Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T02:25:36.301Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Explaining Differential Trust of DNA Forensic Technology: Grounded Assessment or Inexplicable Paranoia?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Extract

“What you see depends on where you stand”

–Albert Einstein

Type
Symposium
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Roberts, D., Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (New York: Pantheon, 1997). However, a recent study indicates that expressed attitudes stemming from Tuskegee's aftermath do not translate into sharp differences in behavior, by race, at least insofar as willingness to participate in clinical trials is concerned. Wendler, D. et al., “Are Racial and Ethnic Minorities Less Willing to Participate in Health Research?” PLOS Medicine 3, no. 2 (2006): 110, available at <http://medicine.plosjour-nals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030019> (last visited February 16, 2006).Google Scholar
Cannon, L., “One Bad Cop,” New York Times Magazine, October 1, 2000: 2.Google Scholar
Glover, S. and Lait, M., “Lack of Funds Stalls Rampart Probe: The LAPD Seeks Private Donations so that an Independent Panel Can Begin Investigating the Department's Handling of The Scandal,” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2003, at B1.Google Scholar
See Harrison, Mark, “Dallas Police Frame and Deport Hispanics,” The Razor Wire 6, no. 1, The November Coalition website, at <http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/27/page03.html> (last visited February 16, 2006).+(last+visited+February+16,+2006).>Google Scholar
Gold, S., “35 Are Pardoned in Texas Drug Case,” Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2003, at A11.Google Scholar
Parenti, C., “Police Crime,” at <http://zmag.org/ZMag/articles/mar96parenti.htm> (last visited February 16, 2006).+(last+visited+February+16,+2006).>Google Scholar
Id., at 2.Google Scholar
Personal communication with Krane, Dan, September 11, 2005. As noted in the text, Krane is one of the nation's leading experts on DNA forensic technology. Reference notes 9 and 10 explain his role. He was an expert witness at this trial, and sent me extensive notes in the e-mail noted in the “note” that follows in the full references.Google Scholar
Paoletti, D. R. Doom, T. E. Raymer, M. L., and Krane, D. E., “Assessing the Implications for Close Relatives in the Event of Similar but Non-Matching DNA Profiles,” Jurimetrics 3, no. 2 (2006): 161–75.Google Scholar
Krane, D., personal communication with the author, Sept. 11, 2005.Google Scholar
The Federal DNA Act and most state DNA collection statutes require that the state expunge (from the DNA databank) the profiles of convicted persons whose convictions are reversed. However, in a glaring gap in logic, these statutes do not address what to do with profiles from persons who are not even suspects. The police often retain these DNA profiles in their own, private “suspect databases.” For example, Chicago, Miami, and London, Ohio all keep private police suspect databases. Chapin, A. B., “Arresting DNA: Privacy Expectations of Free Citizens versus Post-Convicted Persons and the Unconstitutionality of DNA Dragnets,” Minnesota Law Review 89, no. 6 (2005): 18421874.Google Scholar
This case was the subject of a full hour documentary by the television news program, 48 Hours, which aired November 26, 2005.Google Scholar
The next segment is drawn from my paper, “Comparative Perspectives and Competing Explanations: Taking on the Newly Configured Reductionist Challenge to Sociology,” American Sociological Review (2006): 115.Google Scholar
See Skolnick, J. H., “Corruption and the Blue Code of Silence,” Police Practice and Research 3, no. 1 (2002): 719; Skolnick, J. H., and Fyfe, J. J., Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force (New York: Free Press, 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackall, R. R., Street Stories: The World of Private Detectives (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).Google Scholar
See Chapin, , supra note 11, at 1847.Google Scholar
Id., at 1843, discussing Griffin v. Wisconsin, 107 S. Ct. 3164 (1987).Google Scholar
Id., at 1854.Google Scholar
Sanger, D., “In Address, Bush Says He Ordered Domestic Spying,” New York Times, December 18, 2005, at 1.Google Scholar
Wambaugh, J., The Blooding, (New York: Morrow, 1989).Google Scholar
