I would also like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a continued happy holiday season, and throw in at least a reference to an article by Paul Rincon, BBC News science reporter, which could provide an interesting topic of conversation for this time of year… 

In the article DNA search for 'father' Christmas, Paul reviews the work of scientists in Oxford, who are trying to prove whether families with the rare surname of "Christmas" all descend from a single male ancestor.

They want to study the DNA of men from different Christmas clans to see if they are linked by a common genetic heritage as well as by their surnames.

Bryan Sykes of Oxford Ancestors hopes to do this by studying the male, or Y, chromosomes of volunteers.

DNA analysis company Oxford Ancestors is currently appealing for volunteers for the study and is being assisted in the effort by Henry Christmas, a former telecommunications engineer who has spent 50 years researching the origins and history of his own family name.

Professor Sykes told the BBC News website: "There are several interesting questions such as was there one original 'father' Christmas or were there several different ones?"

Every male possesses a Y chromosome which can be inherited only from his father, so this package of genetic material represents a unique record of paternal inheritance.

"If it's a single family with one original founder, then most of them will have the same Y chromosome fingerprint. If there's more than one, we'll identify that," said Bryan Sykes.

"Generally speaking, the rarer the name, the more likely it is to have one founder," he explained.

Some genealogy books state that the origin of the surname derives from "one born at Christmas". But Henry Christmas believes this is "too easy".

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref01.html 

Since this topic really only holds relevant one time a year, I felt that it would be a nice opener to this issue – however, I want to turn back to DNA analysis and its application to the law.  

State databases, as well as the national DNA database, continue to grow – we have seen opposing views on many of the topics discussed in the previous 7 issues, including true power of DNA evidence in court – how much weight is put on DNA versus other types of evidence and testimonies; the fact that  “as long as humans are collecting evidence and conducting the testing, there is room for error”, yet when done properly the results of DNA tests are indisputable; and of course the discussion over the inclusion of DNA profiles for anyone arrested for a crime.  

I have received a number of reader’s comments and opinions concerning these issues, which of course allows me to better understand the underlying reasons for why we so often find ourselves in disagreement.  

With that said, I will turn to the current situation involving DNA testing in Pennsylvania.

Starting this year, every convicted felon in Pennsylvania has been required to provide a tissue sample for DNA testing.

The goal is to see whether the prisoner's genetic profile matches the DNA from any of nearly 120,000 unsolved cases in a national database.

This procedure, which started on a smaller scale in 1995, so far has matched 321 Pennsylvania prisoners to previously unsolved cases, according to Christine Tomsey, Pennsylvania State Police DNA Crime Lab director.

But the law has a blind spot -- it does not require that the prisoner's DNA be compared to evidence from his original case to make sure he was properly convicted.

There are practical reasons why that might not be a good idea, experts say.

For one thing, it would place an extra burden on an already overloaded system, Ms. Tomsey said. When the law was rewritten last year to require every felon to provide a DNA sample, she said, the state lab quickly went from having no backlog to falling behind on 49,500 specimens.

Ms. Tomsey said she hopes to get a federal grant to shift backlogged cases to an outside lab, but in the meantime, she expects another 50,000 samples to roll into her lab over the next year.

William Thompson, a criminology professor at the University of California at Irvine, said another reason not to test felons' DNA automatically against evidence in their original crimes is that many know they are guilty and wouldn't ask for such a test if it were up to them.

Dr. Thompson said a better policy is to make it as easy as possible for prisoners who believe they were wrongly convicted to get DNA testing done.

Pennsylvania has had a post-conviction DNA testing law in effect since 2002, but many genetic testing advocates say it is not working well.

Like most such laws around the United States, it contains criteria to help judges decide which convicts are entitled to post-conviction testing.

Some believe those criteria are unfair.

For instance, the law does not allow prisoners on parole or those who pleaded guilty to their crimes to seek DNA testing.

When a prisoner is on parole, said David Rudovsky, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has handled DNA litigation, "you can be sent back to prison; your liberty is restricted. Why should we keep someone on parole if they are innocent?"

Denying DNA testing to prisoners who pleaded guilty also is unfair, he said.

"People plead guilty for all kinds of reasons -- a lot of times, if you get a good enough deal [on prison time], you'll plead guilty, even if you're innocent."

Pennsylvania's law also limits DNA requests to prisoners who were convicted before 1995. The exception is cases in which evidence was discovered after a trial concluded.

The rationale is that modern DNA technology has been around since 1995, so anyone convicted in the last 10 years would have had access to DNA testing if it had been relevant in their cases.

But John Rago, a law professor at Duquesne University and director of the Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law, said this ignores the possibility that DNA tests presented at trial could have been flawed or fraudulent.

The law also says that the prisoner's identity and involvement in the crime must have been at issue during his trial.

Mr. Rago said some judges recently have denied DNA testing because they thought witness testimony clearly showed guilt.

