Making Forensic DNA Databases: Global Themes and Local Variations
| Autor | Robin Williams |
| Cargo del Autor | Northumbria University Centre for Forensic Science, Newcastle on Tyne, United Kingdom |
| Páginas | 359-374 |
Making Forensic DNA Databases: Global
Themes and Local Variations
ROBIN WILLIAMS
Northumbria University Centre for Forensic Science
Newcastle on Tyne
United Kingdom
ABSTRACT: This chapter provides an overview of the changing global
landscape of forensic DNA databasing. It argues that it is necessary to document
the interactions between a wide range of legislative, scientific, judicial and ope-
rational actors in order better to understand how particular innovations have
come about and been embraced or opposed in different countries. It also draws
attention to the strength of claims-making (despite the lack of robust evidence
on the utility) surrounding forensic DNA profiling and databasing and describes
what has happened in one EU country when international judges weighed evi-
dence of DNA database effectiveness against its complaints of intrusiveness into
the private lives of citizens. The judgement in the case of ‘S’ and Marper v the UK
Government should remind legislators in all countries establishing or expanding
forensic DNA databases of the necessity of commissioning robust — national or
even international — research capable of contributing to evidence-based deci-
sion making in this sensitive political domain.
I. FORENSIC DNA PROFILING
The use of DNA profiling to support criminal investigations and prosecu-
tions is a relatively recent development in the longer history of forensic sci-
ence. The early profiling techniques, invented by Alec Jeffreys and colleagues
at the University of Leicester (see Gill et al., 1985, 1985a, Jeffreys et al.,
1985b), were first applied to a criminal investigation in England in 1987 in
support of the investigation of the murders of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ash-
worth (details of the case are described in Wambaugh, 1989, Lee and Tirnady,
2003, McCartney, 2006, Williams and Johnson, 2008). Several US biotech
companies showed immediate interest in the commercial potential of appli-
cations of this new technology, and the first US criminal case in which DNA
360 Robin Williams
evidence was presented was the trial of Tommy Lee Andrews in 1987
(accounts of this case can be found alongside many other details of the histo-
ry of DNA profiling in: Lynch et al., 2008, Kaye, 2010). Following these con-
spicuous cases, and despite an initial period of legal scepticism and method-
ological difficulties (e.g. in the US case of People v. Castro), technical
developments in DNA profiling and operational innovations in their applica-
tion to investigations have significantly reshaped criminal justice practice in
a large number of jurisdictions.
It is now almost impossible to imagine how contemporary criminal
investigations — especially of crimes like homicide and rape — would be
conducted without the support of forensic DNA profiling, let alone how suc-
cessful they would be. The technology is well entrenched in the routine organ-
isation of such investigations, and the results of its application have proved
invaluable for the identification of suspects, inferring crime-relevant actions,
and for a variety of other investigative purposes. Policing and forensic science
agencies in many jurisdictions have issued guidance manuals which provide
advice to investigators on how best to realise a range of these and other gains
(e.g. ACPO, 2007). But in addition to these positive benefits, the seemingly
secure scientific foundation of forensic genetics has also produced unantici-
pated negative costs to other forensic science disciplines, in particular it has
troubled, prior assumptions of the reliability of some pre-existing forms of
forensic science practice, especially but not exclusive, fingerprint matching
(see especially Lynch et al., 2008, National Research Council, 2009).
From its beginning, the application of forensic DNA profiling technology
to criminal casework required the temporary storage of DNA profiles from
nominated suspects, victims, or other persons of interest so that such profiles
could be compared with those obtained from crime scene samples. The lim-
ited accounts of these early practices suggest that such profiles (and usually
the samples from which the profiles were derived) were held for varying peri-
ods of time in local police or forensic laboratory collections. These early col-
lections of information and of biological material were not usually regulated
by formal mechanisms or by external bodies, but their existence caused little
unease since it was not widely known outside of police and forensic science
communities. However, it was not long before the use of DNA profiling
expanded beyond reactive forensic casework in some jurisdictions, especially
England & Wales, the United States and Austria (descriptions of the early
days of DNA databasing in these and other jurisdictions can be found in
Hindmarsh and Prainsack, 2010). In particular, it was quickly realised that
searching DNA profiles recovered from crime scenes against profiles held in
larger databases could, by the provision of ‘cold hits’, facilitate the early iden-
tification of many more potential suspects (as well as the exclusion of many
others as persons of interest). Once technological innovations made it possi-
ble to construct digital representations of profiles and store them in continu-
ously searchable computerised databases, the stage was set for a vastly
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