minu wrote:Now the defense lawyer can say the DNA evidence was probably fabricated by real criminals or police and therefore makes DNA evidence not acceptable in the courts unless the police can prove it is not fabricated. . . . . I read an article entitled "Latent Fingerprint Evidence: Fabrication, Not Error" By Pat A. Wertheim (
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/01c1e76 ... enDocument). The opinion of this article is that latent fabrication is more frequent than false individualization and an expert can tell if a latent evidence is fabricated.
I doubt a defense attorney can make an allegation that the defendant's DNA was "planted," either by the "real criminal" or by the police, and automatically get the evidence thrown out. Simply making such a charge without any supporting evidence would hardly stand up against the photos, chain of custody, and documentation that accompanies most evidence collected by police and submitted to crime labs for analysis. Of course, a smart criminal may take a few items with DNA (coke cans, cigarette butts, etc.) with him to scatter at a crime scene, but I go back to my earlier post. Most criminals are too stupid to wear gloves, even after a century of convictions based on fingerprints. What makes anybody think they are smart enough to plant DNA evidence? Some may be, but I believe the majority commit their crimes without much forethought.
Police "fabrication" is another matter. If the track record of police fabricating fingerprint evidence is any indication, there may well be crime labs with evidence submitted by officers as having been collected at a scene when it was not. For example, David Harding was known to take trash bags from outside a suspect's house, fingerprint the items inside, and present the lifts as having come from a crime scene. What would prevent a similarly minded officer from taking a coke can from a trash bag and slipping it into the evidence to be submitted to the crime lab for DNA testing?
Some fingerprint fabrications are no doubt so cleverly done as to be able to fool the sharpest fingerprint expert. Likewise, some DNA planting may be done cleverly enough to fool an alert DNA Analyst. It's something we have to be aware of. But we have to recognize that the vast, vast majority of police (and crime lab personnel) are above such activities. Evidence accompanied by crime scene photos, multiple scene officers, and good chain of custody in sealed containers should be considered reliable in the absence of strong indication to the contrary.
Pat A. Wertheim
P. O. Box 150492
Arlington, TX 76015