Life Without Sequence
On October 5th, 1984, the body of 15-year-old Kristina Hickey was found raped and stabbed behind a mall in Park Forest, Illinois. She had been missing for two days, having last been seen walking on her way home from choir practice. On January 15, 1987, Christopher Abernathy, who was seventeen at the time the murder was committed, was convicted of Hickey’s murder and sentenced to ‘Life’ in prison without the possibility of parole. Abernathy’s sole accuser was a high-school friend who claimed Abernathy had confessed to him, and a suspiciously obtained confession, by Abernathy, to the police. Subsequent to DNA testing, ordered by the Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois in Springfield, Illinois and the …show more content…
Mullis developed polymerase chain reaction ( PCR), which rapidly copies even tiny amounts of DNA for testing; that process enabled scientists to use extremely tiny and/or degraded samples of DNA for forensic purposes. PCR also allowed scientists to diagnose hereditary and infectious diseases, prove paternity, and develop the genetic enhancement and cloning of plants and mammals. In 2003, the Human Genome Project was finally able to announce the mapping of an entire Human Genome ( the entire length of human DNA containing more than 3 Billion base pairs) with an accuracy of 99.99 percent.("DNA …show more content…
With the exception of fingerprinting, all other forensic testing was quite subjective and no positive proof (only likelihood statistics) was available. “The FBI estimates the odds of a coincidental (DNA) match are 1 in 108 trillion.”(Tam, ) The estimated population of the entire world is just over 7 Billion, thus making DNA evidence the most accurate and the most definitive evidence ever before available.
It has been thirty years since the introduction and acceptance of DNA evidence in legal proceedings. Thirty years seems like a long time. However, when you consider the possible numbers of wrongly convicted men and women that must have happened in the first three-quarters of the 20th century alone, the importance of this new technology becomes clear.
“There have been 330 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States. The true suspects and/or perpetrators have been identified in 162 of the DNA exoneration cases. Those actual perpetrators went on to be convicted of 145 additional crimes, including 77 sexual assaults, 34 murders, and 34 other violent crimes while the innocent sat behind bars for their earlier offenses.”("Exonerations," ) It is logical to conclude that there are still innocent men and women serving jail time, some on death row, waiting for DNA evidence to prove their guiltlessness.
On October 5th, 1984, the body of 15-year-old Kristina Hickey was found raped and stabbed behind a mall in Park Forest, Illinois. She had been missing for two days, having last been seen walking on her way home from choir practice. On January 15, 1987, Christopher Abernathy, who was seventeen at the time the murder was committed, was convicted of Hickey’s murder and sentenced to ‘Life’ in prison without the possibility of parole. Abernathy’s sole accuser was a high-school friend who claimed Abernathy had confessed to him, and a suspiciously obtained confession, by Abernathy, to the police. Subsequent to DNA testing, ordered by the Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois in Springfield, Illinois and the …show more content…
Mullis developed polymerase chain reaction ( PCR), which rapidly copies even tiny amounts of DNA for testing; that process enabled scientists to use extremely tiny and/or degraded samples of DNA for forensic purposes. PCR also allowed scientists to diagnose hereditary and infectious diseases, prove paternity, and develop the genetic enhancement and cloning of plants and mammals. In 2003, the Human Genome Project was finally able to announce the mapping of an entire Human Genome ( the entire length of human DNA containing more than 3 Billion base pairs) with an accuracy of 99.99 percent.("DNA …show more content…
With the exception of fingerprinting, all other forensic testing was quite subjective and no positive proof (only likelihood statistics) was available. “The FBI estimates the odds of a coincidental (DNA) match are 1 in 108 trillion.”(Tam, ) The estimated population of the entire world is just over 7 Billion, thus making DNA evidence the most accurate and the most definitive evidence ever before available.
It has been thirty years since the introduction and acceptance of DNA evidence in legal proceedings. Thirty years seems like a long time. However, when you consider the possible numbers of wrongly convicted men and women that must have happened in the first three-quarters of the 20th century alone, the importance of this new technology becomes clear.
“There have been 330 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States. The true suspects and/or perpetrators have been identified in 162 of the DNA exoneration cases. Those actual perpetrators went on to be convicted of 145 additional crimes, including 77 sexual assaults, 34 murders, and 34 other violent crimes while the innocent sat behind bars for their earlier offenses.”("Exonerations," ) It is logical to conclude that there are still innocent men and women serving jail time, some on death row, waiting for DNA evidence to prove their guiltlessness.