Thursday, October 12, 2017

DNA series (8); Florencio Jose Dominguez: California: Mixed DNA: Judge Orders Murder Retrial Based on ‘Invalid’ DNA Mixture Analysis, Seth Augenstein reports in The Forensic Magazine..." Suzanna Ryan, a Carlsbad-based DNA expert, provided testimony for the defense. She found that the San Diego analysis presented in 2011 did not meet its own protocols established just days before the second trial—and did not meet those established in 2010 by the Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods, or SWGDAM. Ryan told Forensic Magazine that the DNA-mixture interpretation from less than a decade ago could mean that trials just a few years later could be tilted in the opposite direction, based on the best science now available. “The thing is, is that there are cases like this all over the country,” she said. “If you were convicted of a crime pre-2010 (or even later in many jurisdictions) and the case involved a complex mixture, there is a very good chance the mixture would no longer be interpreted the same way.”..."“The Texas Forensic Science Commission is now proactively soliciting cases for review that involved the older mixture interpretation methods,” Ryan said. “They are the only state, that I am aware of, that is making an effort to address the mixture interpretation issues.” The California appellate judge wrote that the trial’s DNA evidence had been unfair to the accused, no matter his ultimate innocence or guilty. “Every defendant—including gang members—is entitled to a trial in which the scales were not weighted on one side by invalid scientific evidence,” the court ruled."


QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Every defendant—including gang members—is entitled to a trial in which the scales were not weighted on one side by invalid scientific evidence."

A California appellate judge;

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STORY:   "Judge Orders Murder Retrial Based on ‘Invalid’ DNA Mixture Analysis," by Seth Augenstein, published by Forensic Magazine on October 11, 2017.