Somebody needs to send this article to Lacy & Garnett!

Discussion in 'Justice for JonBenet Discussion - Public Forum' started by Cherokee, Jan 5, 2009.

  1. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    DNA isn't foolproof forensic science

    http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090104/NEWS/901040380

    By Maura Dolan
    Los Angeles Times
    January 04, 2009 6:00 AM

    and Jason Felch


    In 2004, a New Jersey prosecutor announced that DNA had solved the mystery of who killed Jane Durrua, an eighth-grader who was raped, beaten and strangled 36 years earlier.

    "Through DNA, we put a face to the killer of Jane Durrua, and that face belongs to Jerry Bellamy," prosecutor John Kaye said.

    The killer, however, turned out to be someone else.

    Two years after Bellamy's arrest, investigators discovered that evidence from the murder scene had been contaminated by DNA from Bellamy, whose genetic sample was being tested at the same lab in an unrelated case. He was freed. Another man ultimately was arrested but died before trial.

    DNA has proved itself by far the most effective and reliable forensic science. Over the past two decades, it has solved crimes once thought unsolvable, brought elusive murderers and rapists to justice years after their misdeeds and exonerated innocent people. In courtrooms and in the popular imagination, it often is seen as unassailable.

    But as the United States rushes to take advantage of DNA's powers, it is becoming clear that genetic sleuthing has significant limitations:

    — Although best known for clearing the wrongfully convicted, DNA evidence has linked innocent people to crimes. In the lab, it can be contaminated or mislabeled; samples can be switched. In the courtroom, its significance has been overstated by lawyers or misunderstood by jurors.

    — The rush to collect DNA and build databases has in some cases overwhelmed the ability of investigators to process the evidence and follow up on promising leads. Some crime labs have huge backlogs of untested evidence, including thousands of rape evidence kits. In some cases, criminals who might have been caught have offended again.

    — Debates have flared over civil rights and privacy, presaging possible constitutional challenges to DNA collection and storage. Critics object, for instance, to storing DNA from people arrested but not convicted of crimes and from suspected illegal immigrants.

    [snip]

    Through the California Public Records Act, the Los Angeles Times obtained documents from five state-run and three county forensic labs in California that reported scores of laboratory errors or "unexpected" results over a five-year period ending in 2007. Labs must track these outcomes and keep them on file under state and federal rules.

    Thompson, who reviewed the records for the Times, said that "on a regular basis, laboratory personnel make mistakes that could lead to false identifications" of suspects.

    The records show, for instance, that between 2003 and 2007, the district attorney's lab in Santa Clara County, Calif., caught 14 instances in which evidence samples were contaminated with staff members' DNA, three in which samples were contaminated by an unknown person and six in which DNA from one case contaminated samples from another.


    The records also revealed three instances in which DNA samples were accidentally switched, one in which analysts reported incorrect results and three mistakes in computing the statistics used in court to describe the rarity of a profile.

    The number reported was small considering overall caseload — 3,100 over five years — but Thompson said mistakes caught by labs "undoubtedly" made up a small fraction of errors. (In fact, he said, labs that report the most probably are better run than those that claim none.)

    The leading cause of false DNA database matches is cross-contamination, Thompson said.

    The risk of DNA contamination has "greatly increased" as scientists have learned how to obtain DNA profiles from one-billionth of a gram of genetic material, according to a report last year by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in London, a group that examines developments in biology and medicine.


    [snip]

    Even the most scrupulous analyst can err when interpreting complex DNA "mixtures" — samples that contain DNA from more than one person — which turn up more frequently as labs use more sensitive tests.

    "If you show 10 colleagues a mixture, you will probably end up with 10 different answers," Peter Gill, then a chief scientist with Britain's Forensic Science Service, said at a symposium in 2005.


    In a 2005 study, U.S. laboratories that analyzed the exact same DNA mixture reported widely different statistics on the rarity of the genetic profiles of the contributors.

    Estimates of how often the DNA profiles occurred in the general population ranged from 1 in 400,000 people to 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000.

    [snip]

    Times researcher Vicki Gallay contributed to this report.
     
  2. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    Why won't Mary Lacy release the Bode Laboratories DNA report she used to issue her worthless, unethical, and possibly illegal, exhoneration of the Ramseys?

    What is Mary Lacy hiding?

    Why won't she release the report and let the public see for themselves the "evidence" on which she based her "exhoneration"?

