Patterico's Pontifications

7/10/2010

L.A. Times: Gee, Maybe Familial DNA Searching Isn’t So Bad After All!

Filed under: Crime,Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 1:40 am



Maura Dolan of the L.A. Times has an article that explains how familial DNA searching caught “The Grim Sleeper,” a serial killer who was charged Thursday with 10 counts of murder.

Familial searching has been done for years in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, but technical, legal and ethical concerns have kept the FBI from pursuing it in the United States, where California and Colorado are the only two states that have embraced it fully.

. . . .

Skeptics have argued that familial searches invade the privacy of people who happen to have a relative in the database and may violate constitutional guarantees against unwarranted searches. So far, however, no one has challenged the use of familial searching in California, and an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday that the state’s handling of the Grim Sleeper case made the group “more comfortable” with the process.

“From our perspective, if you are going to use familial DNA searching, this is the kind of case you should use it for, and the kind of precautions they took in this case are the kind that should be taken,” said Peter Bibring, staff attorney for the ACLU of Southern California.

My, my. It sounds like everyone is pretty much hunky-dory with familial searching!

Well, nothing succeeds like success. I hate to be the guy who has to remind you how Dolan and Jason Felch, the L.A. Times‘s self-appointed “experts” on DNA, had a hand-wringing article in November 2008 that whined and moaned about the allegedly horrific privacy violations involved in familial searching:

But the idea of scrutinizing families based exclusively on their possible genetic relationship to an unknown suspect makes privacy advocates and legal experts nervous. They argue that it effectively expands criminal databases to include every offender’s relatives, a potentially unconstitutional intrusion.

“There is kind of a queasiness about having the sins of your father come back to haunt you,” said Stanford University law professor Hank Greely, who supports familial searching despite those concerns. “It feels like we’re holding people responsible for the crimes of their family.”

Because the technology isn’t perfect, families with no connection to the perpetrator inevitably will be investigated, some scientists and legal experts say.

Oh, my God! Innocent people might be investigated, in a criminal investigation, just because there is some reason to suspect they might be involved!

As I said at the time:

I have news for you, L.A. Times: as with any other human endeavor, criminal investigation in general isn’t perfect. People with no connection to the perpetrator will inevitably be investigated at times.

Does that mean we should stop investigating crime? Since when do we not investigate leads just because they could initially point investigators in the wrong direction?

Understand clearly what is going on here. We’re talking about searching people who are already in the database, to see if they might be a sibling of the person who did the murder.

If there is a close enough match, then — as with any other lead based on evidence — the lead may pan out or it may not.

Here’s an analogy. Let’s say that a young woman is kidnapped, held in a home, sexually abused, and eventually released. During her ordeal, she sneaks into a room and overhears the suspect saying to someone on the phone: “Take the money to my brother James. He just got out of prison and he’s living over on Cedar St.”

An investigator could search property records databases, to see if anyone named James lives on Cedar St. If he finds one or more such people, he could attempt to learn whether any of those Jameses has a brother. He could search criminal databases to see whether any such brothers were recently released from prison.

Or, he could just do nothing, out of deference to some insane phantom privacy concern on the part of innocent people with brothers on Cedar Street named James.

Searching the database for one’s relatives seems less intrusive than, say, knocking on doors in a neighborhood where a murder has occurred. Can you believe the incredible privacy violation involved when authorities with badges and guns come knocking on the door of your home — your sanctuary! your castle! — merely because you happen to live near the murder?!?!

Oh, the intrusion! Oh, the invasion of privacy! Privacy advocates are nervous! It feels like we’re holding people responsible for living near the scene of a crime!!!!

Yet homicide detectives routinely do door-knocks to look for witnesses, and no rational person objects. What’s the difference here?

Now that we have a serial killer in custody, everyone is singing a different tune. The privacy advocates are pretty much keeping their mouths shut — and Dolan and Felch, who have screwed the pooch on too many DNA stories to count, are keeping the whining to a minimum.

I guess they hope that the next time they want to bitch about this effective crime-fighting technique, you will have forgotten about the murderer it caught.

