Law Commons^™

Forensic Science: Why No Research?, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

The National Academy of Sciences ground-breaking report on forensic science – Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward – raised numerous issues. One dominant theme that runs throughout the Report is the failure of some forensic science disciplines to comport with fundamental scientific principles – in particular, to support claims with empirical research. The Report observed that “some forensic science disciplines are supported by little rigorous systematic research to validate the discipline’s basic premises and techniques. There is no evident reason why such research cannot be conducted.”

The Report went on to identify fingerprint examinations, firearms (ballistics) …

After The Dna Wars: Skirmishing With Nrc Ii, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

This article traces some of the controversies surrounding DNA evidence and argues that although many have been laid to rest by scientific developments confirmed in the National Research Council's second DNA report, there remain several problems which are likely to lead to continued questioning of standard ways prosecutors present DNA evidence. Although much about the report is to be commended, it falls short in several ways, the most important of which is in its support for presenting random match probabilities independent of plausible error rates. The article argues that although one can sympathize with the NRC committee's decision as an …

The Honest Scientist's Guide To Dna Evidence, Richard O. Lempert

Book Chapters

Thank you for your invitation to participate in the DNA symposium. As you know DNA has never been a prime research focus of mine, and I have been so preoccupied with my own work on ITPT (intertemporal personal transportation) that I thought I must decline. Happily, however, the two projects came together, for I recently had an amazing breakthrough during which by coincidence I stumbled across a book entitled A Century of DNA Testing and holocopied (a fancy form of Xeroxing) the following few pages for you.

The Honest Scientist's Guide To Dna Evidence, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

The honest scientist recognizes that she herself is a test instrument, and a fallible one at that. Subjectivity inescapably enters into any human endeavor, and should not be denied. DNA testing is rife with subjective elements, no place more so than at the crucial stage of deciding whether a match exists. On the one hand, non-matching extraneous bands may sometimes be properly disregarded and patterns that do not quite meet objective matching criteria may be appropriately regarded as incriminatory matches. On the other hand, band patterns that do meet objective matching criteria may be treated as exonerative depending on how …

Dna Evidence: Probability, Population Genetics, And The Courts, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

To help meet the challenge of presenting properly performed DNA tests within the post-Daubert legal framework, this article outlines the statistical procedures that have been employed or proposed to provide judges and juries with quantitative measures of probative value, describes more fully how the courts have dealt with these procedures, and evaluates the opinions and the statistical analyses from the standpoint of the law of evidence.

Specifically, the article outlines the procedure used to declare whether two samples of DNA "match," and how shrinking the size of the "match window," as some defendants have urged, will decrease the risk of …

The Admissibility Of Dna Evidence, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

In contrast to the widespread acceptance of red blood cell grouping, blood serum protein and enzyme analysis, and HLA typing, the evidentiary status of forensic applications of recombinant-DNA technology is in flux. A proper evidentiary analysis must attend to the fact that there is no single method of DNA typing. As with the more established genetic tests, the probative value of the laboratory findings depends both on the procedure employed and the genetic characteristics that are discerned. This paper describes some of these procedures and the theory that lies behind them, and then considers the developing case law. Given the …