed by the recent article in "ature co-authored by 6ruce 6udowle and Aric %ander. %aboratory error rate is the most recent area that the defense has emphasi*ed to try to keep !"A out of the courtroom. This is actually an old issue. &hile there is no particular case law on this point, it is generally considered to go to the weight of the evidence irrespective of the testing method. 6y error rate in the !"A conte#t, critics are referring to the incidence of false positive test results. The basic defense contention is that until the laboratories can establish their false positive rates by double blinded proficiency testing, they should not be allowed to use the test results as evidence. 6ased on proficiency testing that the laboratories underwent years ago, defense e#perts have calculated that false positive rates could be as high as >4<. This is a specious claim. t assumes that the occurrence of false positives in forensic casework follow the rules of statistics used for normal distributions of frequently occuring events. $alse positive results in the laboratory are e#traordinarily rare events. ,ut of the more than C3,444 cases which have been completed using forensic !"A, not one false positive result has been demonstrated to date. The defense will bring up the results of a -2.D test in which both (ellmark and $orensic Science Associates reported out false results.

They will claim that these test results point to a lab error rate of C< =in 34 tests?. These tests are irrelevant because changes in protocols were made as a result of these tests and since then many thousands of tests have been sucessfully completed. The defense is also claiming that the laboratory error rate should be factored into any !"A profile frequencies so that the gene frequencies reported could never be any lower than the false positive rates. ,nce again, this is an inappropriate use of statistics, because the occurrence of a genotype and the occurrence of an error are two different events. 1uch will be made of the procedural errors made in the Simpson case, particularly the coroner5s performance. Those errors, while certainly demonstrating substandard performance, are not material. The time of the victims5 death is known with much greater certainty than can be determined by discarded stomach contents. The failure to collect se#ual assault evidence is disappointing but, of course, there are no allegations or evidence of se#ual assault. ,ften, there are much more serious breaches of investigative procedures, but few defendants have the resources that are available to ,.). Simpson. The defense objections to the !"A evidence are summari*ed in the following e#cerpt of their motion to e#clude !"A evidence.

The Defense DNA Team

6arry Scheck and 8eter "eufeld are the two American attorneys best known for their !"A defense work. This pair from "ew :ork has been at the middle of the muddle over !"A since the first big showdown in "ew :ork v. (astro. They followed that case by forming the !"A Task $orce of the "ational Association of (riminal !efense %awyers, which they continue to co-chair. Then they handled the !"A hearing in +.S. v. :ee. "ow they5re involved in the Simpson trial. At a recent international !"A symposium, they were reviled in a joking aside by one speaker as the Bprinces of darkness.B 8eter 1aas, the best-selling writer, describes his two friends by saying, BScheck is short and pugnaciousF "eufeld is tall and pugnacious.B 6oth are known as hard workers who take on a lot of civil liberties cases and pro bono work. Through the nnocence 8roject, the two have used !"A testing to free several innocent men who were serving time for crimes they did not commit. Scheck and "eufeld, who are in their mid-forties, first came together as %egal Aid Bpeople5s lawyersB in a South 6ron# ghetto. Scheck is a professor at :eshiva +niversity5s (ardo*o School of %aw, where he also directs a criminal law clinic for students. "eufeld is a private practicioner in 1anhattan and also teaches law at $ordham +niversity. n !ecember -22;, "eufeld found himself in trouble as he tried to withdraw from a murder trial in "ew :ork so that he could

devote his full attention to the Simpson case. The "ew :ork judge found that "eufeld5s declarations Bbordered onB perjury and threatened him with contempt and jail if he dropped his east coast client to seek his Bfame and fortuneB in (alifornia. A federal judge also rejected his plea to be removed from the "ew :ork case. &illiam Thompson is an associate professor of criminology at the +niversity of (alifornia, rvine. @e has a 8h.!. in psychology and a law degree from 6erkeley. Thompson was largely responsible for writing the motion to e#clude the !"A evidence and is an e#cellent writer. @is article on lessons from the B!"A &arB published in "orthwestern +niversity5s )ournal of (riminology and (riminal %aw has become a favorite primer for critics of !"A testing. Thompson5s academic commitments may prevent him from having much more involvement in the case.

Defense E<perts
The first two e#perts retained by the defense are widely known and highly respected among forensic scientists. @enry (. %ee is a native of (hina and, before coming to this country, was a police officer in Taiwan. @e now serves as the head of the (onnecticut State 8olice crime laboratory and is a longtime advocate of !"A testing. %ee is an e#pert in crime scene investigation and blood spatter interpretation. @e has investigated more than 3,444 murders, solving a number of difficult homicides, including the infamous case in which a man attempted to dispose of his wife5s body by dismembering it with an industrial woodchipper. 6y arrangement with the State of (onnecticut, he is permitted to do private work. @e testified, for e#ample, as a defense witness in the &illiam Gennedy Smith rape trial in 8alm 6each, $lorida. %ee has 0overnor &eicker5s e#plicit permission to work on the Simpson case. @e went to (alifornia shortly after the arrest of Simpson and visited the crime scene. @e has also been to the %os Angeles 8olice !epartment lab to view the evidence. Ad 6lake is the other forensics e#pert who has worked for the defense from the beginning. @e is the founder of $orensic Science Associates, a private lab in (alifornia. @e has been to the (alifornia State (rime %ab in 6erkeley frequently and has also visited the 1aryland lab and the %A8! lab. 6lake is one of the original practicioners of forensic !"A testing in the country. n fact, in -2./, he performed the first !"A testing ever allowed into a courtroom in the +nited States. 6lake was the object of a prosecution subpoena, but )udge to refused to issue the subpoena, saying that it was not necessary to have 6lake5s direct testimony since he has published widely and his views can be

ascertained from his writings and his testimony in the scores of previous trials in which he has testified in favor of !"A testing. ronically, the defense may decide to not put either of their two top forensic e#perts on the stand. &ith the prosecution barred from seeking their testimony, neither @enry %ee nor Ad 6lake is likely to be seen at the Gelly-$rye hearing or the trial itself. Simpson5s lawyers delayed submitting their list of witnesses. 7umor suggests that the defense had a difficult time locating desirable witnesses to testify on their behalf. @igh profile academics such as %ewontin and @artl, who have testified for the defense in the past, are now satisfied that forensic !"A methods are acceptable. ndeed, @artl will testify for the prosecution. The defense bar, more and more has been forced to call individuals who are only tangentially qualified to testify on forensic !"A matters. 8rior to being qualified by the judge to give e#pert testimony each witness will be e#amined and cross e#amined in a process called voir dire, from the $rench Bto speak the truth.B ,n cross-e#amination by the opposing attorneys during voir dire, as well as for the remainder of the hearing, and during the trial a constant goal of the attorneys will be to discredit the opposition5s e#pert witnesses. Attorneys will review transcripts of previous testimonyF published and unpublished documents such as articles, grant applications, copies of manuscripts and related correspondence for inconsistencies and ammunition. Anything the attorneys can get their hands on by legal means is fair game, including what are normally treated as confidential matters. The attorneys will bring up questions of conflict of interest, how much money the witnesses have made, if they have testified only for one side, and their outside employment. f judges did not live in such fear of being overturned on appeal they probably would not qualify some of these individuals as e#perts. The defense hopes that their main witness, Gary 1ullis, will be an acein-the-hole, the high trump card that allows them to win the showdown. @e is, after all, a "obel laureate who won his pri*e by inventing the 8(7 testing process that the prosecution is using to help prove Simpson5s guilt. Although 1ullis has already testified in a handful of !"A cases, he can be considered a coup for the defense because the "obel 8ri*e is so prestigious. @e will testify that 8(7 testing should not be used for identifying criminals. At the same time, 1ullis might backfire on the defense, his views are so often rejected and ridiculed by the scientific community. n "ature maga*ine for e#ample, 7obin &eiss, director of the 6ritish nstitute of (ancer 7esearch, compared 1ullis to &illiam Shockley, who won his "obel for inventing the transistor. Shockley is most famous for his views that whites are intellectually superior to blacks. &hile 1ullis5 views are not racist, they too are offensive to scientists.