44 Responses to “L.A. Times: Gee, Maybe Familial DNA Searching Isn’t So Bad After All!”

  1. Due to Felch and Dolan’s inept handling of DNA gathering facts, I propose a new verb meaning “coarse and intrusive gathering of DNA material (like bodily fluids) from body cavities through suction or other means: “felching”.

    ms. docweasel (8d579f)

  2. And Feinstein thought it refreshing that Kagan had no judicial experience.

    The goal posts move to allow for “being on the right side of history”. Ironically, Dolan may have been wishing for a poor outcome, in order to justify her previous comments.

    Icy Texan (7ea4cc)

  3. Funny thing about DNA, is while it certainly has some utility as an investigative tool, its real utility is in excluding the innocent.

    With today’s technology it’s possible to sequence the entire genome of a criminal who leaves behind a couple of drops of blood or other fluids… for a few thousand dollars (that will likely come down to a few hundred in the next decade, but it’s going to stay high enough to keep authorities from doing it frivolously).

    Call me injudicious, but I draw a firm inference when an attorney argues against his client providing a DNA sample (the two possibilities: the client’s guilty as Cain, or the attorney’s no good). Same way I react when a prosecutor argues against a DNA draw on one of his previous convicts: however, I don’t think the public should bear the cost of the convict’s re-look if it fails to exclude him from the crime. It’s funny how the Atheist Criminal Lover’s Union has millions to pay attorneys, but they always want the taxpayers to pay for DNA fishing expeditions, most of which confirm the guilt of the convict.

    Incarceration and the courts that assign it aren’t perfect, but as human institutions, they aren’t going to be. But neither is the human immune system, which has had considerably longer to evolve with purer forces working to improve it.

    Kevin R.C. O'Brien (ea61ea)

  4. I’m not going to express any opinion until Cyrus weighs in on this.

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  5. I think the real question here is “what would Radley Balko have to say?”

    Christian (f10530)

  6. The police got a a sample of his DNA from a leftover pizza crust. Link safe for work, scroll down, it’s a Puffington Post so no guarantee for truthfulness.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/09/grim-sleeper-dna-trail-pi_n_641035.html

    nk (db4a41)

  7. An undercover officer pretending to be a waiter in Los Angeles collected tableware, napkins, glasses and pizza crust at a restaurant where the suspect ate, allowing detectives to obtain a DNA match.

    nk (db4a41)

  8. There are no legal issues, here. The police did do their job right.

    The evidence allowed at his trial is a different matter but that will wait a while, I expect.

    nk (db4a41)

  9. Kind of a curious coincidence that the slimy idiot reporter is named Felch,no?

    John Cunningham (541617)

  10. Dolan and Jason Felch, the L.A. Times’s self-appointed “experts” on DNA, had a hand-wringing article in November 2008

    As for the IRS soon being required to scrutinize the tax records of every American, determine whether he or she has health insurance and, if not, demand he/she get health insurance:

    “Wonderful, necessary, compassionate, heartfelt, and anything but intrusive and pushy!!” proclaims Dolan and Felch. “The IRS has gotta do what it’s gotta do!”

    Mark (411533)

  11. Interesting to say the least. Did not realize how they got this guy. Just saw the headlines.

    On another note, why no post on Mesehle and the Oscar Grant trial? Were you involved in the trial and can’t comment? Just curious what your take is on the verdict and the uproar, Pat.

    Chris (6b0332)

  12. I’ve got no problem with this, but there has got to be some other evidence too, or it’s just statistics.

    DNA can winnow suspects rather amazingly and is the innocent man’s best friend. But is also capable of “jackpot” errors. Just because someone is a close match does not make them guilty. It makes them a suspect.

    Without corroboration (which the police may have but the LA Times has not mentioned) it would take a particularly dumb jury to convict. It is troubling, for example, that the murder hiatus cannot be explained, and the attempt to fill the gap with other murders with different M.O. and no DNA isn’t convincing. The lone survivor’s comment in the Times is a qualified “Maybe.”

    I’m not saying he didn’t do it, just that the publicly available info isn’t yet proof. It’s a big city. I’d also like to know how many other partial matches they got on the familial search, and how close they were.

    The high fives are premature.

    Kevin Murphy (5ae73e)

  13. Does California have Frye or Daubert?

    nk (db4a41)

  14. Well, now that Democrats are in charge–and Jerry Brown can use this to toughen up his campaign–DNA family searching is A-Okay.

    The ACLU is comfortable; all is right with the world.

