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Twins' DNA Foils Police
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that James and John Parr were both arrested after watches worth £10,000 were stolen from a shopping center. Police found blood on a piece of glass at the scene of the crime and traced it back to the 25-year-old identical twins through DNA tests. But James and John both denied the theft and, because they have identical DNA, it has been impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt which twin is responsible. 'The police told us that they knew it was one of us, but we both denied it,' says James. 'I definitely know I didn't do anything wrong. I was watching my daughter that night.' Now the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has concluded that it cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt who was responsible. 'Unless further evidence becomes available, we are unable to authorize any charge at this time,' says CPS spokesman Rob Pett. 'This is certainly not something that we regularly encounter.' Identical twins have hindered police investigations a number of times since the advent of DNA testing. In Malaysia last year, a man suspected of drug-smuggling and sentenced to death was released when the court could not prove whether it was he or his twin brother who committed the crime."
Which one has the cut that left the blood behind?
So DNA is the only way to prove guilt and find the truth? I remember in the old days, before DNA, they were still able to catch criminals. Maybe they should find some retired police officers to see how it's really done.
DNA by itself should never be used as the sole evidence to convict someone. It can be a useful indicator for finding suspects, but there always needs to be more direct evidence to provide a conviction. It is not just that people who don't have twins can be convicted solely based on DNA evidence, while people who do have twins cannot because of the possibility of convicting an innocent person. And that is not even going into DNA collisions or tainted samples.
Instead of resorting to third-world tactics like that, maybe the police investigators could just do their jobs, investigate the crime scene, and find some less-ambigous evidence that conclusively points to one brother or the other. Oh, and that doesn't mean that they "manufacture" the evidence, either.
Guilty until proven innocent?
...a man suspected of drug-smuggling and sentenced to death...
I'm surprised nobody has said anything about this. Sentenced to death for smuggling drugs? That's more of a problem than twin's getting away with theft and... well... drug smuggling.
You blood at the scene means you get to explain to the police how it got there. If your blood was in my kitchen, next to my wifes body, and there was evidence she fought her attacker, you don't think the police, having matched the mystery blood back to you, wouldn't want a quick word with you?
This is the way it's supposed to work. DNA is not a magic bullet (heh) for solving crimes.
So the Crown will have to use good old fashioned police work to prove the case, like finding the watch in either twin's possession and/or fingerprints on the broken glass. Even genetic twins have different fingerprints. If the Crown (or any other prosecutorial system based upon English Common Law) cannot do this, then they go free, as per the design of the system.
It's better to let a hundred guilty go free than to jail (or execute!) one innocent person.
--
BMO
... not as defendant, but as a juror.
I served on a jury last summer for a case of armed home invasion. The victim, if you can call him that, was a multiply-convicted white crack user. The victim claimed the defendant forced his way into the defendant's house with a gun, as part of a dispute over the defendant's missing cell phone following a drug deal.
The defense attorney's goal was to convince us that there was no way to determine beyond a reasonable doubt whether the defendant committed the crime, or his brother. The police did a horribly sloppy job of gathering evidence, the DNA was so contaminated that while it matched the victim, it also had good odds of matching the defendant's brother or about 1 in 5 random people off the street. The victim lied on the stand several times and showed no reliability as an eyewitness, and all the other evidence (phone calls, evidence collected at defendant's house) pointed to *some* member of the defendant's family, but no way to know who.
So we found him not guilty. Kind of a shame since the defendant probably *was* a drug dealer, but no way to prove it wasn't his brother. And the kicker: if they bring the brother to trial, he can use the same defense.
If the twins have not been living near-identical lives (sharing cars, apartments, etc), they probably have distinct bacterial colonies, and bacterial forensics (an emerging science) could be the key.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201003193
This method cannot conclusively place an individual at the scene of the crime, but if combined with DNA evidence, I think you'd have a pretty air-tight case.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
No, my theory is they are telling the truth. What they lied about ( by omission ) is that they are triplets and if they had found the third he would have admitted to the crime.
DNA has been getting relied on heavily lately to solve otherwise cold cases. States have started running crime scene evidence through DNA databases wholesale, and then running with whatever match they get, even if it's just a partial.