The problem with that, said Mr. Rago and other experts, is that studies have shown that witness recollections in criminal cases can be highly unreliable. In fact, in a number of high-profile cases around the nation in which DNA testing established innocence, witnesses have continued to insist that the exonerated man committed the crime.

An investigation by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Innocence Institute of Point Park University published this week also showed how prosecutors often argue against DNA testing unless it would conclusively prove an inmate's "actual innocence."

Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, D-Montgomery, the author of the post-conviction DNA law, said he plans to hold hearings early next year to determine if amendments are needed. His goal, he said, is to make sure that every eligible prisoner who wants DNA testing can get it.

So far, Mr. Rago said, only two convicts have been exonerated through DNA testing under the 2002 law. DNA tests freed six other Pennsylvania inmates who filed appeals before the 2002 law went into effect.

Rep. Kathy Manderino, D-Philadelphia, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said she looks at DNA testing as a sharp tool that can cut both ways.

She said one concern she has about expanding post-conviction DNA testing is the cost. Mr. Rago shares that concern.

"If every DNA test costs $500 to $700 on average, it would be too big a burden to test everyone" against evidence from their original trials, he said. On the other hand, he noted, the cost of testing needs to be weighed against the current expense of more than $28,000 a year to house an inmate in state prison.

Mr. Rago favors granting post-conviction DNA tests any time there are allegations of certain types of problems in the trial.

In most cases where DNA has exonerated a prisoner, he said, research has shown there were often problems with unreliable witness testimony, coerced confessions, misconduct by police or prosecutors, poor scientific methods used on physical evidence, or testimony by an informant who received a deal from the prosecution.

Dr. Thompson said national surveys have shown that in states with lenient standards for post-conviction testing, there has not been a flood of prisoner requests, as some prosecutors had feared. About half of such DNA tests have exonerated the prisoners requesting them, he added.

"So suppose each test costs as much as $5,000," Dr. Thompson said, "and half of those got someone out of jail who didn't deserve to be there.

"Is it worth $10,000 a pop to get someone who's innocent out of prison? I think it might be worth 10 times that.

"False convictions," he said, "have a cost to society that is clearly much higher than the cost of testing to find them."

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref02.html 

You may have heard about some of the recent cases involving DNA testing. Below you will find some of the people affected over the past two weeks. 
 

Maryland - The body of Sadie L. Mack, 78, was found in the bedroom of her West Baltimore home in May, her hands bound. Carlton Crawford, 82, was beaten to death in August in his room at an apartment complex for the disabled. Lydia R. Wingfield, 78, was strangled 10 days later in her home.

Monday, city police said that one man -- a 34-year-old drifter with a lengthy criminal record -- is responsible for a disturbing series of killings of mostly elderly residents of West and Northwest Baltimore since 1999 -- victims that authorities described as "defenseless."

Raymont Hopewell has been charged with five counts of murder, and police say they are investigating other cases. He also has been charged with five counts of attempted murder stemming from two home invasions in September.

Police began exploring the series of killings after Hopewell was arrested in September as a suspect in Crawford's death.

Detectives said they linked the man further with the help of a phone call that Wingfield made to her son shortly before she was killed, which implicated the suspect through his nickname, as well as DNA and other forensic evidence.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref03.html 

California - A year-old double homicide was solved by matching DNA evidence left at the crime scene with samples in a state database that contains genetic material from convicted felons, authorities said.

Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department, said the case was the first double homicide in California to be solved with the database.

Nicholas Casas, 83, and his wife, Emilia Casas, 73, were found dead last December of multiple stab wounds at their home in Santa Ana. Family members had offered $5,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.

Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters and Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas identified the suspect late Monday as Carlos Martinez, 30. They said in a printed statement that DNA was found on a soda can left at the crime scene.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref04.html 

Texas - A convicted felon charged with the 1986 rape and strangulation of an 11-year-old girl now faces a second charge of capital murder after a DNA database linked him to the 1995 slaying of a woman in Buck Sansom Park. 

This week, Fort Worth police obtained an arrest warrant for Juan Mesa Segundo, 42, in connection with the sexual assault and strangulation of Maria Reyna Navarro, 32, a mother of three whose body was found on June 17, 1995. 

Cold case Detective Manny Reyes said a DNA profile extracted from semen taken from Navarro’s body matched Segundo. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref05.html

Alaska - An expanded state DNA database and a burglary suspect's taste for soda pop helped state troopers identify one man they say committed a string of Valley burglaries in 2002 and 2003.

Saliva from cola bottles and soda cans, plus the fragment of a bloody glove, linked 28-year-old Shane Martin of Wasilla to several local break-ins, according to affidavits and other court records. In a region where property crimes are a common complaint among businesses, homeowners and builders, Martin is accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars in goods.

