|
Volume 42, April 24, 2007
Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue. Topic: Book Review: Forensic DNA Typing, Second Edition: Biology, Technology, and Genetics of STR Markers In the news, the number of innocent persons to be released from prison with the help of DNA evidence reaches 200. This not only brings justice for the innocent, but provides another chance at the truth for victims and their families. In Nevada, lawmakers passed a bill requiring DNA from all felons. And in Europe “fifteen countries have proposed that a treaty governing DNA data sharing signed outside of the structure of the European Union should be adopted as EU policy.” According to the proposal an improvement in the exchange of information within the European Union can be better achieved at EU level due to the “cross-border nature of crime fighting and security issues.” Following these stories we are including a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence. DNA tests rescue 200 wrongly convictedA watershed moment in American justice is expected to arrive without fanfare this week when the Innocence Project hits its 200th exoneration nationwide. That means the 200th innocent person is expected to be released from prison because re-examination of DNA taken from the original crime proved that he was wrongly convicted, according to attorney Barry Scheck, co-founder of the project "It is a learning moment. We have a technology (DNA) that is a truth machine that allows us to go back and get justice for the innocent," Scheck said. "For the victims, it means another chance to find out who really committed the crime." Since the first post-conviction DNA exoneration took place in 1989, inmates have been proven innocent in 31 states, including four men in New Jersey. The tally of those freed currently stands at 198, and includes 14 men who were at one time on death row, according to Innocence Project statistics. In 43 cases, the real assailant eventually was found. The Innocence Project is not the only organization advocating on behalf of prisoners wrongfully convicted, but it is the first dedicated to using DNA to prove the claims, Scheck said. Started in 1992 as a law clinic by Scheck and another civil rights attorney teaching at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, the Innocence Project now handles about 160 cases per year and has spawned several other local innocence organizations. Scheck stressed the limitations of DNA, however. Biological forensics are present in only about 10 percent of criminal cases, he noted, and in at least 50 percent of cases, the evidence has been lost or destroyed. Other states, particularly New Jersey, have such massive backlogs on current DNA cases that old convictions are at the back of the pack. "The single greatest cause of false convictions is mistaken eyewitness identification, not bad science," Scheck said. "There is a huge need for reform and the real significance of the 200 cases is that we are convincing states that it is the right thing to do." A majority of states, including New Jersey, now have laws permitting post-conviction DNA testing. States are standardizing evidence-gathering procedures, requiring video-taping of interrogations and providing compensation to exonerated inmates. Scheck's hope is that the DNA exoneration movement will feed justice reform on a major scale. Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) agrees. "We've seen enough innocent people convicted that there is no longer any reason to take a chance on the death penalty," said Lesniak, who has been pushing a bill to abolish the death penalty in New Jersey for the past three years. "We can't afford to be wrong." Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref01.html Nevada lawmakers OK bill requiring DNA sample in felony cases Sergio Hugo Hernandez, 30, was arrested at a construction site last week a half-mile from where the sexual assault occurred in January. DNA evidence was retrieved from the victim's clothes and matched Hernandez' DNA in a database. Hernandez had given a DNA sample after a burglary conviction in California. "DNA exonerates the innocent, it convicts the guilty and it saves lives," Weber told lawmakers Monday. Fifteen EU countries have proposed that a treaty governing DNA data sharing signed outside of the structure of the European Union should be adopted as EU policy. The EU's own planned framework on data sharing has not yet been put in place. Seven countries, not including the UK, have already agreed the Prüm Treaty, which is an agreement to share DNA, fingerprint and vehicle registration data that was signed in the aftermath of bomb attacks in Madrid in 2004. It is not official EU policy and involves only the seven countries which have joined the scheme: Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium. Bulgaria, Slovenia, Italy, Finland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and Slovakia are now joining those countries in calling for the Treaty to be adopted across Europe. "The objectives of this Decision, in particular the improvement of information exchange in the European Union, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the member states in isolation owing to the cross-border nature of crime fighting and security issues, and the Member States are forced to rely on one another in these matters, and can therefore be better achieved at European Union level," said the proposal, published two weeks ago in the Official Journal of the EU as a member states' initiative. The EU itself has yet to implement a planned framework for data protection in police matters, and the German Presidency recently published a proposal for a framework that it hopes will be adopted this year. EU privacy watchdog the European Data Protection Supervisor has backed the plan, but says that some additional data protection measures are needed. Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx said that though the Prüm Treaty did have data protection elements, it would need the full EU framework to be in place if citizens are to be properly protected once Prüm was extended across the EU. "Data protection plays an important role in the Prüm Treaty and the provisions have been carefully drafted," he said. "But they are meant as specific ones, on top of a general framework for data protection, which unfortunately has still not been adopted." "That framework is needed to give the citizen enough protection, since this decision will make it much easier to exchange DNA and fingerprint data," said Hustinx. The proposal for extension says that different kinds of information should be treated in different ways, that more sensitive data can be shared for more limited purposes and with fewer people. Hustinx also said that potential problems with the proposal are that it does not specify who can be included in the DNA database and does not limit the period for which data can be retained. The proposed agreement specifies the level of data protection that each country should give to data. "Each Member State shall guarantee a level of protection of personal data in its national law at least equal to that resulting from the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data of 28 January 1981 and its Additional Protocol of 8 November 2001," it said. "Processing of data supplied by the receiving Member State shall be permitted solely in order to establish whether the compared DNA profiles or dactyloscopic data match, or to prepare and submit a police or judicial request for legal assistance in compliance with national law if those data match," it said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref03.html New and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence include: Michigan - For nearly 10 years, a Michigan man convicted of rape prayed that one day the truth would set him free. That day finally came after DNA evidence exonerated him. Ken Wyniemko was convicted in 1994 in Macomb County of 15 counts of first degree criminal sexual conduct. Nine years later, the same judicial system that failed him helped him become a free man. After serving nine years, a "Detroit Free Press" reporter and volunteer attorney discovered DNA evidence that was withheld in Wyniemko's case. A judge allowed testing, and Wyniemko became the 129th person exonerated through modern DNA in 2003. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref04.html Massachusetts - A Leominster man accused of assaulting two women in their homes and raping one of them has been linked to the alleged sexual assault by DNA testing, a judge was told today. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref05.html Indiana - DNA led Indianapolis Metropolitan Police detectives to a rape suspect. They admit without that evidence they would still be searching for the rapist. The victim, a 14-year-old-girl, was waiting for the school bus on March 23 to go to John Marshall Middle School, but instead police say a rapist kidnapped her at knifepoint, took her to a vacant home, raped and beat her. Now, police say the man who did it is behind bars. Sex crimes detective Linda White escorted the handcuffed Stephen Sides to the Arrestee Processing Center Tuesday night. She said detectives arrested the 40-year-old just hours after she learned his DNA matched DNA collected in the rape of a 14-year-old girl. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref06.html California - San Jose police are crediting DNA evidence with leading them to a suspect in the sexual assault of a woman near San Jose's Alum Rock Park. New Jersey - A DNA scientist at the New Jersey State Police Laboratory told a jury Tuesday that DNA from a blood sample found on the gas pedal of a car driven by murder defendant Maurice Turner matched that of the victim, William Goldware. Turner, 26, is charged with murder in the May 24, 2003 death of the 29-year-old Morrisville, Pa., man whose body was found in the bathroom of a house on the 600 block of Beatty Street in Trenton. Goldware was lured to the house with a promise of sex from Karla Freeman, however, prosecutors allege that Freeman and Turner had planned to rob him. Goldware was stabbed 24 times as he tried to fight off his attackers. In addition, other samples at the scene of the crime yielded Turner's DNA, including the door knob of the bathroom where the body was found, Elliott Clark told the jury. When Turner was arrested, there were wounds on his forearms, according to earlier testimony. Freeman, 29, was previously convicted of felony murder and is serving a 30-year prison sentence. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref08.html Washington - A trace of DNA on a shoelace, discrepancies in interviews and evidence of a soured relationship led to the recent arrest and murder charges against a man whose fiancée was found dead six years ago in Woodinville. Sione Lui, 37, of Arlington, was charged Friday with second-degree murder in connection with the death of Elaina Boussiacos, 27, who was found beaten and strangled to death in the trunk of her car Feb. 9, 2001, outside a Woodinville health club. The King County Sheriff's Office and the King County Prosecuting Attorney's cold-case unit had been working on the case. Lui had always been a person of interest, the departments said, but it wasn't until recent evidence emerged that police arrested him. Lui, who was engaged to Boussiacos, created missing-person posters and asked for help through the media after her disappearance. Three days before her disappearance, Boussiacos had learned that Lui was having an affair and confronted him, according to charging papers. On Feb. 2, 2001, the day before she planned to fly to California to visit her mother, she closed her joint bank account with Lui, the papers state. Boussiacos then met her ex-husband at a University District pet store around 9:30 p.m. so their son could spend the weekend with his father. Detectives think she was killed either that night or the following day. Neither her purse or engagement ring was ever recovered, according to the charging papers. Lui told police that on the evening of Feb. 2, he changed his fiancée's flat tire at 10:30 and that they then went to bed. He said when he got up in the morning she was gone, presumably to catch her flight. But police discovered a cellphone call from Boussiacos to Lui that evening at 10:40 p.m., and at 1 a.m., two hours after Lui said he went to bed, phone records show he called his sister, according to charging papers. When her body was found, Boussiacos was in sweat pants and tennis shoes, sloppily dressed by someone else, police think. The heels of her socks were pulled up well over the heels of her feet, and her shoelaces were haphazardly tied, as if done by someone else. During recent DNA testing, Lui's DNA was found on a shoelace, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the prosecutor's office. The packing of Boussiacos' belongings also was suspicious, charging papers say: no toothbrush, bottles of toiletries without caps tossed haphazardly into a duffel bag, clothes piled inside the car. Boussiacos' family told police she would never leave home that way for a trip, according to charging papers. Donohoe wouldn't reveal more details about which evidence led to the breakthrough in the case. But charging papers say that a recent interview with Lui brought out discrepancies between the answers he gave police after the slaying and new explanations of events. Lui is scheduled to be arraigned Monday. He is being held in King County Jail in lieu of $2 million bail. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref09.html Florida - The robbery trial of convicted child killer Lionel Tate was delayed several months Monday after defense attorneys said they have a witness and DNA evidence that proves Tate did not hold up a pizza delivery man. Tate attorney Jim Lewis said DNA taken from the mask used in the 2005 robbery belongs to another man. A new witness claims Tate never committed the robbery nor carried the gun, Lewis said. Circuit Judge Joel T. Lazarus granted Lewis and prosecutor Chuck Morton the delay they requested, setting a Sept. 4 date for jury selection. Tate, 20, initially pleaded guilty to robbery and gun possession in the holdup in return for a sentence of 10 to 30 years. He withdrew the plea in the robbery but was sentenced to 30 years on the gun charge. Tate was the youngest person in modern U.S. history to get a life prison term before an appeals court intervened. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref10.html Illinois - The chances are 1 in 2.8 trillion that a Hispanic person's genetic code would match the DNA found on discarded chicken bones inside the Palatine Brown's Chicken, a forensic scientist testified Thursday. Those are tough odds for the Mexico-born [Juan] Luna, whose DNA does indeed match that found on two half-eaten chicken bones discovered at the scene, according to forensic expert Kenneth Pfoser of the Northeastern Illinois Regional Crime Lab. Luna is one of two men charged with killing seven people inside the restaurant in 1993. Authorities contend the bones are the remnants of a final meal eaten and then tossed into an otherwise empty trash can minutes before the slayings. In addition to DNA, prosecutors also used a partial palm print Thursday to link Luna to one of the bloodiest crimes in suburban Chicago history. The chicken bones and print are the only physical evidence tying Luna, now 33, to the murders. Two DNA experts, however, have told the jury that at least one other person's DNA was found on a chicken bone. That person - who has never been identified - provided such a small sample that scientists don't know if the contributor was male or female. The six hours of scientific evidence Thursday came at the end of the trial's first full week of testimony. The topic failed to keep some jurors' interests as at least three panelists looked to be nodding off at various times. Prosecutors allege the tested bones are part of a four-piece chicken meal the killer ordered after closing on Jan. 8, 1993. The majority of the meal was found in the garbage after the murders, a fact that experts say suggests the night's final customer had no intention of eating the dinner. Police preserved the food for years until scientific advancements made it possible to test the minuscule amounts of saliva left on the bones. After Luna's sample tested positive in May 2002, he was arrested in connection with the killings. Prosecutors say Luna, a former Brown's employee, and his high school pal Jim Degorski fatally shot the restaurant's two owners and five workers that night in an attempt to "do something big." The men, who are being tried separately, have pleaded not guilty. If convicted, both could face the death penalty. For more details on this story please go to: Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref11.html Illinois - Blame it on nerves, or possibly the crystal meth, which police said the suspect later confessed to using. Whatever it was, the man got sick all over the crime