@e believes that A !S is spread through the lungs, not se#ual contact or shared needles, and that @ 9 does not cause A !S. @e also believes in a conspiracy linking the BgovernmentB and the 1afia, which has targeted ,.). Simpson and aims to bring him down with faked evidence. 6ased on his previous testimony, 1ullis does not appear to be familiar with the controls which are used in forensic 8(7 tests that prevent and detect contamination. ndeed, 1ullis is largely unfamiliar with current lab practices. @e no longer practices science, having abandoned that career to try his hand at writing. @is only connection to 8(7 now is that he hopes =through his company called Stargene? to market pieces of jewelry or trading cards containing 8(7-generated !"A from 1adonna, Alvis 8resley, and other famous personalities. Seymour 0eisser is a biostatistician and the =co?author of about -34 technical articles. $or more than twenty years, he has been a professor and the director of the school of statistics at the +niversity of 1innesota. @e has testified in do*ens of trials as a defense witness against !"A. n previous testimony, 0eisser has maitained that the data base upon which !"A frequency estimates is based must be drawn from the geographic area in which the suspect resides. Ali*abeth Thompson chairs the statistics department at the +niversity of &ashington, although this year she is on leave at the +niversity of 1ichigan. A native of 0reat 6ritain, Thompson is new to testifying, having only one previous e#perience =the @ollis case in Seattle, &ashington?. There she was instrumental in getting the !"A evidence ruled inadmissable. A Seattle lawyer familiar with her testimony in the case observed, Bthe prosecution often accuse the defense of hiring whores, but Ali*abeth was a virgin.B &illiam Shields is a professor of biology and the director of the (ranberry %ake 6iological $ield Station for the State +niversity of "ew :ork at Syracuse. A *oologist by training, he wrote his 8h.!. dissertation on inbreeding and the evolution of se# in birds. @is specialties are orinthology and testifying for the defense in !"A cases. %aurence 1ueller is a professor in the !epartment of Acology and Avolutionary 6iology at the +niversity of (alifornia, rvine. Along with &illiam Thompson =who wrote the motion to e#clude !"A evidence for the Simpson team? and Simon $ord, a !"A consultant no longer at the university, the trio became known as the Bcombine from rvineB for their prolific work challenging !"A. 1ueller has a 8h.!. in ecology and wrote his dissertation on fitness in fruit flies. @e has the distinction of earning more money through witness fees than any other veteran of the !"A &ar.

The Prosecution DNA Team

There are three prosecutors working on the !"A aspects of the case. The lead is %isa Gahn, the %os Angeles (ounty !"A coordinator since -224. She is particularily interested in the technical and scientific aspects of the subject and has attended numerous scientific conferences on forensic !"A testing. AFTERWORD

A ?uestion of ,ustice
The prospects for ending the !"A &ar quickly are dim, unless the Simpson trial delivers a knockout blow to the critics. =Any decision in the case is guaranteed to be appealed, although a mistrial is a likely initial result.? The process of having an admissibility hearing for practically every case involving !"A ensures continuing contention. Standards are changing, but changing such hoary procedures is seldom either easy or quick, especially when entrenched interests find them lucrative. The forensic use of !"A should be of special interest to women. $ew commentators have identified it as such, but !"A testing is not just an ethical, legal, or public policy issueF it is also a women5s issue. "inety percent of the the victims of crimes involving !"A identification are committed against women. The tests are most useful in se# crimes, traditionally the toughest to solve and among the most under-reported. ,nly about half of the reported rapes result in arrests, and less than half of the men arrested are convicted. !"A has made it a lot harder for violent offenders to prey on women with impunity. &hile the debate over !"A has taken some decidedly nasty turns lately, it helps to remember that there were controversial elements about !"A testing from the beginning. (ivil libertarians feared abuses and voiced concerns over violations of privacy and due process. &e can also better understand the future of !"A fingerprinting by recalling the history of digital fingerprinting. A similar debate, with identical questions took place a century ago. (ould more than one person have the same printJ &ould investigators take care in gathering the evidenceJ (ould they fake the evidenceJ "ow as then, as !aniel Goshland, the editor of Science, has observed, Bcaution is appropriateF unreasonable doubt is not.B The !"A revolution has brought into sharp focus how hard it is for the judicial system to evaluate and incorporate new scientific technologies. ts vulnerability to pseudo e#perts is e#posed. Such controversies over !"A as do e#ist speak more to the nature of our legal system and the politics and economics of the scientific community than to the soundness of the technology, the state of the art and science.

8erhaps the recent +nited States Supreme (ourt5s !aubert decision, which encourages judges to e#ercise greater latitude in evaluating new scientific evidence, will help to resolve the remaining admissibility questions. Appellate decisions affirming !"A testing and legislated admissibility are two other means of resolution. +ltimately, complete acceptance of current and meritorious new !"A methodologies is inevitable, as these analytical tools will simply become even more powerful than they are today. n the meantime, we should not defer the use of such a tool for justice while we wait for the perfect solution to all questions that it raises. &e must not forego good way of interpreting the results of !"A test- ing because there is still =and probably always will be? debate over the best way to interpret them. )ustice deferred is justice denied, and !"A has a lot to do with justice' for thousands of victims of assault, murder, and rape and their familiesF for the -444 men, mistakenly accused and e#onerated annually by !"AF for the appro#imately >,344 criminals convicted every year, in part, by !"A evidenceF and finally, justice for a nation whose citi*ens are safer because !"A is a powerful weapon against violence. Appen&i<: DNA TE TIN/ IN =; TATE

A*a3ama $irst (ase' 8eople v. 8erry, guilty of rape, Scottsboro, -2.. Appellate !ecision' Accepted !"A, remanded 8erry to trial court on basis of statistics and three-pronged $rye standard, -22-F trial court found general acceptance of statistical analysis, -22C. !ata 6ank established'-22; %egislated Admissibility passed' -22; A*as'a $irst (ase' !"A evidence accepted in criminal trial in Godiak, -224. !ata 6ank established'no %egislated Admissibility passed' no Ari7ona $irst case' 8eople v. 6ible, Superior (ourt judge ruled to allow the introduction of !"A evidence in the murder trial of 7ichard 6ible. 6ible was charged with murder, kidnapping, and child molestation in the disappearance and death of a 2-year-old girl. (oconino (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' 8eople v. 6ible, -22>. !"A evidence admitted, but statistical estimates e#cluded.

!ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' no Ar'ansas !"A evidence was admitted in a %ittle 7ock rape case following a pretrial hearing in "ovember -2.2. Appellate !ecision' 8rater v. Arkansas, -22-. Affirmed !"A admissibility. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no Ca*ifornia $irst case' 8eople v. A#ell, guilty of murder, 9entura (ounty Superior (ourt, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' 8eople v. Soto, -22;. Affirmed admissiom of evidence and statistics. !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' no Co*ora&o $irst case' 8eople v. 0allagher, guilty of se#ual assault, Al 8aso (ounty, -2... Appellate !ecision' $ishback v. State of (olorado, -22>. Admitted !"A evidence and left statistical frequency questions to trial courts. !ata 6ank established' -224 %eglislated Admissibility passed' no Connecticut $irst case' 8eople v. &illiams, 8(7 test conducted fails to show link between defendant and woman stabbed to death in a shopping center parking lot, Stamford, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. Silvri, -22;. )udgment reversed and case remanded with recommendation to conform with "7( report. !ata 6ank established' -22; %egislated Admissibility passed' -22;!elaware $irst case' 8eople v. 8ennell, guilty of murder, &ilmington, -2.2. !ata 6ank established' -22; %egislated Admissibility passed' -22; District of Co*um3ia $irst case' 0reen v. !istrict of (olumbia, After being convicted in )une, -2.2, 0reen pursued !"A testing, which revealed that he was not the individual whose semen had stained the victim5s clothing. 7ape, kidnapping, and sodomy charges dropped in -224 Appellate !ecision' +.S. v. 8orter, -22;. Affirmed admissibility and use of ceiling principle.

!ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no F*ori&a $irst case' 8eople v. Andrews, guilty of rape, -2.D. Appellate !ecision' Toran*o v. $lorida, -22C. Affirmed admissibility and frequency estimate. !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' no /eor%ia $irst case' 8eople v. 7edding, !"A evidence admitted after pretrial hearing in rape case. !efendant pleaded guilty. !ecatur, -2... Appellate !ecision' 1orris v. State, -22;. Affirmed use of evidence and statistics. !ata 6ank established' -22C %egislated Admissibility passed' no (a#aii $irst case' 8eople v. 1anning, guilty of assault and burglary, &ailuku, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. 1ontalbo, -22C. Admitted !"A evidence and found objections regarding statistical calculations go to weight rather than admissibility. !ata 6ank established' -22C %egislated Admissibility passed' no I&aho $irst case' 8eople v. @orsley, guilty of rape, Sandpoint, -2... !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no I**inois $irst case' (ase of 0ary !otson. (ook (ounty judge vacates -2D2 rape conviction after !"A test e#culpates defendant. !otson had been convicted in a -2DD rape, for which he spent / years in jail. Alleged victim recanted story in -2.3, and 0overnor )ames Thompson granted clemency, but rape conviction remained on his record. !otson had requested that the case be reopened for new trial after 8(7 tests e#cluded him. (ook (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' 8eople v. %ipscomb, -22-. Accepted !"A tests and statistical calculations. !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' no

In&iana $irst case' 8eople v. @opkins, guilty of rapeHsodomyH murder, $ort &ayne, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' 1cAlroy v. State, -22C. (ourt upheld !"A admissibility and frequency calculations. !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' -22Io#a $irst case' 8eople v. 9argason, guilty of se#ual abuse, )ohnson (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. 7ipperger, -22;. Affirmed use of evidence and statistics. !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' no 4ansas $irst case' 8eople v. 8ioletti, guilty of murder, &ichita, -2... Appellate !ecision' State v. &ilson, -22-. 7uled that procedural questions related to weight of evidence rather than admissibility. !ata 6ank established' -22%egislated Admissibility passed' no 4entuc') Appellate !ecision' @arris v. (ommonwealth, -22C. Affirmed the use of !"A evidence and statistics. !ata 6ank established' -22C %egislated Admissibility passed' no "ouisiana $irst case' 8eople v. Euatrevingt, guilty of murderHrape, "ew ,rleans, -224. Appellate !ecision' State v. Euatrevingt, -22C. 7uled !"A evidence is pro se admissible under %ouisiana statute. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' -224 !aine $irst case' 8eople v. 1c%eod. The prosecution, in se#ual molestation case, withdrew !"A evidence during a preliminary hearing on the reliability of the data, 8ortland, -2.2. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no !ar)*an& $irst case' 8eople v. Tasker. !efendant pleads guilty to second-degree

rape and draws 3-year prison sentence in case where !"A evidence introduced. Anne Arundel (ounty, -2... !ata 6ank established' -22; %egislated Admissibility passed' -22!assachusetts $irst case' 8eople v. (urnin, guilty of rape, &orcester, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' (ommonwealth v. !aggett, -22>. The supreme court, unable to reach consensus on the admissibility of !"A evidence, ruled that even if the evidence was erronously admitted, it was a harmless error. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no !ichi%an $irst case' 8eople v. $agan, guilty of rape, $lint, -2... !ata 6ank established' -22; %egislated Admissibility passed' no !innesota $irst case' 8eople v. "ielson, guilty of murder, 7amsey (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. )ohnson, -22>. +pheld admissibility of !"A evidence including frequency statistics for each individual locus and not the product of all loci. !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' -2.2 !ississippi $irst case' 8eople v. &eaver, guilty of rape, @inds (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' 8olk v. State, -22C. (ourt found >-prong $rye standard satisfied and evidence properly admitted. !ata 6ank established' from and after )anuary /, -22/. %egislated Admissibility passed' no !issouri $irst case' 8eople v. Thomas, guilty of rape, St. %ouis, -2.2. !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' no !ontana $irst case' 8eople v. !rummond. Se#ual intercourse without consent allegedly committed by a State institution attendant against a developmentally disabled patient. The victim gave birth and !"A comparisons were done by %ifecodes. !efendant pleaded guilty. )efferson (ounty, -2.2.

!ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no Ne+a&a !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' -2.2 Ne# (ampshire $irst case' 8eople v. 6arnaby. !"A analysis admitted, according to State Attorney 0eneral5s ,ffice. @illsborough (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. 9andebogart, -22C. 7eversed admission of !"A evidence and remanded case to trial court to determine if ceiling principle was acceptable, which the trial court did. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no Ne# ,erse) $irst case' 8eople v. 6eard. "early > months after being charged with murder, the defendant was released after a judge ruled that authorities arrested the wrong man. The primary suspect in a -2D3 0eorgia murder disappeared after the crime. 1istakenly, his cousin =the defendant in this case? was arrested. !"A tests conducted by %ifecodes proved the jailed man was not the father of a man known to be the son of the suspect. +nion (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. &illiams, -22-. Affirmed the use of 8(7. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no Ne# !e<ico $irst case' 8eople v. (ollins. A man once charged with killing his stepdaughter was released from prison in ,ctober -2.2 pending the outcome of !"A testing. ,pen murder charges against the defendant were dismissed in the interim. Santa $e, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. Anderson, -22;. 7eversed (ourt of Appeals ruling that !"A evidence, admitted by trial court, was inadmissible due to statistical methodology. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no Ne# -or' $irst case' 8eople v. Oambrana, guilty of murder, "ew (ity, -2.D. Appellate !ecision' 8eople v. &esley, -22;. Affirmed admissibility and statistical estimates. !ata 6ank established' -22; %egislated Admissibility passed' no

North Caro*ina $irst case' 8eople v. 1ills, guilty of murder, Salisbury, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. 8ennington, -224. Affirmed use of !"A evidence and statistics. !ata 6ank established' -22> %egislated Admissibility passed' no North Da'ota !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no Ohio $irst case' 8eople v. !ascen*o, guilty of aggravated murder, 1ontgomery (ounty, -2... Appellate !ecision' ,hio v. 8enton, -22>. Affirmed 8(7 and reiterated relevancy as admissibility standard rather than $rye standard. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no O'*ahoma $irst case' 8eople v. @unt, first time %ifecodes testifies regarding !"A evidence in criminal case, defendant acquitted of murder, "orman, -2.D. !ata 6ank established' -22%egislated Admissibility passed' no Ore%on $irst case' 8eople v. $utch, !"A test results offered for admission at Dmonth pretrial hearing, (latsop (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. %yons, -22>. Affirmed use of !"A evidence and statistics. !ata 6ank established' -22%egislated Admissibility passed' no Penns)*+ania $irst case' 8eople v. Trubia, guilty of murderHrape, %ackawanna (ounty, -2... Appellate !ecision' (ommonwealth v. 7ogers, -22C. Affirmed !"A admissibility under $rye. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no Rho&e Is*an& $irst case' n re' (ase involving rape of a nursing home resident. )uvenile admitted sufficient facts to establish the charge against himF sentenced to > years at a juvenile facility. -2.2.

!ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no outh Caro*ina $irst case' 8eople v. Avans, guilty of rapeHburglary, (harleston (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no outh Da'ota $irst case' 8eople v. &imberly, guilty of rape, 1eade (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. &imberly. Affirmed use of evidence and statistics. !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' no Tennessee $irst case' $6 testimony in rape case in 6lountville results in admission of !"A evidence, -2.2, Trial pending. Appellate !ecision' 8eople v. @arris, -22C. Affirmed admissibility and frequency estimate under both $rye and relevancy test. !ata 6ank established' -22%egislated Admissibility passed' -22Te<as $irst case' 8eople v. Trimboli, A !"A test that triple-murder defendant 7onald Trimboli had hoped would clear his name instead gave prosecutors additional evidence against him. Tests concluded that semen found on the bedspread where one of the three victims was raped matched a sample Trimboli had given for the test. Trimboli5s two earlier trials for the three murders both ended in mistrials, first because of jury misconduct and later because a jury deadlocked, / to /. The third trial resulted in a conviction on all three counts of murder. Tarrant (ounty, test in -2.., convicted in -2.2. Appellate !ecision' Gelly v. Te#as, -22C. Affirmed !"A admissibility and concluded $rye was no longer part of Te#as law. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no Utah $irst case' 8eople v. 6ickmore, !"A evidence admitted, mistrial declared on other grounds, ,gden, -2.2. !ata 6ank established' -22; %egislated Admissibility passed' no

1ermont $irst case' +nited States v. )akobet*. Admissibility hearing pending in rape case. !efense attorney has filed request that genetic evidence not be used in court. n August -2.2, judge ruled that hair, blood, and saliva samples could be taken from defendant for testing. +.S. !istrict (ourt, 6urlington, -2.2. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no 1ir%ina $irst case' 8eople v. 7eynolds, !"A evidence admitted in murder case, @enrico (ounty, -2... Appellate !ecision' Spencer v. (ommonwealth, -224. Affirmed use of !"A evidence. !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' -224 Washin%ton $irst case' 8eople v. :oung. !"A tests e#clude :oung, who had been identified by the victim as the rapist. (harges dropped, Snohomish (ounty, -2.2. Appellate !ecision' State v. (authron, -22>. 7eversed trial court5s admission of !"A match without population statistics and remanded. !ata 6ank established' -224 %egislated Admissibility passed' no West 1ir%inia $irst case' 8eople v. $errell, guilty of murder, 8etersburg, -2.2. !ata 6ank established' -22> %egislated Admissibility passed' no Wisconsin $irst case' 8eople v. 6anks, guilty of rape, Genosha (ounty, -2.2. !ata 6ank established' -22> %egislated Admissibility passed' -22> W)omin% $irst case' Appellate !ecision' Springfield v. State, -22>. Affirmed use of !"A evidence and statistical calculations. !ata 6ank established' no %egislated Admissibility passed' no !i*itar) $irst case' +nited States v. Scott. 7ape case. 1ilitary judge approved

request for !"A tests, but !"A in sample too degraded to perform the testing. +.S. 1arine (orps, -2...

*ossar) A. See adenine. AA$$. The American Association of 6lood 6anks 8arentage Testing (ommittee, the voluntary inspection and certification organi*ation for parentage testing laboratories located in Arlington, 9irginia. AAF . The American Academy of $orensic Sciences, the primary national forensic scientific organi*ation headquartered in (olorado Springs, (olorado. They hold an annual scientific meeting and publish the )ournal of $orensic Science. a&enine. An organic base, one of the four monomers or building blocks from which !"A is made. AF"P. Amplified fragment length polymorphism. A 9"T7 containing alleles generally less than one thousand base pairs in length that have been amplified using the 8(7 process. The length of the resulting !"A fragments, which are separated by electrophoresis, is determined by the 8(7 primers rather than the restriction en*yme site as is the case in 7$%8. ST7s are a class of A$%8s in which the repeat units are even smaller. a%arose. A jello like substance derived from seaweed that is used as a medium for the si*e separation of !"A and proteins by the process of electrophoresis. a**e*e fre@uenc). The representation of a specific allele out of the total alleles observed at that locus. a**e*e. Alternative forms or versions of a gene. Aach person has two alleles of every gene which may be the same or different. There may be a few or many alleles of a gene found in a populationF some may be common others rare. A!PF"P. See A$%8. analytical gel. The final gel in an 7$%8 test and the one that will be used to make the Southern blot.

