Aussie cops reopen 7,000 DNA convictions Melbourne Police have withdrawn charges against a suspected double murderer, after they admitted that DNA evidence was wrong. A further 7,000 cases will now be re-examined - every conviction secured in Victoria using DNA in the last 20 years. Russell John Gesah was accused of a double murder and rape in 1984. Samples taken …
It just goes to show that the (theorectical) 1billion to 1 chance of a random match of two DNA samples means nothing when you take into account human/technical error.
The judiciary and government need to look very hard indeed at what weight is given to DNA evidence.
I just wonder what would have happened to the guy had the police not re-tested the sample before the case?
... shurely we can't pay attention to this sort of thing because we *NEED* DNA databases to protect us from all those horrible terrerists and peedyfiles and catch burgulars and rapists and so on!
Just cos the Aussies have made the odd cock-up doesn't mean it's not a really great idea to take DNA from anyone who's arrested, even if they don't ever get charged with anything, does it...?
Joke ahead? Nope, the joke is the Government we have.
Myself I'm not much of a one for 'teaching someone a lesson'. Consensual activities within reasonable bounds aside (it is Friday after all, even if the Reg hasn't yet put up any salacious and provocative reconstructions), the process of punitive retribution often seems quite barbaric. In the case of criminal behaviour, as often as not it seems to harden antisocial attitudes rather than to change them for the better.
Some say that a repentant sinner is worth more than one who has never sinned. Pragmatically, they know the ropes (no pun intended) and presumably know at least some of the pitfalls of rehabilitation.
It's not impossible that our antipodean cousins have, for obvious historical reasons, worked through some of the problems rather more diligently and hence may have a more wholesome approach to policing.
In putative confirmation of this hypothesis, it is interesting to note in the 'letters of support' pages on the Shirley McKie site that there seems to have been more support from Australia than might have been expected on the basis of a random distribution.
http://www.shirleymckie.com/
Hmm, even crims sometimes have a measure of respect for a straight cop. If the cops aren't straight, why should anyone else choose to be?
Although I'm not a proponent of a DNA database, in the interest of fairness it should be stated that this is more of an argument for rather than against.
The problem arose from the cross contamination because one lab did all the testing. However if they were only loading the DNA into a computer then the only risk of cross contamination is from the techs own DNA. Which is surely something they would spot instantly.
Obviously over dependence on DNA evidence is a problem, one which would be compounded by a database. I'm just also against twisting everything into an argument against it.
"The problem arose from the cross contamination because one lab did all the testing. However if they were only loading the DNA into a computer then the only risk of cross contamination is from the techs own DNA."
Are you sure? Cross contamination would cover contamination of any sample of DNA by any other sample of DNA, that would be the Lab workers DNA or any of the samples being tested, given that the labs dont do one DNA test then spent the rest of the day decontaminating the lab there is a risk that when "loading your DNA into the database" it could be contaminated by the evil crims DNA they tested just before yours creating an odd hybrid profile for you that could get you arrested for crimes you did not commit.
The fallacy of your assumption is that what is in the database is correct and only samples from crime scenes could be wrong, but contamination could mean that both could be wrong.
I have the impression you have no clue how sensitive PCR is... Microscopic droplets floating in the air can screw up such a test, sometimes. So things have to be done really carefully, it's not just reading labels.
So far, "only" one in 500 of the tests was shown to be wrong (OK, one is already too much for the poor devil involved, but you get my drift). This will hopefully get people to have even better procedures to minimize this type of error. I don't know the regulations on this, but an example: every test should be performed twice, each in a different lab, for a start. The chances of the exact same contamination occurring twice are extremely low (from lab procedure, of course, does not exclude other types related to factors prior to the samples going to the labs). We have to remember that this type of evidence is relatively quite new, so improvements might be in order for a while.
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