    What is Mary Lacy afraid of?

    If the report is good enough to clear the main suspects, then it should be good enough for the rest of the world to see.
     
  3. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    Perfect Find!

    I think that this article should be sent to everyone named Mary......
     
  4. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    I doubt that Team Ramsey really cares what any expert says about DNA. They have "Psychic" Lou Smit and "PERV Karr" Lacy to keep them in sound bites for the rest of their spin lives.

    But it's a great article, Chero, and thanks for bringing it here.
     
  5. Barbara

    Barbara FFJ Senior Member

    Excellent article Cherokee. Thanks for posting it

    You should know by now, that FACTS just don't apply to the Ramsey case; not when you have Tracey, Lacy and Smit on the job! THAT is why we will likely NEVER see that lab report. Yes, Lacy has plenty to hide IMO, and I'm not just talking about that hairdo!
     
  6. Elle

    Elle Member

    Oh my goodness! Thank you for posting this wonderful article Cherokee. Maybe it could be sent from FFJ forum (?). Protecting Tricia!

     
  7. BobC

    BobC Poster of the EON - Fabulous Inimitable Transcript

    Oh yeah. Like Hair Curtains can understand it. I think I'll send a Steven Hawkings paper on dwarf star dark matter to a Bongo the chimp while I'm at it.


    Look-- Lacy is dumber than a box of spoons. She is like a walking brain stem. Send her a recipe on how to make toasted cheese sandwiches--with some tutoring she may be able to fathom that. But save the DNA information for higher intellects--like whomever is currently inhabiting the primate house at the Boulder zoo.

    Yours in ANGER
    BobC
     
  8. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    Too true. What was I thinking? That Lacy could have made heads or tails out of the article? Or that she would even CARE to know the realities behind the science of DNA?

    Mary Lacy: hair-curtained walking brain stem. What a legacy.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Jan 8, 2009
  9. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Well, I didn't send it to Lacy, which will make you happy, angry BobC, but I did post a link to the article at topix, Chero...and maimed managed to put together half a sentence about it, something like, "Oooo ooo ahh aaah me no get it...."

    Color me ashamed: :blush:
     
  10. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    :floor:

    That's a bit of an improvement over the real thing, isn't it?
     
  11. Thor

    Thor Active Member

    She looks better in this get-up than the outfits she usually wears. I vote for an improvement too.
     
  12. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    :rolling:

    Gee, Mame's IQ must have gone up 50 points since the last time I read one of her posts if she was able to string that many different words together in one sentence.

    You know, I think I've been on this case too long. I just had a vision of Mary Lacy and Mame playing poker with a couple of table legs, and the table legs won. Unfortunately, it was strip poker, and the table legs ran screaming from the building.
     
  13. Cherokee

    Cherokee FFJ Senior Member

    Apparently, in Boulder, walking brain stems are all the rage. Besides Mary Lacy, there's Michael Tracey, Lou Smit, Ollie Grey, John San Augustin ... the list goes on and on.

    Boulder is very proud of its brainless wonders. They hire them as professors and investigators, and elect them as district attorneys. You can't have rampant corruption without rampant idiotism. The two go hand in stem.
     
  14. Karen

    Karen Member



    That's why Steve Thomas had to get the hell out of there, I'm sure.
     
  15. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    Imagine that.......
     
  16. RiverRat

    RiverRat FFJ Sr. Member Extraordinaire (Pictured at Lef

    Agreed! Obviously Steve and Boulder Politics were NOT a good mix......Thank God!!!
     
  17. Thor

    Thor Active Member

    HAHAHA hand and stem! I needed that today!
     
  18. The Punisher

    The Punisher Member

    You're killing me!
     
  19. Tricia

    Tricia Administrator Staff Member

    LOL. This is why I love you RR.

    Mary Lacy is a disgrace. She is a coward. She is like a drive by D.A.

    She pops out controversial comments and declarations and yet she will not stop long enough to answer a few simple questions. Lacy shoots her mouth off then she screeches away like a gang related drive by shooting. Not caring who she has hurt as long as the target is taken care of. In the case her targets are the Ramseys and making sure she has the last word. As in a drive by shooting she does as much damage as possible as fast as she can then she does everything in her power not to get caught and have to answer questions.

    She is shameful.
     
  20. koldkase

    koldkase FFJ Senior Member

    Oh my god. That's a DESCRIPTION OF DA LACY, better known as MC LACY!

     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2009
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