A C"D-"A$. The American Society of (rime %aboratory !irectors %aboratory Accreditation 6oard. The voluntary inspection and certification organi*ation for crime laboratories. t is a separate organi*ation from AS(%! itself. A (/. The American Society of @uman 0enetics. A (I. The American Society of @istocompatibility and mmunogenetics. autora&. A film e#posed by a radioactive tracer. n the case of forensic 7$%8 analysis the tracer is attached to a !"A probe which is in turn attached to a 9"T7 allele immobili*ed on a Southern blot. autora&io%ram. See autorad autora&io%raph. See autorad autora&io%raph). See autorad 3an&. The e#posed area on an autorad film that detects the presence of a particular !"A fragment. 3an&shift. The phenomena in which identical !"A fragments will move through an electrophoresis gel at different rates because of contamination or alterations to the !"A itself. This phenomena is usually observed in forensic samples that are partially degraded. 3ase. The chemical units adenine =A?, guanine =0?, cytosine =(?, and thymine =T? contained in !"A and that by virtue of their sequence determine the information content of the !"A. 3ase pair5in%6. The complementary partnership of A with T and 0 with ( that brings the two opposite strands of a !"A molecule together to form the double heli#. 3*ot. See Southern blot. C. See cytosine. CAC. (alifornia Association of (riminalists. CAC"D. (alifornia Association of (rime %aboratory !irectors.

CAP. (ollege of American 8athologists. Supplies proficiency tests to forensic and parentage testing and medical laboratories. cei*in% princip*e. An e#tremely conservative method of calculating the estimated occurrence of !"A profiles in forensic samples. t5s purpose is to compensate for any undetected substructure that may e#ist in the populations that have been sampled. ce**. The smallest unit of life that is capable of independent reproduction by the process of cell division. There are appro#imately -44 trillion cells in the human body almost all of which contain an identical complement of !"A known as the human genome. chromosome. The units made up of proteins and !"A into which the !"A in cells is packaged. There are C> pairs of chromosomes in each human cell. c*onin%. The procedure for purifying and reproducing in the laboratory specific small identical !"A sequences. CODI . (ombined !"A dentification System, the $6 5s database of !"A profiles of convicted offenders supplied to them by the states. comp*ementarit). The characteristic of !"A resulting from the base pairing rules. f it is known that one strand has the sequence, 0AT(, then the sequence of the other complementary strand, (TA0, will also be known. contro*s. Test samples for which the results are know. They are of two general types positive and negative. A positive control is used to confirm that the test worked correctly and a negative control to detect contamination. f a control test result does not meet specifications then the entire test can be rendered invalid. CT . (ollaborative Testing Services, a commercial laboratory headquartered in Arlington, 9irginia that supplies proficiency testing samples to forensic laboratories. c)tosine. An organic base, one of the four monomers or building blocks from which !"A is made. &e%ra&ation. The breaking down of !"A by biological or chemical processes. n the conte#t of forensic science these processes are usually the result of cell death or e#posure to the elements.

DNA. !eo#yribonucleic acid, the biological polymer that stores the genetic information in all free living organisms. Two linear molecules entwine to form the double heli#. DNA po*)merase. An en*yme that produces or synthesi*es !"A. These en*ymes always use an e#isting !"A molecule as a template for producing a new strand of !"A. DNA pro3e. A short piece of !"A made in the laboratory by chemical or biological means that can be labeled with a tracer and used to identify a specific gene. A specific gene is identified by a specific !"A probe. DNA profi*in% or t)pin%. A variety of !"A tests used by forensic scientists to aid in the identification of the individual source of evidence or to resolve a parentage question. e*ectrophoresis. The process of moving !"A or proteins through a sieving matri# that will separate them by si*e. This process is possible because most biological molecules have an electric charge and so will move in response to the electrical field that is applied to the separation matri#. en7)mes. 8roteins that serve as catalysts for specific biological reactions. A catalyst is a substance that helps a chemical reaction occur. t remains unchanged itself and so is required in trace amounts. The two most commonly used in !"A testing are the restriction endonuclease @ae and Taq !"A polymerase. ethi&ium 3romi&e 5Et$r6. A dye that stains !"A and is illuminated by ultraviolet or black light on a device called a transilluminator. t is used to visuali*e !"A in gels following electrophoresis and can be added to the !"A before or after e*ectrophoresis. ts presence slightly alters the speed at which the !"A migrates through the gel. This fact has been the source of controversy in the past, but ample studies demonstrate that whether At6r is added before or after electro-phoresis does not significantly affect the results. e<c*usion. n forensic and paternity testing the situation that e#ists when testing has demonstrated that a particular sample could not have come from an individual who was also tested or that the alleged father in a paternity case cannot be the father of the child. forensic. 8ertaining to, connected with, or used in courts of law.

forensic science. The application of scientific knowledge to questions of civil and criminal law, especially in court proceedings. /. See guanine. %e*. A semi-solid matri# used in the electrophoretic separation of !"A and proteins. The two most commonly used in !"A testing are agarose and polyacrylamide. %ene. The fundamental unit of heredity, most commonly thought of as a stretch of !"A sequence that codes for a specific protein. The individually variable stretches of !"A that are e#amined by forensic scientists are not considered genes by strict definitions of the gene. $or simplicity the term gene is used throughout this te#t when referring to these !"A fragments. %ene fre@uenc). see allele frequency. %enome. The total genetic complement of an organism as defined by one copy of the total !"A found in each of its cells. %enot)pe. The genetic makeup of an individual consisting of both copies of the genetic information. The genotype is distinguished from the phenotype or physical characteristics of the individual. The pair of alleles at a locus or set of loci. %uanine. An organic base, one of the four monomers or building blocks from which !"A is made. (ar&)-Wein3er% Princip*e. The concept that the presence of a particular allele at a locus has no predictive value as to what the other allele at that locus will be. t is a simple mathematical e#pression =pCICpqIqCP- where p and q are the allele frequencies of a pair of genes? based on the assumptions of a large population in which there is random mating. 8opulation databases in use by forensic scientists must be tested to ensure that they obey this principle. here&it). The phenomena whereby biological traits are passed from one generation to the ne#t. @eredity results from parents passing genes to their offspring and is why related family members tend to have similar physical characteristics. hetero7)%osit). n forensic science often used to describe the percentage of individ-uals in a population database who are hetero*ygotes.

