Legal and Ethical Considerations

Abstract

The legal system, in both the criminal and civil arenas, may well be revolutionized by the advent of forensic DNA typing. One state trial judge has written that DNA typing “can constitute the single greatest advance in the ‘search for truth,’ and the goal of convicting the guilty and acquitting the innocent, since the advent of cross-examination.” People v. Wesley, 140 Misc.2d 306, 533 N.Y.S.2d 643 (Co. Ct. 1988). A prominent professor in the field of law and forensic sciences believes that “DNA analysis will be to the end of the 20th century what fingerprinting was to the 19th.”¹ The Washington state legislature has found the accuracy of DNA identification to be superior to that of any presently existing technique,² and the Maryland General Assembly has proclaimed DNA identification to have been refined to a level of scientific accuracy that approaches an infinitesimal margin of error.³