Hanson, M., “DNA Dragnet,” American Bar Association Journal 90 (2004): 3843, at 42Google Scholar
Joh, E. E., “Reclaiming ‘Abandoned’ DNA: The Fourth Amendment and Genetic Privacy,” Northwestern University Law Journal 100, no. 2 (2006): 857884.Google Scholar
Miller-El v. Cockrell, 123 S Ct. 1029 (2003), at 1038.Google Scholar
The British may be in the lead, but the Portuguese have even bigger plans: In early April of 2005, the Portuguese government announced that it intended to collect DNA on all of its residents, all of its inhabitants. See Boavida, M. J., “Portugal Plans a Forensic Genetic Database of its Entire Population,” Newropeans Magazine, at <http://www.newropeans-magazine.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2059&Itemid=121> (last visited February 16, 2006).+(last+visited+February+16,+2006).>Google Scholar
See, “Police aim for DNA on 25% of UK population,” at <http://www.bjhc.co.uk/news/1/2005/n502020.htm> (last visited February 16, 2006).+(last+visited+February+16,+2006).>Google Scholar
Note that this was before the bombings in London in early July, 2005.Google Scholar
Shriver, M. D. et al., “Ethnic-Affiliation Estimation by Use of Population-Specific DNA Markers,” American Journal of Human Genetics 60 (1997): 957964; Lowe, A. L. et al., “Inferring Ethnic Origin by Means of an STR Profile,” Forensic Science International 119 (2001): 17–22.Google Scholar
The website “ancestrybydna.com” is one of several where one can apply for a kit, and then send in a DNA sample. The company then does an analysis and sends back a report with estimates of the proportion of one's ancestry that is purportedly from one of several large continental groupings.Google Scholar
Touchette, N., “Genome Test Nets Suspected Serial Killer,” Genome News Network, June 13, 2003.Google Scholar
Tang, H. et al., “Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies,” American Journal of Human Genetics 76 (2005): 268275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, J., “New Study Links Race and DNA Material,” Friday, February 4, 2005, available at <http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=15971&repository=0001_article> (last visited March 13, 2006.)+(last+visited+March+13,+2006.)>Google Scholar
Gavel, D., “Fight Crime through Science,” Harvard Gazette, November 30, 2000.Google Scholar
“DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005” was signed into law on January 6, 2006 as Title X of the Violence Against Women Act and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act, Pub. Law 109–162, 119 Stat. 2960.Google Scholar
Kimmelman, J., “Risking Ethical Insolvency: A Survey of Trends in Criminal DNA Databanking,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 28 (2000): 209221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simoncelli, T., “Dangerous Excursions: The Case Against Expanding Forensic DNA Databases to Innocent Persons,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 34 (2006): 390397. See also in this issue, Greely, H. et al., “Family Ties: The Uses of DNA Offender Databases to Catch Offenders' Kin,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 34 (2006): 248–262. For an examination of the implications of familial DNA database searching in light of the disproportionate number of African-Americans in U.S. forensic databases. The authors, noting the disproportionate number of African-Americans in the CODIS database, state, “…the way that family forensic DNA puts African-Americans under much greater investigative scrutiny may not be unconstitutional, but seems unfair and quite possibly unwise.” Id., at 260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pub. Law 109–162, 119 Stat. 2960, codified at 42 U.S.C. §14132(a)(1) (2005). The amendment retains the prohibition on inclusion of samples voluntarily submitted solely for the purpose of elimination. Id.Google Scholar
See Lowe, , supra note 28.Google Scholar
Wacquant, L., “Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh” Punishment and Society 3, no. 1 (2000): 95134. Reprinted in Garland, D., ed., Mass Imprisonment: Social Causes and Consequences (London: Sage, 2001): 82–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gross, S. R. et al., “Exonerations in the United States, 1989 through 2003,” Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan Law School (2004) available at <http://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/exonerations-in-us.pdf> (last visited March 14, 2006).Google Scholar