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DNA Cold Hits

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

"DNA matches aren't always a lock" is the headline of this LA Times story by Jason Felch and Maura Dolan. Cases where a suspect is identified by a "cold hit" database search involve different probability considerations than the typical case where a person already a suspect based on other evidence is confirmed as the perpetrator by a DNA test. By analogy, if you buy a lottery ticket for a drawing, the chances that your ticket will win are extremely small. However, the chances that somebody will win from that drawing are often pretty good. If the chance that a person would match a profile if selected at random are one in a million and the database searched for that profile has millions of people, then there is a decent chance that an innocent person will be a random match...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on May 04, 2008 (boomark / email).