hetero7)%ote. An individual who has inherited and so carries different alleles of a gene. ("A. @uman leukocyte antigen, a substance found on the surface of most cells that differs from person to person. ,ne of these, the !EAgene, is e#amined by the most widely used 8(7 based forensic !"A test. homo7)%ote. An individual who has identical alleles of a gene. An e#cess of homo*ygosity in a population database, according to the @ardy-&einberg 8rinciple, would indicate that there are problems with the data and that it should not be used. h)3ri&i7ation. The joining together of complementary strands of !"A by the process of base pairing when the two strands are from different sources. $or e#ample, a !"A strand immobili*ed on a blot and its complementary radioactively labeled !"A probe. h)per+aria3*e. A !"A locus that shows e#tremely high variation in people. 1any alleles e#ist in the population. inc*usion. n forensic and paternity testing the situation that e#ists when testing has demonstrated that a particular individual belongs to the group of individuals who could be the source of the sample or in a paternity case the father of the child. They have not been e#cluded. isotope. The radioactive form of an atom known as a radioisotope. 43. The abbreviation for kilobase or -444 base pairs of !"A. *ocus 5p*. *oci6. A specific physical position on a chromosome at which a gene or gene pair resides. As scientists map genes to specific chromosomal locations they are registered with the @uman 0ene 1apping &orkshop, assigned a name, and entered onto the genetic map of that chromosome. *in'a%e &ise@ui*i3rium. A specific allele of one locus being found with a specific allele of another locus more often than would be e#pected by chance. ,ccurs when the two loci are close together on the same chromosome. They are then said to be linked because they will tend to be inherited together. !ar'er. -. A genetic marker is a gene that has been mapped and can be identified. C. A molecular weight marker is a !"A fragment of known si*e used as a comparison standard in estimating the si*e of a !"A fragment of unknown si*e.

mem3rane. The solid support, usually nylon membrane, to which the !"A is transferred and affi#ed during the Southern blotting process. micro%ram. ,ne millionth of a gram. mi**i*iter. ,ne thousandth of a liter, the same as a cc or cubic centimeter. mitochon&ria. ,rganelles that e#ist inside cells and that contain a small amount of !"A =-/,444 bp?. A small region of the mitochondrial !"A varies from person to person. 6ecause a cell may contain many thousands of mitochondria there are correspondingly many more copies of the mitochondrial !"A available for testing. molecular weight or si*e marker. See marker. mo*ecu*ar 3io*o%). A modern branch of biology that attempts to e#plain biological phenomena in molecular terms. 1ost work in molecular biology is concerned with or uses genetic techniques. mo*ecu*e. The smallest physical unit of a chemical compound, the defined collection of atoms bound together in a specific fashion. monomorphic pro3e. A !"A probe that will detect a !"A fragment that is the same si*e in everyone. 1onomorphic probes are used to detect band shifting. mu*ti*ocus pro3e. The original )efferys process of simultaneously detecting up to ten or fifteen genetic loci simultaneously. 6ecause of technical problems with this method it has been supplanted in forensic science by the single locus probe method. mutation. Any inheritable changes in the !"A sequence that occurs during reproduction or cell division. nano%ram. ,ne billionth of a gram. nuc*eoti&e. The monomer units that are used to make up the !"A molecule. Aach has one of the four bases, A, 0, T, or ( attached to a sugar phosphate that forms the backbone of the !"A polymer. o3*i%ate %ene. n parentage testing the gene that must have been passed by the father to the child. paternit) in&e< 5PI6. n parentage testing, the genetic odds in favor of paternity. &hen the alleged father has all the markers required to be the father, he cannot be e#cluded from paternity. The paternity

inde# is the ratio between the chance that the alleged father may pass the obligatory gene compared to the chance that a random man of the same race may pass the obligatory gene. PCR. See polymerase chain reaction. phenot)pe. The physical characteristics of an organism resulting from the interaction of their genotype with the environment. Po*)merase chain reaction. An in vitro method for reproducing !"A in the laboratory. 1any millions of copies of a defined short sequence can be made in a short time. 7epeated cycling of the reaction allows the new !"A to increase in a geometric fashion. po*)morphic *ocus. A genetic locus for which there are many alleles in e#istence. The loci used in forensic science are the most polymorphic known. popu*ation. A defined group of individuals for which databases of gene frequencies are collected by sampling members of the population. n forensic science population databases are collected and maintained by major racial or ethnic group. popu*ation su3structure. The hypothesis that within the major population groups there e#ist subgroups whose allele frequency patterns would differ from the parent population to such an e#tent that the database would not be suitable for forensic use. This phenomena is described by the &ahlund principle. primer. A short piece of !"A, usually synthetic, that defines the specific site on a !"A molecule for a !"A polymerase to start making new !"A. An essential ingredient in the 8(7 reaction mi#. pro3a3i*it) of paternit). A statistic, e#pressed as a percentage, incorporating the genetic evidence =paternity inde#? and the nongenetic evidence =prior chance?, which compares the likelihood the tested man may pass the required genes to the likelihood that an untested random man of the same race may pass these genes. This value may approach, but never reach, -44<. Also know as the & value. pro&uct ru*e. The concept from elementary probability theory that allows the frequency of occurrence of independent events to be multiplied together to estimate how often they would occur together.

proficienc) tests. Testing of laboratory personnel performed as part of a quality assurance program. Samples of known composition are supplied to analysts by outside agencies or laboratory management as a way of evaluating and maintaining performance standards. protein. A biological polymer made up of amino acids whose structure is coded for by the !"A. 8roteins are the primary structural, functional and regulatory molecules of the body. An*ymes are a major class of proteins. protoco*. %aboratory procedures manual. @ua*it) assurance. A#ternally administered programs that are design to assess and maintain a minimum level of laboratory performance. t includes laboratory inspection and accreditation, personnel training, e#amination and certification, regular proficiency testing and the maintenance of a quality control program. @ua*it) contro*. Systematic regular activities for verifying and maintaining a specified level of quality in a product or process. t includes careful planning, regular documentation, continued inspection and measurement and the implementation of corrective action when necessary. rep*ication. The en*ymatic process of making new !"A based on the use of use of an e#isting strand of !"A as a template. The en*ymes that perform this process require a primer, a short piece of !"A complementary to the template that defines the base at which the replication will start and that will become part of the newly synthesi*ed !"A.restriction en*ymes =7A?, restriction endonucleases. A class of en*ymes obtained from microorganisms that cut the !"A strands at specific four to twelve base pair sequences. There are over one hundred restriction en*ymes commercially available each having a different recognition site. n forensic science the most commonly used 7A is called @ae although there are some labs who still use @inf or 8st . RE test %e*. A gel used to analy*e !"A that has been cut by a restriction en*yme =7A? to ensure that the cutting of the !"A has been complete. Sometimes contaminants in forensic samples will inhibit the action of the en*yme and prevent it from cutting the !"A. restriction fra%ment *en%th po*)morphism 5RF"P6. 9ariations in the length of a !"A restriction fragment caused by the presence of a polymorphic locus within the fragment. Analysis of 7$%8s by the