    Patricia (358f54)

  15. Kevin – It is my understanding that the familial DNA was only used as an investigatory tool to identify the suspect for further investigation. The Police then obtained DNA samples from the suspect and those samples are perfect matches to the ones found at the crime scenes.
    The police did not arrest their subject based solely on the familial finding.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  16. Kevin, I heard a radio interview yesterday with one of the serial killer experts, I forget his name but I’ve heard it before. He made a number of points that will probably be in the news soon. Serial killers ALWAYS keep souvenirs. This suspect has a storage unit.

    He told an interesting story about the Kansas BTK killer. He stopped for years. The expert was asked about that and the answer was pretty interesting. The serial killer’s wife, who had no idea about his crimes, caught him one day posing in front of a mirror in women’s underclothing. She said, “What the hell are you doing ?” He told her he “had a problem” and stopped for several years. She never made the connection.

    Finally, she caught him again and told him she would divorce him, still not suspecting that he was anything but a closet transvestite. After that, he began again and finally got caught.

    This guy has souvenirs somewhere if he is the one. That storage unit might be interesting.

    Mike K (82f374)

  17. I forgot to add that the clothing he was posing in belonged to a victim.

    Mike K (82f374)

  18. The ACLU is comfortable; all is right with the world.

    Yes, but is the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals?

    GeneralMalaise (9cf017)

  19. Have Blue–

    There is no such thing as a “perfect match” — especially after a period of time. What you get are markers that line up and the more markers the better the match. This may well be a 1 in 10,000,000 match, but (and PLEASE let’s not revisit this one) that is not certainty. You need something more, just as you’d need something more than “the fingerprints on the murder weapon match.”

    Kevin Murphy (5ae73e)

  20. Mike–

    Now, souvenirs or other physical evidence (and with DNA you won’t need much) make it a lock. My point was “by itself DNA doesn’t prove it.”

    Kevin Murphy (5ae73e)

  21. “still not suspecting that he was anything but a closet transvestite”

    Mike K – You say that as if there were something wrong with it. Maybe the man had NEEDS.

    daleyrocks (1d0d98)

  22. Geeze Patterico you’re on a roll with the Lost Angeles Times. Those clowns couldn’t report a three car funeral correctly.

    Mike Myers (3c9845)

  23. There is no such thing as a “perfect match” — especially after a period of time. What you get are markers that line up and the more markers the better the match. This may well be a 1 in 10,000,000 match, but (and PLEASE let’s not revisit this one) that is not certainty. You need something more, just as you’d need something more than “the fingerprints on the murder weapon match.”

    I’m going from memory here, but as i recall, it’s a match on all 15 alleles, not on just 5 1/2 like the case we discussed here so much. No way the numbers are as low as 1 in 10,000,000. It will likely be more like 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000.

    Patterico (9aacfe)

  24. We’ve been through this, before.

    If you’re looking for heterozygous gene 111, then DNA testing works.

    If you’re looking to see which person has 15 or 150 DNA markers as a way of identifying him, that’s still just an educated guess.

    But, like I said, I think we’re good, here. The police behaved admirably.

    nk (db4a41)

  25. if the victims had been white, the LAPD would have done the DNA search after the first killing.

    predictable lefty (fb8750)

  26. On all crimes of violence, the investigators should assume that the perpetrator talked to the media, and start banging on doors…
    They do still use saps and rubber truncheons, don’t they?

    AD - RtR/OS! (392f66)

  27. prevaricating lefty retched: “if the victims had been white, the LAPD would have done the DNA search after the first killing.”

    — This is the ‘okay, they got their man, but not before ALLOWING him to commit more murders,” meme? Must you “predictable” types ALWAYS seek to blame someone other than the guilty party? Or was this just a cheap excuse to play the race card?

    Icy Texan (10bbf5)

  28. Maura Dolan is fortunate to work for a newspaper where idiocy is highly esteemed.

    Kevin Stafford (abdb87)

  29. A match on all 15 should not be controversial. If memory serves, the entire world has the birthday problem on full DNA matches (i.e., someone’s DNA will randomly match to someone else’s) but for any given individual, the odds are pretty staggering against anyone in the world randomly matching to him.

    Partial matches are a very different issue. They’re great for confirming an identified suspect, where the odds against a false match are still a million to one. They’re not so good for trawls, where the odds of a false match are a {million divided by the size of the database} to one, and the odds of a correct match are unknowable.

