Augenstein, Seth. "Touch DNA Might Be Contaminating Crime Scene Evidence." Forensic Magazine. N.p., 29 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.
I read the article “Touch DNA Might Be Contaminating Crime Scene Evidence,” and it discusses “Touch DNA” and its impact on criminal cases. DNA has been a major component in criminal investigations and physical evidence. It has locked up criminals and helped scientists conclude and gather information from cases that would not have been solved. Technology is advancing and becoming more prone to errors that can affect the results of the findings, which may lead to innocent people being sent to jail. Many people do not know what touch DNA is and what it is doing to forensic studies. Touch DNA is a forensic method for analyzing DNA left at the scene of a crime. It is called “touch DNA” because it only requires very small samples, like cells left on an object after it was touched or moved. “A two-minute handshake, then handling a knife led to the DNA profile of the person who never touched the weapon being identified on the swab of the weapon handle in 85 percent of the samples.” This shows that secondary DNA transfer could possibly place someone at the scene of a crime, and possibly send an innocent person to jail. According to a study done by the Journal of Forensic Sciences, one-fifth of those experiments mentioned before contained false information. The person who had never directly touched the knife was identified as the main or only contributor of the DNA on the handle. Analysts need to be aware that this can happen and need to provide other evidence when presenting in court. A microbiologist at Pace Analytical stated that the term touch DNA is misleading and does not completely explain all the ways DNA could end up some place. This shows that the future of criminal investigations are in danger if no one fixes these problems immediately.
The issue discussed in this article significantly affects society. For example, if you are at the grocery store and are paying the cashier and accidently touch his/her hand, it is possible that forensic scientists could find your DNA at a crime scene. Any kind of contact, whether it be on the street or in a store, could be found using touch DNA. This method could lock up hundreds of innocent people, letting the real criminals free. Also, this could interfere with criminal investigations and evidence and change the future of forensics. Scientists say that they plan to continue experiments into 2016, hopefully “reducing the two-minute handshake down to smaller time frames.” This could eventually lead to issues in the government, laboratories, and society itself.
This article was very compelling because it gave me a sense of the issues in forensics at this moment. We normally hear problems arising in the government and social life, but now we get into more detail into forensic investigations. This article provided good real-life examples that helped the reader understand how significant this problem is. Also, the article did a good job of stressing the significance of this method and how it could impact the future of criminal investigations. However, this article had its weaknesses and one of those was that it did not provide specific information about what touch DNA was and when/how/why it was used (I looked it up). This article could have been improved by going more into depth about touch DNA and what scientists are preparing to do about it. We do not know for sure how people are planning to fix this issue and this article does not talk about it. Overall, I enjoyed reading this article because it made me realize how important this issue is and how it could affect forensic determinations.
2 comments:
I like how she gave an example of how this situation can happen. It is scary to think that each person we come into contact with could possibly transfer our touch DNA to a crime scene. I also like how she had clear explanations of everything. It was helpful because this review can be understood by someone who has no knowledge of Forensic Science, but who will still comprehend this important issue. I also like how she mentioned the huge impact this issue could have on society, myself included. There may be criminals walking among us whose DNA was overwhelmed by the DNA of their innocent friends. There are also those convicted of a crime due to ‘irrefutable DNA evidence’ that may actually be innocent. If I get to know the wrong person, I could just suddenly end up in jail. Will this new revelation reopen closed cases?
This review could be improved by citing a real life example of when someone was wrongly accused of a crime due to potentially mistaken DNA evidence. The actual article mentioned another current event article I examined two months ago: the 1984 case where Kevin Brown allegedly killed (or took part in the killing of) Claire Hough. Since Brown was one of the criminalists in Hough’s case, he could have transferred touch DNA to Hough’s body through his occupation. Killing himself however, did nothing for attempting to maintain his innocence. She stated that ‘one of those [weaknesses of the original article] was that it did not provide specific information about what touch DNA was and when/how/why it was used (I looked it up)’. Since she now has the missing knowledge, it would have been nice if she shared it with the rest of the class.
This article was very interesting to read because DNA is such a major factor in solving crimes. Most cases are solved by the finding of DNA in certain places. It is alarming to think that someone who never came in contact with the scene can be held accountable for a crime. It taught me just how frivolous DNA evidence can be. Equally as disturbing is the fact that considering the knowledge that something like this could happen, DNA is still the primary tool used to solve a lot of crimes.
http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2015/10/touch-dna-might-be-contaminating-crime-scene-evidence
Augenstein, Seth. "Touch DNA Might Be Contaminating Crime Scene Evidence." Forensic Magazine. N.p., 29 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.
Sean Ryan
Forensics
I really liked the article you chose. It is very relevant to our class especially now and has the ability to become more accurate in the future and has so much potential. I found it great how you took a stance and showed how what seems to be a great find can actually be very harmful and lock up innocent people.
I wished you talked more about how this can be a good thing. You mentioned that it can put innocent people in jail but you didn't mention how it can help narrow down on the target. For example with touch DNA if you get a particle, you can probably narrow it down to a family which might even be enough to find out who did it. Also it would have been nice if you talked to us a little bit about how many innocent people are being affected. I looked and found around 2- 5 of inmates are suspected of being innocent which means tens of thousands are being affected. It would have been nice to have included that in your analysis.
I found it very interesting that you can get DNA from just giving someone a handshake. Overall she did a very good job on the article and i found it be very interesting.
http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2015/10/touch-dna-might-be-contaminating-crime-scene-evidence Augenstein, Seth. "Touch DNA Might Be Contaminating Crime Scene Evidence." Forensic Magazine. N.p., 29 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.
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