In New Jersey, criminal defendants who claim they are innocent, had to be incarcerated in order to avail themselves of DNA testing procedures at the cost of the state. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has now signed legislation that will incre... Read more
California’s DNA law allows police to collect DNA from anyone arrested on suspicion of a felony – without a warrant and without being charged or convicted of a crime. Those DNA samples are then stored indefinitely and are allowed to be acc... Read more
A new DNA database, the first of its kind in Ireland, will be operational from November 20 and permits Gardaí to take bodily samples, such as hair or salvia, from crime suspects. Minister for Justice France Fitzgerald, who signed the commencemen... Read more
Joseph A. Buffey was originally arrested in connection with burglaries conducted in 2001. Around the same time a 83-year old woman was robbed and raped in Clarksburg and Mr. Buffey, then 19, was also connected to that crime. Mr. Buffey admitted... Read more
DNA samples taken from a murder scene at a Yale graduate scientific laboratory in 2009, revealed two profiles. One matched a co-worker later implicated in the crime through other evidence, and the other matched a convicted offender living nearby... Read more
According to the Travis Country Distric Attorney’s Office, hundreds of DNA samples may need retesting, due to scientific concern over the interpretation of DNA results and issues with a DNA statistics database. This may impact some criminal case... Read more
The 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that Proposition 47, that reduced certain non-violent felonies to misdemeanors, applies to juveile offenders the same as adults. But what happens to the DNA – which is only collected upon felony arres... Read more
The arrest of filmmaker Michael Usry, known for his violent, murder-centered films, has made many headlines. Last year he was suspected in the 1996 murder of a young woman in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Idaho authorities found a „partial match“ between... Read more
Why do two seemingly unrelated individuals – one black and one white – share the same two markers at nine of the 13 places in the standard DNA profile? In 2001, the DNA unit of Arizona’s state crime laboratory found 122 such matches... Read more
Following public criticism of India’s draft DNA Bill for its lack of safeguards to protect privacy and human rights, the Department of Biotechnology held a two week consultation in August 2015. A copy of the Bill and responses by the Foren... Read more