Experimental or Demonstrable: Has DNA Testing Truly Emerged from the Twilight Zone - An Assessment of Washington's Response to DNA Identification
![handle is hein.journals/willr31 and id is 211 raw text is: EXPERIMENTAL OR DEMONSTRABLE: HAS DNA
TESTING TRULY EMERGED FROM THE
TWILIGHT ZONE? AN ASSESSMENT OF
WASHINGTON'S RESPONSE TO DNA
IDENTIFICATION
SARAH E. SNYDER*
I. INTRODUCTION
[P]recisely when in [the] twilight zone [must] the evidential
force of the [scientific] principle ... be recognized [?] ....
Whether the Frye or Daubert standard is used, that line is
hard to draw for DNA testing, a subject that fuels even
greater scientific ferment and controversy than the legal con-
troversy engendered .... 1
Heralded as the greatest advance in 'the search for truth,'
and the goal of convicting the guilty and acquitting the innocent,
since the advent of cross-examination,'2 DNA identification
presents the legal system with a powerful tool for determining
the outcome of criminal proceedings. After its introduction in
the late 1980s,3 [c]ourts rushed to admit DNA evidence while
defense attorneys cowered, feeling ill-equipped to confront this
complicated and novel scientific evidence that seemed to irrefut-
ably link the defendant with the crime scene.'4 Once the nov-
elty subsided, scientists and courts challenged the statistical basis
of the technology's forensic application.5
* Second-Year Student, Willamette University College of Law.
1. State v. Bible, 858 P.2d 1152, 1183 (Ariz. 1993), cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 1578
(1994) (quoting Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013, 1014 (D.C. Cir. 1923)).
2. People v. Wesley, 533 N.Y.S.2d 643, 644 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1988), affd, 589
N.Y.S.2d 197 (N.Y. App. Div. 1992).
3. Andrews v. State, 533 So. 2d 841 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1988), rev. denied, 542 So.
2d 1332 (Fla. 1989) (first appellate level opinion to discuss the use of DNA
identification).
4. James P. O'Brien, Jr., Note, DNA Fingerprinting: The Virginia Approach, 35
WM. & MARY L. REv. 767 (1994).
5. See generally Janet C. Hoeffel, The Dark Side of DNA Profiling: Unreliable
Scientific Evidence Meets the Criminal Defendant, 42 STAN. L. REv. 465 (1990); William
C. Thompson, Evaluating the Admissibility of New Genetic Identification Tests: Lessons
from the DNA War, 84 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 22 (1993); Laurel Beeler & Wil-](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/willr31&div=14&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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