Legal News

Cold hit matches debated at California Supreme Court

By Jason Siegel

California Supreme Court justices all showed little doubt that prosecutors' use of DNA databases to get "cold hit" matches linking defendants old crimes is generally accepted by scientists, The Recorder reported.

The questions raised by justices in oral arguments yesterday indicated a belief that cold hit cases could be used as reliable evidence in a trial.

Cold hit matches occur DNA from a crime scene is compared to profiles of 184,000 people in the state's convicted offender database, deeming those with matching profiles as suspects. However,  genetic profiles are not unique like DNA and unrelated people can share markers, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The high number of comparisons made to profiles in a data search can increase the odds significanty that a match will be coincidental, the Times reported.

California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, the California Public Defenders Association, the Los Angeles County public defender and Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia filed briefs arguing that cold-hit matches are new science subject to the Kelly/Frye tests, The Recorder reported. Also, 56 scientists and scholars sent a letter to the court saying the practice was not generally accepted.

Only Justices Corrigan and Ming Chin questioned into how cold-matches are calculated.

A decision in the case, People v. Nelson, is due by the end of the summer and could dictate how statistics in cold cases are presented to juries, the Times reported.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on May 09, 2008 (boomark / email).