Dna Testing Case Study

There have been many cases over the years within in the criminal justice system where people have walked free from committing a crime as well as those being put behind bars for being accused of committing a crime they never committed. DNA testing in the criminal justice system can be the decision maker for someone who is either going to walk free from the crime they possibly committed or get put behind bars for a crime they may have not committed. DNA testing has been used to sentence hundreds and convict thousands of people across the country every year. DNA evidence is one of the best examples on how technology has made convicting the criminals who have committed a crime much easier than it has been done in the past. DNA evidence does not necessarily pinpoint the exact criminal on who have may commited the crime, but it does bring it down to a handful of the population who are being questioned for the crime. It is one of the most accurate ways of finding out evidence as long as it is properly done and handled correctly.

Using DNA in Criminal Trials DNA evidence is extremely helpful in criminal trials not only because it can determine the guilt of a suspect, but also because it can keep innocent people from going to jail. The suspect must leave a sample of their DNA at the crime scene in

In addition to undeserved charges, DNA testing has exonerated hundreds of people for crimes in which they were convicted over the past few years. When DNA testing became readily available to the criminal justice system, crucial flaws began to surface. It was realized that people were serving hard-time for felony crimes they didn’t commit.

The first DNA-based conviction in the United States occurred shortly after in 1987 when the Circuit Court in Orange County, Florida, convicted Tommy Lee Andrews of rape after DNA tests matched his DNA from a blood sample with that of semen traces found in a rape victim (Calandro, 2005). It was two years later that DNA was again ruled admissible in a Virginia state ruling. In the years that followed the use of DNA in trial proceeding was not disputed. It was not until the technique of obtaining the evidence was more largely used did the practice become questionable.

Before any release, there must be proper evidence showing that the accused had nothing to do with the crime. The introduction of the first person using DNA to prove his innocent was David Vasquez. In 1985, he was convicted, later in 1990; he was released due to DNA evidence (O’Leary, 2012). Since the Vasquez case, DNA testing has been a very powerful technique to use to prove a person’s innocence. A great reason for this is because victims are capable of lying and misidentifying.

On the other side of this, the same DNA testing has set a lot of people free out of prison or jail. In all situations, those exonerated want to maintain their innocence and can do so with the assistance of attorneys and/or with organizations advocating for them through countless appeals.

DNA is certain characteristics that identifies a person by race, hair color, and their sex. Technology had changed the criminal justice tremendously and DNA is a prime example of how much technology has changed the aspect of the criminal justice system. When the DNA is used in an investigation it is used to help with identifying a suspect for committing a crime. The impact that DNA has had on the criminal justice system is that it has changed the way DNA is handled, collected, and the importance of DNA. DNA has revolutionized the criminal justice system in a major way because cold cases has been solved, people have cleared from murder cases, and it has been a vital source for information in criminal cases. The case of a Florida man by name

The American Court System and DNA Will the use of forensic DNA in the courts be the equalizer for the wrongly convicted? Per the National Registry of Exonerations, there have been 1,916 exonerations in the United States since 1989 (“National Registry of Exonerations,” n.d.). Barry Scheck and The Innocence Project have been instrumental in facilitating the exoneration process by presenting forensic DNA evidence to American courtrooms. DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material that lies within the nucleus of all cells in humans and other living organisms. Each person’s DNA is unique, and only identical twins share the exact DNA (Vocabulary.com, 2016). Quite by accidents, while conducting research in his laboratory, Sir Alec Jeffreys developed the technique for the biological ID of any person using only a tiny sample of their DNA (Royal Society of Biologists, 2016, p. 16). Since the introduction, the use of forensic DNA has manifested a major impact upon the prosecution, juries, and the wrongly convicted in the American Court System.

Even with vast majorities of new technology today, DNA testing still finds people guilty in trials even when they didn’t commit the crime. America is known for having one of the most fair-minded criminal justice systems. We give every person, who is arrested, the chance to be proven innocent until they are found guilty through evidence. Within these trials, DNA tests account for a majority of the convictions or exonerations.

How has DNA evidence helped to identify innocent people on death row? This research topic addresses questions like how many people have been released on death row, where DNA evidence is found, and how the person looking for the DNA finds it. The researcher has to think in a way if obvious evidence isn’t present at a crime scene, where else can they find evidence? This topic of identifying innocent people on death row is important to research because many people are accused of crimes they haven’t committed and automatically put on death row. When researching this topic DNA evidence could be found as helpful to solve crimes and find out what really happened in a situation. Before DNA evidence most people to be put on death row were identified

"Wrongful Convictions Overturned in Death Penalty Cases Due to Advances in DNA Testing." Historic U.S. Events, Gale, 2016. Research in Context, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=MSIC&sw=w&u=leb32560&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CBT2359030480&it=r&asid=4a8dd1f41a5bdd51b4779bbbdcda8293. Accessed 28 Mar.

The article I chose is titled, DNA in the Criminal Justice System: The DNA Success Story in Perspective which described the importance of DNA testing in a criminal investigation. This falls under the category of “confirming the guilty and protecting the innocence” in the NIJ report. According to Mapes et al. (2015), DNA testing is one of the most important aspects of criminal investigation as the DNA found in crime scenes can be used against a criminal or protect an innocent victim by resolving the crime. In the article, Mapes et al. (2015) describes the study that was conducted in order to ensure the effectiveness of DNA testing. Amongst many case files, 243 cases were selected to use in the study. These cases contained DNA evidences which

The Misuse of DNA “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?” (John F. Kennedy). This is true to today the justice system is broken, and it is up to the people to fix it. People like the innocence project have come

The use of forensic DNA can be a valuable tool in the investigative field. The use of DNA profiling has only been around for 20 years in criminal investigations. The first famous DNA forensic analysis took place in 1986 when the British police used DNA fingerprinting to solve a case involving the rape and murder of two girls. Today, police departments work with the Combined DNA Index System of the FBI, which has computerized records of the DNA of individuals who have been convicted in the past. Recently, federal laws have been passed to include preconviction DNA in their databases. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Maryland v. King that the collection and testing of DNA can be done without a warrant.

This paper explores deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) collection and its relationship to solving crimes. The collection of DNA is one of the most important steps in identifying a suspect in a crime. DNA evidence can either convict or exonerate an individual of a crime. Furthermore, the accuracy of