Flickr-User wellcome images

In response to my article National Academy of Sciences Finds FBI Forensic Analyses Unreliable, a reader wondered how many times DNA been tampered with just to get a guilty verdict? The answer is simple: enough times to make all murder convictions less than 100% reliable.

Consider the case of Josiah Sutton who was granted a pardon because faulty DNA evidence was admitted at his trial (1).

Consider the case of Mark Edward Grant who was wrongly convicted of murdering a Winnipeg schoolgirl because of faulty DNA testing (2).

OK, OK, perhaps incompetent DNA lab workers screwed up a few cases, but suppose an expert at handling DNA testifies that there is zero chance of being wrong about a particular defendant's DNA? Are DNA genetic profiles really that unique as we have been led to believe? Not according to a state crime lab analyst's findings which raise doubts about the reliability of DNA altogether:

Los Angeles Times, 20 Jul 2008, FBI resists scrutiny of 'matches'

State crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on Arizona's DNA database when she stumbled across two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles.

The men matched at nine of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people.

The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. But the mug shots of the two felons suggested that they were not related: One was black, the other white.

In the years after her 2001 discovery, Troyer found dozens of similar matches -- each seeming to defy impossible odds.

As word spread, these findings by a little-known lab worker raised questions about the accuracy of the FBI's DNA statistics and ignited a legal fight over whether the nation's genetic databases ought to be opened to wider scrutiny.

The FBI laboratory, which administers the national DNA database system, tried to stop distribution of Troyer's results and began an aggressive behind-the-scenes campaign to block similar searches elsewhere, even those ordered by courts, a Times investigation found.

FBI Coverup

Interesting, isn't it? When the FBI found out that DNA profiles aren't as unique as they previously believed, instead of trying to find out how to make DNA profiling more reliable, they try to quash further studies which would show how unreliable current DNA results really are.

So when the FBI testifies in court that the DNA profile absolutely matches the defendant with a 1 in 113 billion chance of being wrong, you now know that no one, not the FBI, not genetic scientists, no one knows precisely how rare DNA profiles really are. What you hear in court from the FBI is just their best guess. That's all it is, a guess.

Now I have no problem with putting an accused murderer in jail for life based on a best guess and other evidence which leads me to believe that he committed the murder beyond a reasonable doubt. We judge based on "beyond a reasonable doubt" not "beyond all doubt" because it is impossible to be 100% certain about anything. At least if we later find out we were wrong he still has his life.

But I do have a problem seeing someone put to death based on a best guess because there is no fixing it if we later find out we were wrong. And in the past few years we have found out we were wrong in hundreds of cases, not one or two, but hundreds that we know about. It is entirely possible that we wrongly executed as many as 25% or more of all the supposed murderers in US history.

But let's suppose scientists eventually find a way for DNA evidence to be 100% absolutely faultless in identifying the culprit to a murder, how do we eliminate the possibility that the real criminal didn't simply and easily plant the DNA evidence such as hair on the victim?

As well, how do we eliminate the police from planting DNA evidence on the victim because they don't have any other evidence and they believe you are the killer? Some of my readers may recall I wrote about police fabricating evidence in a previous article.

My final article will report on eyewitness testimony which is wrong in 75% of all criminal cases which should put the final nail in the coffin of those who believe that it is possible to be 100% positive we are executing the truly guilty.

As much as we want vengeance, as much as we want closure for the family of the victim, as much as we want the guilty to pay for their savagery, we become the savages when we allow a system to be in place which executes innocent people. And that's what we are today in America in death penalty states: savages no different than murderers.