Forensic DNA Consultant – LSP Crime lab

There is a gross underestimate by criminal justice professionals of the impact on citizens when they are named as suspects. A person can be named a suspect and essentially have much of their life ruined, completely devoid of any due process.

The legislature must consider enacting laws to limit the release of information related to familial searches, unless and until a determination is made relative to individual rights, and a standard of proof – probable cause.

In a sub-culture like ours in Louisiana, the patrilineal line of a male is connected to a vast number of individuals we would not normally consider “familial” from a put-us-in-the-same criminal liability basket. y-STR DNA testing, of this kind, will relate a male to every male-to-male descendant, of every male up, and back down the family tree – such that I would be the same y-STR as every male-to-male descendant of the 10th, 20th, 30th grandfather in my family tree and every decedent thereof.

This may be a tool to focus an investigation on a particular person, or persons, but to claim that this kind of DNA evidence has the resolution power of nuclear DNA, is to claim that my reading glasses are the same as a microscope. All DNA evidence is not created equal.

https://www.nola.com/article_c2c2e4c8-5839-5c75-8c70-b9aac8a93d5c.html