scene, police say, while his accomplices carted away thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, mainly LCD flat-panel monitors and projectors from a warehouse in Itasca. While he didn’t know it at the time, the regurgitated contents of his stomach later would be used to identify him. “It’s my understanding that this is the first case in DuPage where DNA was extracted from vomit,” Itasca Detective Emil Cargola said. “I think it’s something that’s going to be a wave of the future for DNA cases.” The DNA extracted from the Itasca crime scene three years ago provided the evidence needed to charge Hector Padilla, 26, whose last known address was in Compton, Calif., with several felonies. In this case, Padilla was convicted in California for another burglary shortly after he fled Illinois. When he entered prison, his DNA was taken and entered into the database. That process, too, can take months, authorities say. But last November, Itasca police learned the DuPage County Crime Lab turned up a DNA match for Itasca’s 2004 burglary. The person whose DNA matched the vomit left at the crime scene, later identified as Padilla, was an inmate at a California prison. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref12.html New Mexico - A Las Cruces man has been arrested in connection with a 2005 rape in which a woman was assaulted in her home, after DNA tests allegedly linked him to the crime, police said. Joshua Ray Garcia, 22, of the 900 block of Española St. was arrested Tuesday and charged with criminal sexual penetration, kidnapping and aggravated battery, according to a news release. In May 2006, after testing evidence from the crime, the New Mexico Department of Public Safety's forensics lab sent police detectives a DNA profile of the suspect. On Tuesday, the state's crime lab notified Las Cruces Police detectives that the DNA profile from evidence at the crime scene matched that of Garcia's, whose DNA sample was taken after being placed on probation in December 2005. Garcia was arrested at his residence and taken to the Doña Ana County Detention Center, where he was being held on a $20,000 cash bond and a $10,000 surety bond. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref13.html Wyoming - In December 1990, on the weekend when David Bush is accused of killing his wife and burying her body, Rod Odenbach noticed an unfamiliar truck in the Kaycee post office parking lot. Defense attorney Vaughn Neubauer, during opening statements last week, asked the jury to note how stories change, referring specifically to the people who would testify about seeing the truck in Kaycee that weekend, 76 miles north of Casper. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref14.html Alabama - A man accused of raping a mentally retarded girl in his care said a taped confession played for jurors Tuesday was fabricated. “The things I said on the video did not happen,” said Dan Charley, 60, of Pell City, who is accused of raping a 17-year-old autistic girl at the now defunct Charlie Angels Ministry Group Home. Charley took the witness stand Wednesday afternoon to defend himself against a first-degree rape charge brought against him by the state. “I didn’t do it,” Charley told jurors. Charley, who founded Charlie Angels Ministry Group Home and was chief executive officer for the ministry, said he only confessed to authorities because he was angry, tired and wanted closure to something he was accused of doing. The defendant said he was certain DNA would clear him of the rape, but instead DNA may send him to prison. Jacquelyn Bowling, with the Alabama Department of Forensic Science in Birmingham, testified Wednesday morning DNA from semen found inside the victim matched Charley’s DNA. On the stand, Charley implied someone, somehow planted his DNA in samples collected from the victim. A lab in Birmingham collected the sample from the victim, and the evidence was sealed by that lab. Pell City Police Department Detective Vincent Warrington testified he collected a swab sample from Charley at the police station and put the sample in a separate sealed envelope. Warrington, along with Detective Roy Davis, picked up the rape kit from the Birmingham lab and delivered both sealed packages to the Alabama Department of Forensic Science in Hoover. Williamson asked Charley why his confession of the rape was so detailed if he hadn’t actually raped the girl. Charley said he wanted to fabricate a believable story. The defendant also provided a written confession to authorities, which was also recorded on the videotape. E’Yvonne Charley, Dan Charley’s wife, testified Wednesday afternoon that her husband confessed to her during a brief telephone conversation, while he was in custody. ‘“I did it,”’ she said her husband told her before he was booked into the county jail. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref15.html Texas - Police said DNA testing has helped identify some bones found in a drainage ditch near West Oso High School in 1999. Police said preliminary tests have identified the remains as those of Billy Ray Weems. He was last seen in Houston back in 1985. It took nearly a decade to identify him and all along Weems sister, Katherine Soto said she always suspected something terrible had happened to her brother. Soto was determined to do what she could to help. Last year Katherine submitted a DNA sample to the DPS Missing Persons Clearinghouse, and a few weeks ago she got a call from investigators who said her DNA sample matched that of the bones found in the ditch. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref16.html Maryland - On Thursday, Baltimore City prosecutors intend to try a 1985 murder case. At the same time, Baltimore County prosecutors are planning closing arguments in a 1993 rape. These cases are finally being heard this week, but not because of major backlogs or a lengthy series of postponements. They were solved only recently, thanks to DNA evidence. In Baltimore City, Orrell Andrew Youmanis was indicted Jan. 4, nearly 22 years after police said he raped and killed a 26-year-old nurse and dumped her body in a wooded area. Youmanis, 50, was charged after police matched swabs from the victim to him using the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System. Youmanis’ trial is expected to begin Thursday. In Baltimore County, Thomas Carroll, 38, was indicted on Aug. 28 and accused of a 14-year-old rape on Feb. 20, 1993. Police also arrested him after they found a DNA match. Carroll’s trial is slated to end Thursday. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref17.html Texas - Half of a missing persons mystery was solved Tuesday when Dallas police announced that a little girl called Estrellita is 9-month-old Dafne Morales. Massachusetts - A DNA match led police to a man they believe robbed a CVS store nearly four years ago. One of the masks believed to have been worn by one of the suspects was found at the scene and recovered by police. The mask was sent to the state police crime lab for analysis. Texas - Wrongly convicted of a 1982 gang rape, James Curtis Giles said he knew the justice system would eventually work. He didn't know it would take 25 years. At a brief hearing Monday, a Dallas judge agreed with defense lawyers and Dallas County prosecutors that Giles was convicted in a case of mistaken identity and spent 10 years in prison, before his release in 1993, for a crime he did not commit. He became the 13th man cleared by DNA testing in Dallas County since Texas passed a law in 2001 setting out a procedure for re-examining certain convictions. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref20.html Montana - A man accused of robbing a woman at knifepoint in a downtown parking garage is in custody following a raid Tuesday evening by members of the Billings Police SWAT team at a South Side residence. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref21.html Did You Know? Topic: Book Review: Forensic DNA Typing, Second Edition : Biology, Technology, and Genetics of STR MarkersSince the enormously successful first edition of Forensic DNA Typing was published, the Human Genome Project has published a draft sequence of the human genome and completed the finished reference sequence. The advent of modern DNA technology has resulted in the increased ability to perform human identity testing desirable in a number of situations including the determination of perpetrators of violent crime such as murder and rape, resolving un-established paternity, and identifying remains of missing persons or victims of mass disasters. The technology has been utilized in identifying remains from victims of the World Trade Center twin towers collapse following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the President Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the identification of the remains in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Indeed, our perceptions of history have been changed with DNA evidence that revealed Thomas Jefferson fathered a child by one of his slaves. This book examines the science of current forensic DNA typing methods by focusing on the biology, technology, and genetic interpretation of short tandem repeat (STR) markers, which encompass the most common forensic DNA analysis methods used today. Ten new chapters have been added to accommodate the explosion of new information since the turn of the century.*The only book available that specifically covers detailed information on mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome*Chapters cover the topic from introductory level right up to "cutting edge" research*High-profile cases are addressed throughout the book, near the sections dealing with the science or issues behind these cases*NEW TO THIS EDITION: D.N.A. Boxes--boxed Data, Notes & Applications sections throughout the book offer higher levels of detail on specific questions Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_42_apr_07/vol42_ref22.html Events and conferences for 2007 that may of interest to you include: 18th International Symposium on Human Identification - October 1-4, 2007 Renaissance Hollywood Hotel - Hollywood, California Web site: www.promega.com/geneticsymp18/ The DNA Informant is a free bi-weekly email newsletter, published by DNA Labs International. DNA Labs International is a private, ISO 17025 Accredited, Forensic Serology and DNA Identity Testing Laboratory, founded in 2004 by a Board Certified Fellow in Molecular Biology with over two decades of experience in Forensic Serology and DNA Analysis in United States Crime Labs. Our primary mission is to help our clients identify criminals within their jurisdiction by providing timely, accurate and cost effective DNA testing results. To do this we created an organization based on industry best practices from over 20 State Crime Labs around the United States. We are located in Deerfield Beach, Florida, just minutes from the Fort Lauderdale airport. DNA Labs International’s services are now available for individual cases and outsourcing contracts. Please keep us in mind as you start to consider your outsourcing needs, regular and rush cases and DNA case review. Editor: Karen Daurie Karen.Daurie@DNALabsInternational.com If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, please click on http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/remove_newsletter.html |