Think about it: if there's a one in a million chance that the DNA will match, and you have a 20 million person database, then you're going to get 20 matches. Now just find the guy who's most convenient to prosecute. Boom, instant cold case conversion!
DNA's Dirty Little Secret: a forensic tool renowned for exonerating the innocent may actually be putting them in prison
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1003.bobelian.html
Also:
New Rule Allows Use of Partial DNA Matches
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/nyregion/25dna.html
DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html
One simple rule for its versus it's
As an identical twin, I can tell you that your idea stinks. If my brother commits a crime, and I deny it, I don't think I should be charged with obstruction of justice. I don't know what he's doing at any given time of the day. I couldn't tell you what he's doing right now. He could be robbing a jewelry store for all I know.
It's called unlawful arrest. It's not legal to hold someone in contempt of court who is not a witness.
It is unconstitutional (5th amendment violation) to demand someone confess.
It is unconstitutional (5th amendment violation) to demand someone confess.
While I'm not really familiar with the justice system in the UK, I'd have a hard time believing that the US constitution somehow applies there.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
No, it's way easier than that. All you have to do is analyse their DNA, and see which of them has the Evil Bit set. I can't believe this hasn't been done yet.
ps. The evil bit in DNA is not detected by normal comparisons. You need to find a geneticist with 1337 DN4 5C4NN1NG 5K1LLZ. The median age for such geneticists is 13, interestingly.
Actually, neither will confess, and neither one did it. As it turns out they were actually triplets when they were born. The parents had to give one up for adoption. The adopted brother, through cruel twists of fate, turned to crime at a young age. Neither of the "twins" know anything about the third brother.
But, that's not the whole story. The third brother married into a well connected crime family. He did what the family wanted, but that still didn't make them satisfied with him. In time, there was resentment by some of the "family" members, and even his wife.
The wife was having an affair with another member of the crime family. One morning the third brother cut himself shaving. She took that blood, and gave it to her lover, and *HE* is the one who committed the crime.
No one in the crime family, nor even the third brother, knew there were two more people who would positively identify to the DNA match. The third brother remains unsuspected to this day, and those in his circle continue to live free, until the day that his wife finally gets rid of him, one way or another.
{sigh} don't you people ever watch murder/mystery/detective shows? Hell, even an educated background of Scooby Doo mysteries would have thought of this one. Or the old man who lived in the cabin on the hill. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Jesus. Please never be a juror.
The standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant making up "any old story", with no corroboration, to explain real evidence the prosecution presents is not enough to remove the doubt from the evidence.
I'd laugh if the defendant claimed "uhh, someone must have planted it by stealing blood from a fake donation event". The prosecution had presented evidence the defendant was unable to effectively refute.
So obvious it's been (mostly) done before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Twin
I know you're joking, but ....
As it turns out they were actually triplets when they were born.
In fact finding a "hidden" 3rd person with the same profile isn't that much impossible.
Given the small amount of tested loci finding a perfect match doesn't even require a true twin brother or triplet, but could also be someone different, who just had the bad luck to have the same DNA only on the dozen of tested loci (and could have different DNA elsewhere).
The wikipedia entry about DNA profiling mentions a case of a "perfect" random match of 13 loci among 30'000 persons.
In short : DNA profiling is a nice tool to have, when the police have a short group of suspect and wants to know who is the one who might have done it. But if you have no idea and are just hitting a database to give you auto-magically the guilty criminal, there's an even increasing chance (as DNA databases are growing bigger) , that the request might return 1 or 2 people who have nothing to do with the case and just happened to share the same loci.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Researchers have found cases of genetic matches in the FBI DNA database far more frequently than the 1 in 113 billion figure they use. Scarily enough, many states and the FBI now prohibit such genetic collision searches from taking place. FBI officials argue that, under their interpretation of federal law, use of CODIS is limited to criminal justice agencies. In their view, defense attorneys are allowed access to information about their specific cases, not the databases in general.
The same basic right exists in the UK, they call it the right to silence, or the right to remain silent, and it comes from the Judges' Rules, and pertains to rights of the defendant to not testify, and rights to not cooperate with police.
Arguably, potential criminals may have better rights there than in the US, in certain areas.
The 5th amendment of the US constitution is based on it.
But see the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984, PACE Code C.