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37 Jurimetrics 477 (1996-1997)
The Forensic DNA Endgame

handle is hein.journals/juraba37 and id is 501 raw text is: THE FORENSIC DNA ENDGAME N.E. Morton* ABSTRACT: The National Research Council report on DNA evidence left a few unsolved problems, nearly all at the level of forensic assimilation of established scientific principles. This article reviews the major post-NRC topics: the theoretical framework, the coincidence test for unrelated suspect and evidentiary sample, the kinship test for pairs from the same subpopulation, alternative hypotheses, Bayesian analysis, multiple culprits or suspects, and what remains to be done if DNA evidence is to be trustworthy and suspect trawls are to be efficient and without prejudice to defendants. A simple solution to the trawling controversy through confirmatory markers is proposed. CITATION: N.E. Morton, The Forensic DNA Endgame, 37 Jurimetrics J. 477-494 (1997). A generation ago genetics could exclude identity of suspect and evidentiary sample, but blood groups and isozymes provided too little information to support a strong inference of identity.' Identification became feasible with the discovery that individuals can be distinguished by DNA fingerprints.2 The next decade witnessed technical advances from multilocus fingerprints to single locus profiles of VNTR polymorphisms, and most recently to short tandem repeats (STRs) amplified by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR).3 As a consequence, DNA typing became more sensitive and reliable, and the *Newton E. Morton is Professor, Human Genetics, University of Southampton, The Princess Anne Hospital, Coxford Road, Southampton S016 5YA U.K., Tel: 01703 796536, Fax: 01703 798416, e-mail: nem@soton.ac.uk. 1. GENETICS AND THE LAW 150 (Aubrey Milunsky & George J. Annas eds., 1976). 2. A.J. Jeffreys et al., Individual-specific Fingerprints 'of Human DNA, 316 NATURE 76, 76(1985). 3. For a description of these methods, see, e.g., NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, COMMITTEE ON DNA FORENSIC SCIENCE: AN UPDATE, THE EVALUATION OF FORENSIC DNA EVIDENCE 65-73 (1996) [hereinafter NRC II]. SUMMER 1997

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