the Your Political Animal blog

I just read a very interesting Time Magazine article (December 5 2011) which discussed both the crime fighting and social implications of familial DNA testing. In short, familial DNA testing allows “cops, under certain circumstances, to track down a suspect by cross-referencing a DNA sample from a parent, sibling or child, often without the relative’s knowledge. The test, which has been used in Britain for nearly a decade, raises the possibility of breakthroughs in a number of unsolved crimes in the U.S. But it is also stirring up controversy in all branches of law enforcement for its startling challenges to individual privacy.” I was fascinated with this article’s content, both from a public policy and 4th Amendment to the Constitution standpoint. Although I see tremendous possibilities with this forensic sciences breakthrough, unfortunately as with most scientific breakthroughs, I also see the potential for serious abuses, particularly when we consider who would probably bear the brunt of this type of DNA testing.

In what has to be the most important U.S. crime solved by this type of testing, police in Los Angeles used familial DNA testing to find a man, Lonnie Franklin, who came to be known as the “Grim Sleeper,” so named because he had allegedly committed a series of murders, had stopped for about 14 years, and then all of a sudden, started committing them again.  After allegedly killing women in South Los Angeles, he would leave his DNA on them through saliva or semen, but because his DNA wasn’t in the California database, the fourth largest in the country, law enforcement personnel didn’t have a match with which they could compare samples.

So after forming a task force to investigate the murders which began in the mid 1980s, police finally convinced then California attorney general Jerry Brown, now the state’s governor, to allow familial DNA searches after law enforcement people convinced him that individuals’ privacy rights would not be violated. Long story short, the homicide task force used Lonnie Franklin’s son Christopher, who had been arrested on a firearms charge, to track and eventually arrest the father. They knew that Christopher was too young to have committed most of the murders, but because he lived in the heart of where the murders had occurred, they felt that they were on the trail of the real killer.

What the task force did next could be considered a stroke of CSI genious, or an egregious violation of individual rights, depending on which side of the argument you take. “On Monday (after the July 4th weekend) Lonnie went into a pizza parlor, and a quick-thinking detective donned a hat and an apron and made himself a temporary busboy. They got his DNA off a napkin and a piece of pizza crust, and at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, July 7, (detective Dennis) Kilcoyne got a call from the lab to say the DNA was a perfect match. He called his undercover officers who were watching the house and told them to make the arrest.”

Now this is quite an amazing story, considering the years-long determination that it took on the part of the Los Angeles police, along with the awe-inspiring DNA breakthroughs that have been made since the late 1980s. Most of us became aware of the value of DNA evidence during the O.J. Simpson trial, as forensic sleuth Dr. Henry Lee dazzled us with his knowledge of this amazing forensic science process. But while I and all other law-abiding citizens certainly see tremendous value in using familial DNA searches as a potent crime fighting tool, and while I must admit that I would probably want homicide detectives to use this technique if it meant catching one of my loved one’s killer, there is also a certain dread which accompanies this type of forensic science because I know who will become the majority of the victims if it is ever practiced on a large scale; African Americans, Latinos, and others who are disproportionately imprisoned in this country.

In fact, though African Americans comprise roughly 13% of this country’s population, they comprise about 38% of its prison population. In other words, for every one African American citizen, three are in jail or prison and countless others are under the criminal “justice” system’s jurisdiction, whether through being a parolee or not being able to vote because they are a convicted felon. And if you recall, authorities were able to track Lonnie Franklin the alleged serial killer through obtaining a DNA sample from his son Christopher, who had come under the criminal justice system’s iron grip through his arrest for a firearms violation. So here we have two generations of African American men who admittedly because of certain life choices, now have their DNA in California’s voluminous database.

Now what is my main point? It is that, according to the U.S. Justice Department, 48% of U.S. prisoners have a relative who has also been incarcerated, so the social implications of this relatively new DNA testing are enormous. What I and I’m sure some others fear is that this testing procedure will be used to create a criminal database for nearly all or in a worse-case scenario, all who “fit” the profile of criminals. This in itself could open up innocent, law-abiding citizens to unreasonable searches and seizures, which of course clearly violates the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. So again, while I applaud any scientific breakthrough that can benefit mankind, this type of advancement also has the potential to be used for much more nefarious purposes. Maybe if Congress ever stops arguing and bickering over jobs, taxes, and health care, it can pass iron-clad legislation which will be upheld by right-minded courts which will protect its citizens from egregious abuses of power that this breakthrough is certain to create. But only time will tell. And I promise to continue to blog about this very, very important subject, so stay tuned. This is YourPoliticalAnimal, hasta la vista!

That’s my opinion; what’s yours? (c) 2011, Sherman N. Crockett, Jr. All rights reserved.

Reference: Time Magazine, 5 December, 2011, pp. 41-45.