In the United States, both blood type testing and DNA fingerprinting are legal, though forensic investigators spend no time getting blood types because of how useful DNA fingerprinting has become. In 1989, the Virginia Division of Forensic Sciences was the first to start implementing DNA testing in criminal investigations (10). At first they had policies only requiring certain classes of offenders to submit DNA samples to be included in a DNA database, however, not even a year later, they expanded their laws to have all felons had to provide samples into the database, and all those that were currently in the prison had to submit samples when they were released. This law upheld in the United State Court of Appeals with officials feeling it did
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Majority of the DNA databank laws allow the professionals to automatically search the database if done to assist any criminal investigation or prosecution. There are a few states however, that only allow the records to be accessed is the crime is sex-related or a violent crime. It is possible for smaller crimes to be solved using DNA databases, but I think the investigations where this DNA fingerprinting is most useful would be for the sex-related or violent crimes. Often times this is when you would find the most traces of DNA being left behind. There should be a happy medium between the two legislations, allowing access to the databases if the crime is sex-related, a violent crime, or if the crime happened in a very isolated area where the DNA found is substantial enough and could only be that of the victim or the suspect. For instance, if a burglary took place in the home, but the burglar cut his leg trying to escape the house and left blood on the window. This would make for a substantial amount of DNA evidence, and the house is isolated only to those family and close friends that visit …show more content…
The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 to help these people through the use of DNA testing and reforms to the justice system (11). As of today Project Innocence has reversed the conviction of a crime using DNA evidence for 356 cases, and found alternative perpetrators for 153 cases. It looks at multiple kinds of cases where there was inadequate defense, misapplication of forensic sciences, false confessions, incentivized informants, government misconduct, and eyewitness misidentification. Since DNA fingerprinting has become so popular, less of these cases happen, whereas 25 years ago, this type of technology was not around and it was easier to wrongful convict people for crimes. If DNA fingerprinting was necessarily to convict someone in cases where substantial DNA evidence is found, it would be nearly impossible to wrongfully imprison someone. Groups like Project Innocence give people a new chance at their life, but it would be more helpful to those people if conviction was done right the first
Majority of the DNA databank laws allow the professionals to automatically search the database if done to assist any criminal investigation or prosecution. There are a few states however, that only allow the records to be accessed is the crime is sex-related or a violent crime. It is possible for smaller crimes to be solved using DNA databases, but I think the investigations where this DNA fingerprinting is most useful would be for the sex-related or violent crimes. Often times this is when you would find the most traces of DNA being left behind. There should be a happy medium between the two legislations, allowing access to the databases if the crime is sex-related, a violent crime, or if the crime happened in a very isolated area where the DNA found is substantial enough and could only be that of the victim or the suspect. For instance, if a burglary took place in the home, but the burglar cut his leg trying to escape the house and left blood on the window. This would make for a substantial amount of DNA evidence, and the house is isolated only to those family and close friends that visit …show more content…
The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 to help these people through the use of DNA testing and reforms to the justice system (11). As of today Project Innocence has reversed the conviction of a crime using DNA evidence for 356 cases, and found alternative perpetrators for 153 cases. It looks at multiple kinds of cases where there was inadequate defense, misapplication of forensic sciences, false confessions, incentivized informants, government misconduct, and eyewitness misidentification. Since DNA fingerprinting has become so popular, less of these cases happen, whereas 25 years ago, this type of technology was not around and it was easier to wrongful convict people for crimes. If DNA fingerprinting was necessarily to convict someone in cases where substantial DNA evidence is found, it would be nearly impossible to wrongfully imprison someone. Groups like Project Innocence give people a new chance at their life, but it would be more helpful to those people if conviction was done right the first