NCJ Number
146305
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 84 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring 1993) Pages: 22-104
Date Published
1993
Length
83 pages
Annotation
This overview of DNA technology addresses pertinent scientific and legal issues, the admissibility of DNA evidence in courts, and the value of DNA testing as a forensic technique.
Abstract
The legal debate over scientific evidence in general and DNA testing in particular has polarized the scientific community and had a sometimes deleterious effect on court procedures. Most pretrial hearings have been poorly organized, with scientists often recruited at the last minute to be questioned by lawyers who do not have an adequate understanding of scientific issues. Important advances in litigation have come only in a few hearings in which the defense counsel has managed to retain experts in advance, obtain information through pretrial discovery, and present evidence in an organized way. Nonetheless, courtroom debates over the admissibility of scientific evidence have served a useful purpose; forensic laboratories have been forced to open themselves to scientific scrutiny. The author considers legal standards for admitting scientific evidence, scientific and legal issues in DNA profile matching, the validity of statistical estimation methods, and the reliability of forensic techniques. 355 footnotes and 3 figures