    Xrlq (1cd5bb)

  30. I’m going from memory here, but as i recall, it’s a match on all 15 alleles

    And, again, not information one would have reading the LA Times. I guess I shouldn’t be blaming you, though….

    Kevin Murphy (5ae73e)

  31. Comment by Xrlq — 7/10/2010 @ 2:56 pm

    If the database is all 6.707 billion people in the world, it might be valid for conviction. If it’s just the 300,000 arrestees, it’s just an investigative tool.

    nk (db4a41)

  32. I disagree that DNA databases should only be used as investigative tools. If there’s a full match and no innocent explanation, that’s pretty damning no matter how large or small the database is. The odds of a single individual in the world matching to the perp are pretty remote, and more remote still once you take into other factors such as whether the person was on the right continent, as even alive at the time of the crime (and not too young/old to have done it), not a woman if it’s a rape case, etc. That’s why I invoked the birthday paradox: if there are 23 people in the room, the odds are that someone’s birthday matches someone else’s, but that no one’s matches yours.

    Partial matches are a different matter, but even there I think it’s a matter of proper jury instruction. The Puckett case is a prime example of how a jury should not be instructed in such cases. If you’re in a state like California, where the defendant’s priors are admissible anyway, or in a state where the database is so extensive that mere presence in that database does not itself appear to be damning, then tell the jury everything about the trawl. But if you’re in a state where the priors are not admissible, I agree that data derived from a trawl should not be, either.

    Xrlq (1cd5bb)

  33. There might be a problem if certain ethnic groups are overrepresented in the DNA database. We could end up with family-based DNA lookups being exponentially more likely in some pockets of the population. One solution to that is to require everyone’s DNA be put in the government database upon death. Creepy stuff.

    Wesson (648bfd)

  34. Two things, in reverse order:

    2. I understand that the law gives every suspect the right to a full and complete defense in a court of law. However, I don’t think that is supposed to mean that tools effective in the issuance of justice should be dulled or disabled because it often renders a defense nearly impossible. As the Baretta theme song says, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

    1. Pat, this post is an example of why I view you as one of the best bloggers in the biz. You know your stuff, you don’t go off half-cocked, and you stick to your guns in the face of fire and/or apathy.

    Now, someone needs to whisper in Mark Levin’s ear that it’s “pat-er-REEK-oh” and not “Pah-TERR-rick-o.”

    L.N. Smithee (f4315b)

  35. I meant, the probabilities have been extrapolated from a relatively small sample. Maybe it’s valid, maybe it’s not.

    nk (db4a41)

  36. I’m not going to express any opinion until Cyrus weighs in on this.

    Comment by daleyrocks — 7/10/2010 @ 6:39 am

    Miley or Billy Ray? (I’m assuming you don’t mean Sanai.)

    L.N. Smithee (f4315b)

  37. So I guess we all trust the security of Jerry Brown’s DNA database DVD-ROMs. I’ve certainly watched too many conspiracy movies and Rockford Files reruns lately, but private investigators might want this vast list of Californians’ DNA for whatever reason. Really, the state’s complete list of DNA details can be put on a single USB-Stick. Oh yeah, that would be *cough* illegal for anyone at DOJ to release that.

    Grow up.

    Wesson (648bfd)

  38. Illegal searches, torture, and confessions before Miranda Rights are also excellent ways to obtain accurate convictions. This case will be thrown out eventually. The community bias of the database and the exponential effect is perverted in a huge way.

    Wesson (648bfd)

  39. Ah, the slippery slope has arrived, with oleaginous commentary to grease the skids.

    AD - RtR/OS! (f4b0b9)

  40. Ok. Let’s see a a google maps plot of a random West LA neighborhood next to the plot where the suspect lived. 4 mile radius. Every house has a dot varying from white to pure red. Redness is how likely a person at that house has of having a familiar DNA match of someone in Jerry Brown’s California Database.

    Of course such a plot posted on a website is illegal. *cough* Just sayin… *cough* “I see nothing!”

    Wesson (648bfd)

  41. Pat, it’s nice to know there are folks like you, with long memories, ready to call out cretins like those employed by the LA Times.

    Thanks again for that.

    Tex Lovera (30e140)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0817 secs.