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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Genealogy Detectives: A Constitutional Analysis Of 'Familial Searching', David H. Kaye
The Genealogy Detectives: A Constitutional Analysis Of 'Familial Searching', David H. Kaye
Journal Articles
“Familial searching” in law enforcement DNA databases has been pilloried as a step “towards eugenics and corruption of blood” and “lifelong genetic surveillance” that is “inconsistent with a basic pillar of American political thought.” Courts have yet to address the issue fully, but several commentators contend that the practice is unwise, unjust, or unconstitutional. This Article examines the more significant constitutional claims. It concludes that although kinship matching should not be implemented simply because it is technologically seductive, neither should it be removed from the realm of permissible law enforcement information gathering on constitutional grounds. In reaching this conclusion, the …
Trawling Dna Databases For Partial Matches: What Is The Fbi Afraid Of?, David H. Kaye
Trawling Dna Databases For Partial Matches: What Is The Fbi Afraid Of?, David H. Kaye
Journal Articles
DNA evidence is often presented as the “gold standard” for forensic science. But this was not always the case. For years, eminent scientists complained that the estimates of the tiny frequencies of DNA types were unfounded. It took scores of research papers, dozens of judicial opinions, and two committees of the National Academy of Sciences to resolve the dispute by the mid-1990s. Since 2000, however, reports have surfaced of shocking numbers of “partial matches” among samples within large DNA databases, and some scientists have complained that the infinitesimal figures used in court to estimate the probability of a random match …