Alaska expanded a law in 2003 to require people convicted of felonies, or any crime against a person, to submit a DNA sample in the form of a cheek swab.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref06.html

Montana - DNA ties a man arrested in a New Mexico rape with six sexual assaults in Great Falls that have been unsolved for 12 years.

Cascade County Attorney Brant Light said DNA tests that came back Tuesday match Michael Anthony Silva, 43, with the rapes and assaults of five women and a teenage girl in 1993 and 1994.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref07.html

Oregon - DNA evidence links one man to two sexual assaults, police say. Eric Morales, 23, was arrested earlier this month, accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl he picked up at the Tigard Transit Center.

Detectives noticed similarities between the attack and the September rape of a 13-year-old girl in Beaverton's Willow Grove Apartments. They took DNA samples from Morales.

"DNA comparison came back as a match, which shows that Morales is responsible for the burglary and sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl back in September," Officer Paul Wandell told KOIN News 6.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref08.html

Washington - For more than six years, Michele Gehrke has waited for justice for her cousin, Dennis Dolinger.

Stabbed to death in 1999 in his Southeast Washington home, Dolinger was a popular community activist determined to put his stamp on the city he loved. Now a decision by the District's highest court may give him a chance in death to make his mark in a way he would not have imagined.

The D.C. Court of Appeals has ruled that DNA evidence can be used in the long-stalled case against Dolinger's alleged killer, reversing a trial judge who had effectively barred its admission. Last week's ruling was a victory for prosecutors in their first attempt to use results of "cold hit" DNA analysis in a criminal case in the city.

For years, prosecutors in the District have used DNA analysis to link specific suspects to blood, hair and other evidence from crime scenes. In this case, however, they relied upon a cold hit -- meaning they compared DNA from the crime scene with records of a large group of people kept in a computerized data bank.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref09.html

Virginia - The last of three men linked to the robbery of a McDonald’s through DNA left on unfinished burgers was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday.

On May 2, 2004, Dexter Carlos Webb and two other Emporia men entered the fast-food restaurant on Holland Road just before closing time.

They ordered food, ate and waited for the dining room to empty.

The men then robbed the restaurant at gunpoint and forced the employees inside a walk-in freezer, police said.

Forensic technicians with the Suffolk Police Department collected DNA from the trio’s unfinished burgers and matched it to one of the men, who was listed in the state’s DNA registry of convicted felons.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref10.html

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A man who spent seven years behind bars for the rape and murder of his mother-in-law was released Thursday after DNA evidence from a cigarette butt helped clear him.

Clarence Elkins, 42, walked out of the Mansfield Correctional Institution with his wife, Melinda.

Elkins was convicted in the 1998 rape and murder of Judith Johnson, 58, as well as the rape of her 6-year-old granddaughter. He was sentenced to life in prison and would not have been eligible for parole until 2054,

DNA analysis of a pubic hair and other biological material on the victims showed that Elkins was not the killer, said Bill Canterbury, spokesman for the Summit County prosecutor's office, which tried the case in 1998.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref11.html 

Missouri death row inmate Brian J. Kinder's DNA was not present in the re-testing of evidence from the 1990 rape and murder for which he was convicted, a DNA expert said Wednesday. 

But there is little DNA to test, and some of the original samples have degraded to the point where testing can't be done, Missouri Highway Patrol DNA technical leader Cary Maloney said in a Cole County courtroom. 

Kinder, his attorney Frederick Duchardt Jr. and lawyers from the Missouri Attorney General's Office were there to discuss the results of testing that could be the only thing standing between Kinder and the death chamber. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref12.html

Virginia - Independent DNA testing has found two men to have been wrongly convicted of sexual assault, raising to five the number of people exonerated because of forensic evidence saved by a meticulous scientist, Gov. Mark R. Warner said Wednesday.

The two men, who have requested that their names not be released, had already completed their prison sentences, Warner said in a news release. He did not say what errors were made in their convictions.

Prosecutors in Norfolk and Alexandria, where the cases were investigated, have asked the governor to grant absolute pardons to both men. Warner said the men's petitions will go through the normal review process.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref13.html

Florida - Alan Crotzer has spent more than half his life in prison, but many who know about him believe he's innocent. Now, nearly 24 years after his conviction, a team of lawyers that includes one of Florida's most prominent death row defense attorneys says DNA evidence proves Crotzer was not the rapist.

With Hillsborough prosecutors reviewing his case, Crotzer, now 44, could become the fifth person in Florida to be exonerated by DNA. If prosecutors agree to clear him, he would join a growing roster of exonerated prisoners in Florida, adding to its rank as the state with the most wrongful convictions on the books, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Last week, state lawmakers voted to pay $2-million to Wilton Dedge, freed after serving 22 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_8_dec_05/vol8_ref14.html

Again, please send us your questions or concerns and our expert will provide honest and candid feedback, expert@dnalabsinternational.com.   

Editor: Karen Daurie

Karen.Daurie@DNALabsInternational.com  

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