Collecting, Testing and Convincing: Forensic DNA Experts in the Courts

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 28, Issue 6, 1998, Pages 801-828

  Halfon, Saul ^a  

^a Department of Obstetrics Gynecology   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0032261778     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631298028005006     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. The phrase ‘general acceptance in the particular field in which it belongs’ constitutes the threshold test for admission of scientific evidence under the Frye rule: Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013, 1014 (D.C. Cir. 1923). The Frye rule has been subsequently replaced in a 1993 Supreme Court decision, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (125 L.Ed. 2d 469 [1993]), which codified a newer Congressional standard that relied more on the probative value and reasonableness of evidence, thus giving judges greater freedom. For further details and discussion, see Sheila Jasanoff, Science at the Bar: Law, Science, and Technology in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), esp. 61–68, 94–101, 211–215.
2. For surveys of this approach, see: John Law (ed.), Power, Action, and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986)
3. Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987)
4. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Trevor Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (London & Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987).
5. Wiebe E. Bijker, ‘Sociohistorical Technology Studies’, in Sheila Jasanoff, Gerald E. Markle, James C. Petersen and Trevor Pinch (eds), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (Thousand Oaks, CA & London: 4S/ Sage Publications, 1995), 229–256.
6. Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2nd edn, 1986), esp. 150 (note 13), 242 & 259–60 (note 15).
7. For reviews, see: Dorothy Nelkin (ed.), Controversy: Politics of Technical Decisions (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 3rd edn, 1991)
8. Brian Wynne, Rationality or Ritual?: Nuclear Decision-Making and the Windscale Inquiry (Chalfont St Giles, Bucks.: British Society for the History of Science Monographs, 1982).
9. Thomas F. Gieryn, ‘Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Science’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 48, No. 6 (December 1983), 781–795
10. Sheila S. Jasanoff, ‘Contested Boundaries in Policy-Relevant Science’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 17, No. 2 (May 1987), 195–230.
11. See also the paper in this Special Issue by Arthur Daemmrich: ‘The Evidence Does Not Speak for Itself: Expert Witnesses and the Organization of DNA-Typing Companies’, Social Studies of Science,Vol. 28, Nos 5–6 (October-December 1998), 741–772.
12. This particular diagram comes from a promotional book by GeneLex Inc., a private DNA-testing laboratory: Howard Coleman and Eric Swenson, DNA in the Courtroom: A Trial Watcher's Guide (Seattle, WA: GeneLex Corporation, 1994), diagram at 36.
13. For a discussion of representations of forensic DNA typing, see the paper in this Special Issue by Sheila Jasanoff: ‘The Eye of Everyman: Witnessing DNA in the Simpson Trial’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 28, Nos 5–6 (October-December 1998), 713–740.
14. On the modernist urge to ‘purify’ socio-technical hybrids, see Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), esp. 10–12, 30–32, 39–43.
15. ‘Black box’ should never be taken too literally. Others have suggested that the metaphor of the ‘black box’ is always a bit too rigid, and often includes only partially stabilized assemblages (Helen Watson-Verran and David Turnbull, ‘Science and Other Indigenous Knowledge Systems’, in Jasanoff, Markle, Petersen & Pinch [eds], We Have Never Been Modern note 4, 115–39 at 128–29) which are open to constant innovation (Kathleen Jordan and Michael Lynch, ‘The Sociology of a Genetic Engineering Technique: Ritual and Rationality in the Performance of the Plasmid Prep’, in Adele Clarke and Joan Fujimura [eds], The Right Tools for the Job: At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Science [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992], 77–114.)
16. For a rather thorough treatment of the technical issues and controversies in the grey box that nevertheless reinforces the technique's underlying power, see Keith Inman and Norah Rudin, An Introduction to Forensic DNA Analysis (New York: CRC Press, 1997), 59–69.
17. Harry Collins, in his analysis of tacit knowledge in science, discusses the tensions between algorithmic and enculturated knowledge: belief in the former suggests a preference for bio-imagers; belief in the latter, digipaths. See H.M. Collins, Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice (London & Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1985), esp. 159–160.
18. Yee (US v. Yee, 134 F.R.D. 161 [N.D. Ohio 1991]) and Castro (People of New York State v. Castro, 545 N.Y.S. 2d 985 [Sup. 1989]) are important courtroom precedents. The most important panel to raise this issue was a committee of the National Research Council: see The National Research Council Committee on DNA Technology in Forensic Science, DNA Technology in Forensic Science (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1992).
19. Leslie Roberts, ‘Science in Court: A Culture Clash’, Science, Vol. 257 (7 August 1992), 732–36, at 736.
20. His role in the OTA committee is reported in: Office of Technology Assessment, ‘Genetic Witness: Forensic Uses of DNATests’ (OTA-BA-438), (Washington, DC: OTA, 1990); and detailed in ‘Testimony of Eric Lander in US v. Yee, et aV (24 July 1990, Vol. XVII-A), at 11–16. The NRC committee played a central role in articulating some of the central disagreements around forensic DNA typing, and in setting standards and guidelines for dealing with them. Lempert (interview, Science in Court: A Culture Clash note 21) related Lander's importance on the NRC Committee. The report of this committee is published as NRC, Science in Court: A Culture Clash note 29.
21. An early study by the California Association of Crime Lab Directors found a 2% error rate for one testing lab: Barry Meier, ‘Simpson Team Taking Aim at DNA Laboratory’, NewYork Times (7 September 1994), B10.
22. See also William C.Thompson and Simon Ford, ‘The Meaning of a Match: Sources of Ambiguity in the Interpretation of DNA Prints’, in Mark A. Farley and James J. Harrington (eds), Forensic DNA Technology (Chelsea, MI: Lewis Publishers, 1991), 93–152, esp. 142–45.
23. Eric S. Lander, ‘DNA Fingerprinting on Trial’, Nature,Vol. 339 (15 June 1989), 501–05, at 501 (emphasis in original).
24. Eric Lander and Bruce Budowle, ‘DNA Fingerprinting Laid to Rest’, Nature,Vol. 371 (27 October 1994), 735–738.
25. Bob Nelson, ‘Report to the National Research Council Panel on Forensic DNATyping’ (n.d.), at 25–26.
26. This flexibility of positioning fits well with Nigel Gilbert and Michael Mulkay's analysis of scientific discourse: Michael Mulkay, ‘The Scientist Talks Back: A One-Act Play, with a Moral, about Replication in Science and Reflexivity in Sociology’, Social Studies of Science,Vol. 14, No. 2 (May 1984), 265–282
27. G.N. Gilbert and Mulkay, Opening Pandora's Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientist's Discourse (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), but esp. 11–13, 55–62.
28. See, for instance, Paul Hagerman, ‘Expert's Report United States v. Yee, et al.: Loading Variability and the Use of Ethidium Bromide: Implications for the Reliability of the FBI's Methodology for Forensic DNA Typing’ (US District Court, N.D. Ohio, W.D., Case No. 3:89CR720, Toledo, OH).
29. H.M. Collins, ‘The Place of the “Core-Set” in Modern Science: Social Contingency with Methodological Propriety in Science’, History of Science, Vol. 19 (1981), 6–19.