• Richard Willing

• National Desk• USA TODAY

• National Conference on Science,

• Technology and the Law• St. Petersburg, Fla.• Sept 12, 2005

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DNA

Not Just For Hunters Anymore

DNA=DNR

1991

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1999

Benjamin La Guer

CSI

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The CSI Effect—EGs

• Texas 2003- The Case of the Missing Noggin

• Arizona, California and Illinois—”Negative Evidence Witnesses”

• Massachusetts- Voir Dire Via Nielsen Rating

• Delaware 2003- The DNA Jury Project

Questions For Reporters

• What’s a Match?• How Was Probability Computed?• For Defense: Discovery? And what it shows-

unreported contributors, allelic dropout, poor mixture separation.

• On Appeal: What’s law on post-conviction testing? What was theory of crime? And theory of defense? How would post-conviction testing fit it?

• Page 3AFeb 8, 2000

• DNA mismatch found- A British database made a ‘mindblowing’mistake by linking an innocentman to a burglary. The resultcould be a spate of new appeals.

What’s A Mismatch

• UNITED KINGDOM• FSS• Burglary• Autumn 1999• 12 allele, six locus match• 660,000 offender samples searched• Random match probability= 1/37million

What’s “Exoneration?”

• Legal versus• Factual versus• Metaphysical• Innocence!!!

Kerry Max Cook

What I learned on “CSI”

• Hotel Bed Sheets Are Nasty• Visit A Dentist At Least Once• Don’t Make Your Girl Friend Angry

Where To From Here

• You tell me….

One Happy Guy

DNA RESOURCES

•  BOOKS:• “Abraham Lincoln’s DNA and Other Adventures in Genetics.” Philip

R. Reilly, 2002.•  ARTICLES: • “DNA: If the test is irrefutable, why doesn’t it always work?” Peter

Boyer. The New Yorker. 1/17/2000.• “DNA testing fails to live up to potential.” Richard Willing. USA

TODAY. 10/7/02.• “Think DNA evidence is foolproof? Try again.” Adam Liptak. NY

Times. 3/16/03.• “Evaluating forensic DNA evidence.” Thompson, Ford, Doom,

Raymer and Krane. The Champion. April 2003. May 2003

•  SITES:• Dnaresource.com. -- weekly news summary• Fbi.gov/hq/lab/codis/index1.htm. -- govt database figures• Innocenceproject.org-- see esp “DNA news” by Judge Peter

McQuillan

•  REPORTS: • National DNA Forensic Study Report. Ojp.usdoj.gov/nij.

2004. crime lab backlog survey• What Every Law Enforcement Officer Should Know About

DNA Evidence. National Institute of Justice. 2000• The Future of Forensic DNA Testing. National Institute of

Justice. 2004.