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Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue.
With a specific case in Alaska in question, the Supreme Court is currently debating the rights for convicts to have DNA evidence re-tested. “If the court does issue a ruling declaring a federally protected constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing it isn't clear that it would have much of an impact because most states already have statutes in place for such testing. Alaska is one of only six states not to have its own explicit DNA testing law.”
In addition to this story you will find brief summaries of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA analysis. Every story is followed by a link to its original source, which you can follow for more details.
In The News
U.S. justices reviewing claims by Alaska inmate of Constitutional right Supreme Court justices appeared closely divided Monday over claims by an Alaska inmate that the Constitution guarantees a right to post-conviction DNA testing.
The court's most conservative members are clearly aligned against inmate William Osborne, who was convicted of assaulting a prostitute known only as K.G. The court's most liberal members sounded sympathetic to expanded testing. At most, the odds appear to favor a narrow decision. ''This is a particularly poor candidate for recognizing a new constitutional right,'' Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, an Obama appointee, told the court.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts questioned Monday whether it makes ''sense for us to devise a constitutional way to displace what the states have done.'' Katyal, on behalf of the Obama administration, agreed that the court ''should not constitutionalize'' a legal policy being worked out by individual states. Source: www.ohio.com
New and Ongoing Stories Involving the Use of DNA Evidence California - A jury has convicted a Woodland man of the rape of a teen nearly four years ago at a house party. Jeffrey Lockwood, 22, was convicted Thursday of two counts of forcible rape, a count of false imprisonment and one count of statutory rape.
Testing revealed DNA consistent with Lockwood and was instrumental in conviction. The district attorney's office said that the DNA testing type used did not become available to the California Department of Justice Crime Labs until March 2008.
Previous methods of DNA testing were not sensitive enough to detect a male DNA pattern among an overwhelming presence of the victim's DNA, the release said. Source: www.sacbee.com
Wisconsin - A 53-year-old man accused of killing a young go-go dancer three decades has been ordered to stand trial. Source: www.chicagotribune.com
Ohio - A man who has served more than 25 years in prison for two Columbus rapes has been proved innocent by DNA testing and is expected to be released today. Joseph R. Fears Jr., 61, had been sentenced to 15 to 75 years for rapes committed a week apart in 1983. Fears had been requesting DNA testing for years. Prosecutors opposed it, and a judge denied him. Fears doesn't have a lawyer. Source: www.columbusdispatch.com
Arizona - A church is probably not the best place to have a beer - especially if you just burglarized the church. On Wednesday, the McHenry County Sheriff's Office arrested a McHenry man on charges of doing just that - leaving an open can of Busch Light at a Crystal Lake church he allegedly burglarized in June.
Traces of DNA left on the beer can tied 41-year-old James R. Henson to a 2008 burglary at the Calvary Assembly of God Church, authorities say. Source: www.churchsolutionsmag.com
California - Prosecutors say DNA evidence has helped to find the person responsible for the kidnapping and sexual assault of an 8-year-old boy in the San Fernando Valley.
The suspect is already in prison, serving time in a robbery case. Thirty-four-year-old Darwin Felix Alfelor was charged on Wednesday. He was due to be released from prison in six months, but he's now facing six new felony counts. He's suspected of abducting an 8-year-old boy in June 2007 as the boy was walking home from school. Source: abclocal.go.com
Louisiana - A nineteen year old woman was forcibly raped in the summer of 1990. Lafayette investigators were able to collect evidence at the scene, however, no arrests were made and the case remained unsolved. The evidence that was collected was submitted to the crime lab but it was not until November of 2008 a DNA hit was made. Lafayette police were made aware that James Francis Mouton was a possible suspect and the investigation was re-opened. Sixty-five year old James Mouton is now imprisoned in the Lafayette parish jail. Source: www.katc.com
California - Forensics work on saliva from the crime scene of a “shocking” kidnap and rape led to an arrest in one of the “highest profile sexual assault cases,” officials revealed Tuesday.
Anthony Ray Graham Jr., 28, pleaded not guilty to six felony counts, including rape and kidnapping of a Bakersfield mother. In court Tuesday, Graham slumped his head after prosecutor Lisa Green requested to increase his bail to $3 million, and the judge accepted. Their break came just a week ago when DNA results came back with a “cold hit,” Jagels said. Their office’s saliva sample matched with a name, Graham's, in the state's database. Source: www.bakersfield.com
New York - Police Friday charged a Bronx man in the strangling death of a mother and her 9-year-old daughter, using DNA evidence to close a case that had eluded cops for 21 years.
Robert Fleming, 46, broke into the Morris Heights home of Selina Cooper, 26, and daughter Joi Little on Feb. 29, 1988, in a bid to rape the mother, a police source said. Source: www.nydailynews.com
Kentucky - The judge in a high profile Lincoln County double murder case says he'll allow a crucial piece of evidence to be used against one of the defendants at trial.
Police say back in 2002, a group of men rushed into a Lincoln County trailer and fired nearly a dozen shots, killing Bo Upton, 18, and Ryan Shangraw, 20, and injuring two teenage girls.
Attorneys for one of the accused, Jamarkos Campbell, 23, say a DNA sample was illegally obtained, but a judge disagreed. Campbell's DNA went into a national database after pleading guilty to a promoting contraband charge in Madison County. Prosecutors say the evidence helped link Campbell to the 2002 crime. Source: www.msnbc.msn.com
Arizona - Police say a 25-year-old Prescott man has been arrested after DNA evidence linked him to the sexual assault of a woman last July.
Pennsylvania - Police say a man already in a Pittsburgh jail on rape charges has now been linked to a third long-unsolved rape by his DNA.
Thirty-nine-year-old Michael Lipinski, of Penn Hills, was already jailed on a rape charge when Pittsburgh police last week said his DNA linked him to the rape of a 9-year-old girl in November 2005 and a 3-year-old raped in 2002. In both instances, the children were abducted from their homes.
Now police say Lipinski's DNA has been found to match that taken from a 17-year-old girl raped in August 1998. Source: http://ydr.inyork.com/ci_11789865
Pennsylvania - preliminary DNA tests have linked a suspect in the attack on three Lock Haven University students to several sexual assaults in Philadelphia. Source: cbs3.com
International Canada - Police have used DNA and facial reconstruction to confirm that remains found in an Ontario provincial park more than four decades ago are those of an 18-year-old man.
The grisly discovery in 1967 left provincial police with few clues until the Centre of Forensic Sciences used cutting-edge technology to identify the remains as belonging to Eric Jones of Noelville, Ont. Source: www.thespec.com
Did you know?
Researchers in Tucson, Arizona have developed a method that could allow scientists to predict what a person might look like using nothing more than their DNA. Source: ozarksfirst.com
The DNA Informant is a free bi-weekly email newsletter, published by DNA Labs International. DNA Labs International is a private, ISO 17025 Accredited, Forensic Serology and DNA Identity Testing Laboratory, founded in 2004 by a Board Certified Fellow in Molecular Biology with over two decades of experience in Forensic Serology and DNA Analysis in United States Crime Labs. Our primary mission is to help our clients identify criminals within their jurisdiction by providing timely, accurate and cost effective DNA testing results. To do this we created an organization based on industry best practices from over 20 State Crime Labs around the United States. We are located in Deerfield Beach, Florida, just minutes from the Fort Lauderdale airport.
DNA Labs International’s services are now available for individual cases and outsourcing contracts. Please keep us in mind as you start to consider your outsourcing needs, regular and rush cases and DNA case review. Editor: Karen Daurie |
