DNA Typing And Distinctive Patterns In Crime

DNA Typing
The discovery of the structure of DNA opened the realm of DNA technology and changed the way in which crimes can be solved. This is due to the fact that many criminals often unwittingly leave their DNA at crime scenes and/or the DNA of victims is carried away on the clothes of their assailants (Saferstein, 2015). Thus, by using DNA it is relatively easy to place individuals at crime scenes and discover key evidence. Before the 1980s, the courts primarily relied on testimony and eyewitness accounts as the main source of evidence (Newton, 2008). Notoriously unreliable, it comes as no surprise that these techniques have since faded away due to the reliability of DNA typing. DNA typing, also called DNA fingerprinting or DNA profiling,
It can provide both exculpatory and inculpatory evidence. Both types of evidence are equally important in criminal justice, particularly when a person’s freedom is on the line: exculpatory evidence includes any proof of an individual’s innocence, while inculpatory evidence provides proof of guilt (Buckleton, 2016).
Even years after a crime occurs, DNA analysis has proven itself to be the chief piece of evidence in many criminal cases. For example, Timothy Wilson (also known as “The Southside Slayer”) is best known for being the first to be identified and convicted as a result of DNA evidence. He was sentenced to death after DNA linked him to several rapes and murders in the area (Shaer, 2016). Another example is the solving of the famous Boston Strangler case, which was considered as a mystery for almost fifty years. Only through the use of DNA evidence could the police have brought closure to the case and linked the killer to the victims (Goldhill,
There are many cases that innocent people are incarcerated, or even executed, because of errors in the criminal justice system (Taupin, 2014). Some of these cases happened when DNA testing was not available, and others were caused by human and systematic errors. For example as Dr. Michael Naughton, founder of the UK Innocence Project, a nonprofit advocacy group that works to free the wrongly convicted, said,” People think that miscarriages of justice are rare and exceptional . . . But every single day, people are overturning convictions for criminal offences. Miscarriages of justice are routine, even mundane features of the criminal justice system” (Goldhill, 2014, p.1).The frequent and common instances of errors in the criminal justice system only further highlight the benefits of using DNA evidence. For example, DNA evidence has saved the lives of those on death row and freed others from long prison terms. Since the first convicted inmate was exonerated using DNA evidence in 1989, there have been over 300 DNA exonerations nationwide, with the vast majority since ending in freedom for the convicted (Piven, 2014). In addition to its potential to free the innocent, DNA testing can help identify a crime’s true culprit as nearly half of DNA exoneration cases lead to someone other than the falsely convicted individual (Goldhill,