Southern blotting method is the most common and definitive forensic !"A test. RNA ri3onuc*eic aci&. A nucleic acid polymer similar to !"A and used to translate the genetic code into a form useful by the cells. scanner. (ommon term for the computer driven video devices used to electronically estimate the si*es of !"A restriction fragments detected in a forensic 7$%8 test. sero*o%). n forensic science the study of body fluids and body fluid stains. $orensic !"A analysis is generally performed by specially trained forensic serologists. sin%*e *ocus pro3e. The currently used practice in forensic !"A analysis of detecting the restriction fragments in a !"A profile one locus at a time. outhern 3*ottin%. The technique of transferring !"A fragments in a gel to a solid support such as a sheet of nylon. The resulting sheet of nylon with the !"A permanently affi#ed to it is referred to as the blot. TR. Short tandem repeat see A$%8. T. See thymine. Ta@ DNA po*)merase. The heat stable !"A polymerase used in the 8(7 reaction. th)mine. An organic base, one of the four monomers or building blocks from which !"A is made.variable number of tandem repeat =9"T7?. The class of genetic loci most commonly used in forensic !"A analysis. They are composed of 2 to D3 base pair sequences that are repeated different numbers of times in different people. @ence, the physical length of the !"A molecule at these loci will vary from person to person. )ie*& %e*. A gel run for the purpose of assessing the quantity and quality of the !"A e#tracted from a sample. Recommen&e& Resources $asic Documents "ational 7esearch (ouncil, !"A Technology in $orensic Science. &ashington, !(' "ational Academy 8ress, -22C. +.S. (ongress ,ffice of Technology Assessment, 0enetic &itness'

$orensic +ses of !"A Tests. &ashington, !(' +.S. 0overnment 8rinting ,ffice, -224. (ourt !ocuments in' "ew :ork v. (astro +.S. v. :ee +.S. v. 8orter $lorida v. Andrews 9irginia v. Spencer (alifornia v. A#ell (alifornia v. 6arney Q @oward (alifornia v. Soto DNA cience an& Techno*o%) 6urgoyne, %. A., 7obertson, )., 7oss, A. 1., eds. !"A in $orensic Science' Theory, Techniques and Applications. &est Susse#, Angland' Allis @orwood %imited, -224. (hakraborty, 7., Gidd, G. BThe +tility of !"A Typing in $orensic &ork,B Science, 9ol. C3;, -22-' -D>3. $arley, 1. A., @arrington, ). )., eds. $orensic !"A Technology. (helsea, 1 ' %ewis 8ublishers, nc., -22-. $rank-Gamenetskii, 1. !. +nraveling !"A. "ew :ork, ":' 9(@ 8ublishers, nc., -22>. @artl, !., %ewontin, 7. B8opulation 0enetics in $orensic !"A Typing,B Science, 9ol. C3;, -22-' -D;3. @errera, 7. )., Tracey, 1. ). B!"A $ingerprinting' 6asic Techniqes, 8roblems, and Solutions,B )ournal of (riminal )ustice, 1ay-)un., -22C' C>D. )udson, @. $. The Aighth !ay of (reation. "ew :ork, ":' Simon and Schuster, -2D2. Ging, 7. (. A !ictionary of 0enetics. "ew :ork, ":' ,#ford +niversity 8ress, -224. Girby, %. T. !"A $ingerprinting, An ntroduction. "ew :ork, ":' Stockton 8ress. 1ange, A. 8., 1ange, A. ). 6asic @uman 0enetics. Sunderland, 1A' Sinauer Associates, nc., -224. 8ena, S. !., ed. !"A $ingerprinting' State of the Science. 6oston, 1A' 6asel, -22>. 8romega. nternational Symposium on @uman dentification. (onference 8roceedings, -2.2--22;. 7oeder, G. B!"A $ingerprinting' A 7eview of the (ontroversy,B Statistical Science, 9ol. 2, "o. C, -22;' CC. Starrs, ). A. B!"A in the )ournals' The 0ood, the 6ad and the 1aladroit.B Scientific Sleuthing "ewsletter, 9ol. -C, "o. >. &atson, ). !. The !ouble @eli#. "ew :ork, ":' &. &. "orton Q (ompany, -2.4. Ourer, 8amela. B!"A 8rofiling $ast 6ecoming Accepted Tool $or dentification,B (hemical and Angineering "ews ,ctober -4, -22;' ..

The DNA War an& the "a# Anderson, A. B!"A $ingerprinting on Trial,B "ature, 9ol. >;C, -2.2' .;;. Anderson, (. B!"A $ingerprinting !iscord,B "ature, 9ol. >3;, -22-' 344. Anon. BThe $6 5s 7esponses to 7ecommendations by the "7(5s (ommittee on !"A Technology in $orensic ScienceB' (rime %aboratory !igest, 9ol. -2, )uly -22C 6illings, 8. 7., ed. !"A on Trial' 0enetic dentification and (riminal )ustice. +.S.A' (old Springs @arbor %aboratory 8ress, -22C. 6rown, &. B!oubts ,ver !"A Avidence A#aggerated,B "ew Scientist, )an. C>, -22>' /. 6udowle, 6., %ander, A. S. B!"A $ingerprinting !ispute %aid to 7est,B "ature, 9ol. >D-, ,ct. CD, -22;' D>3. (olman, "., "eufeld, 8. B&hen Science Takes the &itness Stand,B Scentific American, 9ol. C/C, -224' ;/. $lannery, . 1. B$rye or $rye "ot' Should the 7eliability of !"A Avidence be a Euestion of &eight or AdmissibilityJB American (riminal %aw 7eview, $all -22C' -/-. $ord, S., Thompson, &. A. B!"A Testing' !ebate +pdate,B Trial, April -22C' 3C. $ord, S., Thompson, &. A. B s !"A $ingerprinting 7eady for (ourtJB "ew Scientist, 9ol. -C3, -224' >.. 0iannelli, 8. (. BThe Admissibility of "ovel Scientific Avidence' $rye v. +nited States, a @alf-(entury %ater,B (olumbia %aw 7eview, 9ol. .4' --2.. @armon, 7. BStaying !umb About !"A,B The 7ecorder, )ul. -., -22;' .. @umes, A. B!"A &ar,B %.A. Times 1aga*ine, "ov. C2, -22C' C2. %ander, A. S., B!"A $ingerprinting on Trial,B "ature, 9ol. >>2, -2.2' 34-. %ewis, 7. B!"A $ingerprints' &itness for the 8rosecution,B !iscover, )une -2..' ;;. 1acGnight, G. T. BThe 8olymerase (hain 7eaction =8(7?' The Second 0eneration of !"A Analysis 1ethods Takes the Stand,B Santa (lara (omputer and @igh Technology %aw )ournal, 9ol. 2, "o. -, -22>' C... 1ar#, ). %., B!"A $ingerprinting Takes the &itness Stand,B Science, 9ol. C;4, -2..' -/-/. 1oss, !. (. B!"A-The "ew $ingerprints,B American 6ar Association )ournal, 1ay -, -2..' //. 7oberts, %. B$ight Arupts ,ver !"A $ingerprinting,B Science, 9ol. C3;, -22-' -DC-. 7oberts, %. BScience in (ourt' A (ulture (lash,B Science, 9ol. C3D, -22C' D>C. Sherman, 7. B!"A +nraveling,B "ational %aw )ournal, $eb. -, -22-' -. Thompson, &. A. BAvaluating the Admissibility of "ew 0enetic

