I've written on CentreRight before about the pervasive issue of wrongful convictions based on DNA evidence. DNA is in the news once more because Alan Johnson u-turned on disposing of the samples taken from innocent people, just as a high-flying lawyer lost her job simply because her DNA is on the database (so much for the presumption of innocence, eh?).
It is on my mind today because this morning I have read the sad story of the investigation into the murder of Suzanne Jovin, which has collapsed after 8 years because of a lab error by a technician. Think of the frustration on the part of hard-working officers. Think of the suffering that the poor family must have gone though, only to be so tragically disappointed. Think of the potential for a miscarriage of justice if the error had occurred in another way, not been detected (or covered up) and a wrongful conviction had resulted.
Law enforcement funds are finite and different kinds of policing efforts are often mutually exclusive. Money and effort spent on this cannot be put into investigating offences in other ways. Put more prosaically, it also serves as an example of the colossal waste of money this process often is. The team on the Jovin case put hundreds of man-hours into DNA sampling and investigation, time which could have been used productively in other ways but we now know was totally wasted. DNA investigation has its uses of course, but the point is that there is a balance to be struck - overreliance on technology can lead to not following up other leads, and cases solved by DNA must be balanced against unsolved, DNA-reliant cases which might have been solved if properly investigated in the traditional way.
Meanwhile, innocent people are still being added to the database at a rate of knots. And now the government plans to make you pay if you want your DNA off the database.
At Big Brother Watch we're not luddites - we of course accept that technology has a role to play in law enforcement - but are juries told about errors like these? Are they told that, according to the last study I know of on the subject (from the University of Texas in 2002), lab error occurs in one in every hundred DNA cases..?
**UPDATE** 26 November 2009: I note with interest that the Director of Prosecutions in Victoria, Australia's second-most populous state, has publicly cast doubt on the quality of DNA evidence used in past cases, including many resulting in convictions. He promised an audit. The Victorian police have replied that no such audit will take place. An unhappy situation for all concerned - for victims and relatives of victims left uncertain as to whether the person convicted was the right individual; for law enforcement, whose achievements have doubt thrown over them; and for those wrongly convicted, offered a ray of hope, now ended. As the report says, "it's not the first time the Victoria Police DNA database has been the subject of doubts. Last year Victoria Police dropped double murder charges after admitting the DNA evidence they had used was contaminated."
**UPDATE 2** 10 December 2009 A similar story detailing DNA processing errors has emerged in South Australia, where the authorities have claimed that the error doesn't matter because it was in the defendant's favour, so wouldn't lead to a wrongful conviction. I'm not sure they get it... what if it had led to a wrongful acquittal? Those of us who query the efficacy of DNA evidence don't want people acquitted willy-nilly, we want the guilty convicted and the innocent acquitted - which is supposedly the aim of the justice system per se.
**UPDATE 3** 21 December 2009 Scientist urges caution over DNA Eleanor Graham, from the East Midlands Forensic Pathology Unit at the University of Leicester, believes DNA should not be relied upon as the only form of conclusive evidence. She said: "I know scientists get into trouble in court because the lawyers try to push them to say about how a stain got into an area. I don't think DNA should ever be used on its own, although it can provide incredible intelligence."
