It’s the 1970’s. The United States is suffering from one of the highest crime rates to date. Serial killers such as “Son of Sam” and Ted Bundy are discreetly making a name for themselves. The citizens are worried and are praying that whoever is committing these heinous acts are caught and brought to justice. Law enforcement had very little resources at this time, so solving crimes was a lot more difficult than it is today. Like everything in this world, science advanced and DNA evidence was developed. DNA is not a vital piece of evidence used to convict or acquit someone of a crime.
DNA, also known as deoxyribonucleic acid, is defined as a self-replicating material present in nearly all living organisms as the main constituent of chromosomes. It is the carrier of genetic information. (in text citation here) Each person has a unique set of DNA. Today DNA is often collected at crime scenes in many forms. The most common forms are fingerprints, blood, hair and semen. DNA is used to ensure the fairness and accuracy of our criminal justice system. DNA is typically used two ways to solve a crime. If someone is suspected of committing a crime, their DNA is collected and can be compared with evidence from a crime scene. If there isn’t a suspect, DNA can be collected from the crime scene and ran through a database and analyzed in an attempt to identify the perpetrator.
DNA was first used in a courtroom in 1986. Police in England asked scientist Sir Alec Jeffreys to compare DNA evidence against a 17 year-old boy who had confessed to the rape and murder of two females. Alec proved that the boy, in fact, was not guilty. Sir Alec Jeffreys is a geneticist from Britain. He developed the technique for genetic profiling of DNA and also developed the process of fingerprinting. His techniques are now used worldwide to solve crimes and paternity issues.
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The first time DNA was used to convict a criminal was in 1987. In Orange County Florida a man by the name of Tommy Lee Andrews was convicted of rape after DNA samples of blood matched the DNA collected from semen off of the victim.
DNA evidence is usually linked with a comparison through databases. In the late 1980’s, the federal government came up with a system that was groundbreaking for DNA evidence comparisons. It took DNA from a national, state and local level and made it possible to exchange DNA profiles. This system was called the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIs for short. This system makes it possible to cross check DNA evidence and link evidence from different crime scenes. In the late 1990s, states began passing laws that made it a requirement for offenders who committed certain crimes to submit a DNA sample. This DNA sample was then placed in CODIS. They could use this information to then solve unsolved crimes, and to potentially solve crimes committed in the future. Without this system, law enforcement wouldn’t have been able to catch one of the nation’s most notorious serial killers, The Green River Killer.
The Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway’s killing spree began in the year 1982. He was picking up prostitutes, strangling them in his home and then dumping their bodies by the Green River. Gary Ridgway was questioned and arrested multiple times for prostitution charges. He was always a suspect in the heinous string of prostitute murders, but could never be linked to the crime. DNA testing was not discovered yet. Gary even passed a lie detector test when asked about the crimes. It wasn’t until 1988 that law enforcement acquired a search warrant for his house and a court order for a saliva sample. In 2001he is arrested for soliciting a prostitute and his DNA is run in CODIS. His DNA matches semen samples taken from three of the Green River victims. In November 2003, he admits to killing forty-eighth woman. He is sentenced to life in prison. If it weren’t for the advancement of DNA testing, he may have never been caught.
If DNA could help convict criminal, couldn’t it also prove people’s innocence? The first person in the U.S. exonerated of a crime by DNA evidence was in 1998. Gary Dotson was found guilty of kidnapping and rape and was given a life sentence. His DNA was matched against a sample taken from the victim after she recanted her story years later. His DNA wasn’t a match. In 2002 Dotson was officially pardoned by the governor.
Since 1989 more than 2,000 people have been exonerated of serious crimes. There has been an outpouring of interest in this topic and questions regarding the innocence of convicted criminals. In 1992 Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld created The Innocence Project. This project is a non-profit legal organization that is driven by the idea of exonerating innocent people through DNA testing and preventing further injustices by the criminal justice system. The work of this project has freed more than 350 wrongly convicted individuals. This number includes twenty people who spent time on death row.
In the 1990s, there were a high number of challenges to the court on if DNA evidence was admissible or not. The first serious case was People of New York v. Castro. This was a murder case that accused Joseph Castro of murdering his pregnant neighbor and her two year old daughter. During this case, the defense called into question the procedures of the laboratory that handled blood from the scene. This case helped verify that DNA evidence is scientific evidence that the court acknowledges to be true and legal. It also helped bring to light that laboratories have to hold up to certain standards and take certain precautions when handling evidence and that pretrial hearings are essential to prove this . In Castor’s case, the DNA evidence from the blood collected from a watch he was wearing concluded that it wasn’t his blood, but it was test could not prove it was the victim’s blood. The defense claimed the blood of the victim was flawed because of the length of time it took for the DNA tests to be performed.
Currently there are questions on how the system of DNA collection and analysis can be improved. In some cases, there is a large number of unanalyzed DNA that is backlogged. This is the case in most public crime labs and can become very overwhelming. Some labs do not have up to date equipment or technology. This can cause delays in the criminal justice system. There is also the question of it DNA can be processed quicker and if this improvement does happen, will it still hold up to the standards set forth on admissibility.