dentification Tests' %essons $rom the !"A &ar,B The )ournal of (riminal %aw Q (riminology, 9ol. .;, "o. -, -22>' CC. &eiss, 7. B!"A Takes the Stand,B Science "ews, )ul. C2, -2.2' D;. Crime an& Forensics Saferstein, 7. (riminalistics' $ourth Adition. Anglewood (liffs, ")' 8rentice @all, -224. &ambaugh, ). The 6looding. "ew :ork, ":' &illiam 1orrow (o., -2.2 Cop)ri%ht DNA in the COURTROO! A Tria* WatcherAs /ui&e $irst Adition (opyright -22; &eb Adition (opyright C444 0ene%e# (orporation CC4> Airport &ay South R->4 Seattle, &ashington 2.->; +SA All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without permission from the publisher, e#cept for review and the figures and drawings which may be used by the news media with attribution to 0ene%e#. %ibrary of (ongress (ataloging-in-8ublication !ata (oleman, @. (. =@oward (.? -2;4Swenson, A. !. =Aric !.? -2;C!"A in the (ourtroom A Trial &atcher5s 0uide H @oward (. (oleman and Aric !. Swenson. p. cm. includes bibliographical references, glossary and guide to forensic !"A usage by states. S6" 42/;;34D-4-; -. B!"A $ingerprinting.B C. $orensic Science. >. Scientific Avidence. . Title 2;-4D>>/> 8rinted in +SA C>;3

De&ication
#his boo3 is %e%icate% to the tens o$ thousan%s o$ crime 'ictims an% their $ami!ies 2ho ha'e seen their assai!ants brought to 9ustice/ to the thousan%s o$ $a!se!y accuse% 2ho ha'e

been e5onerate%/ an% to the hun%re%s o$ thousan%s o$ chi!%ren 2ho 2i!! gro2 up 3no2ing 2ho their bio!ogica! parents are...a!! 2ith the he!p o$ DNA testing. @oward (. (oleman Aric !. Swenson Seattle, &ashington !ecember ->, -22;

AC4NOW"ED/E!ENT
<e 2ou!% !i3e to ac3no2!e%ge the he!p o$ $orensic scientists/ attorneys an% !a2 en$orcement o$$icia!s/ an% others 2ith 2hom one or both o$ us ha'e spo3en. *n%i'i%ua!s 2ho ha'e been especia!!y he!p$u! inc!u%e :im <oo!ey/ Rana9it Cha3raborty/ ?ary @u!!is/ Da'i% ?ra$t/ eorge C!ar3e/ >arry @ue!!er/ Roc3ne (armon/ E!!en <i9sman/ 4arry Schec3/ Art (arris/ Christian (ogan/ :im Cro2/ 4ruce <eir/ Susan (errera/ #im 4RADSha2/ -re% >eatherman/ Ran%a!! >ibby/ Amy 4a33en/ @ar3 ,rothero/ E!izabeth #hompson/ eorge Sensabaugh/ ,au! -errara/ Ron -ourney/ Carmen Atero/ :ac3 4a!!antyne/ Eric 4ue!/ :ohn Simich/ :ohn (artman/ Roger ?ahn/ :im (arrington/ eorge Duncan/ @ar3 Ne!son/ eorge (errin/ Chris #omsey/ Bictor <ee%n/ erry Sche!!enberg/ Don @acC!aren/ Susan Nar'eson/ Danie! ?osh!an%/ Richar% Sa$$erstein/ 4rian <ra5a!!/ 4en9amin runbaum/ an% 4ruce 4u%o2!e. ,thers who helped in producing the book include 6rian %owney, Tom &ahl, (uong ,ng, Allison 0arrison, %inda )orve, (arolyn Anderson, )oyce 6lair, !arlene 8ulley, 1ariann !eTracy, Teresa )ohnston, 1ichael Sherwood, Ann 8ace, $ikre "igusa, 1arianne !awson, 1ichel !onath, %aura Sandor-1endo*a, )ane Adams, Gathleen @osfeld, the staff of ,8ublishing, G8 8rinting, Teresa Aulinskas and !wight @olloway.

The Authors
(o2ar% C. Co!eman is the presi%ent an% chairman o$ ene>e5 Corporation/ the Seatt!e0 base% DNA !aboratory he $oun%e% in 1CDE. A$ter rea%ing the $irst reports o$ 8DNA $ingerprinting8 in 4ritish scho!ar!y 9ourna!s in 1CD)/ Co!eman en%e% his gra%uate stu%ies in mo!ecu!ar bio!ogy to estab!ish a $orensic an% paternity DNA testing !aboratory. ene>e5 has become a nationa!!y recognize% pioneer in the $ie!%. #he p("F testing probe %e'e!ope% by ene>e5 is ac3no2!e%ge% to be an in%ustry stan%ar%. (oleman has appeared as an e#pert witness for both the defense and prosecution in numerous court cases, and has spoken scores of times to forensic science, law, and student groups. @e is the author of several scholarly papers on forensic !"A analysis, has patented a !"A testing device, and was the author of a "ational nstitute of )ustice grant in -2.D for the forensic applications of !"A methods. This year he was elected a director of the @uman dentity Trade Association and has been a guest on %arry Ging %ive, 7ivera %ive, and the ("" morning news among others. @e is currently at work with Aric Swenson on

Silent &itness' !"A and (riminal )ustice in America, a full-length study of the B!"A &arsB of which the Simpson case may be the last major battle. Aric !. Swenson, in the last decade, has written or co-authored five books including The (omplete 6aseball 8layer, with !ave &infield =Avon -224?. @e has also written more than .4 maga*ine articles and broadcast 34 commentaries for "ational 8ublic 7adio affiliates in the "orthwest. Swenson has taught advanced writing about science and technology, technical writing, and other writing classes at several colleges and universities, including ,regon State +niversity and the +niversity of &ashington.

DNA in the CA1R#RAA@ A Trial &atcher5s 0uide 6y @oward (oleman and Aric Swenson $ully illustrated version available from 0enele# for L-C.23. (all - .44 3C>->4.4 to order 8ublished by 0ene%e# 8ress Seattle, &ashington +SA -22;

$orensic !"A Analysis A 8ower8oint lecture presentation with slides taken from !"A in the (ourtroom "on 1icrosoft nternet A#plorer users, please click here to download a version of the 8ower8oint presentation =C/4k?. Slide Show A Slide Show of 8hotographs of !"A testing data and evidence taken from !"A in the (ourtroom !"A Testing in Ginship Analysis A scientific paper describing work by genele# in the %arry @illblom and other unusual cases A 8rivate and 8ublic Sector 8artnership for the analysis of (onvicted

$elon !atabase Samples and "on-suspect (asework A scientific paper describing the !"A data banking and casework that 0enele# has performed for the State of ndiana