Page 186 - Privacy in a Cyber Age Policy and Practice

174 PRIVACY IN A CYBER AGE

DNA evidence. 116 Others argue that Americans have an inflated sense of
the importance of DNA evidence due to popular culture. However, the
same problem holds for many other technical and “complicated” issues,
for instance those involving financial transactions. The American justice
assumes that the defense will warn the jury about these misperceptions and
that good sense will enable the jury to reach the proper conclusion.
Moreover, the government’s failure to analyze many pieces of forensic
DNA evidence collected from crime scenes or other sources holds down
the clearance rate. The U.S. Department of Justice offers a regular report
on the number of backlogged evidentiary DNA cases—defined as a case
“that had not been closed by a final report within 30 days after receipt of
the evidence in the laboratory” 117 —at approximately 120 publicly funded
forensic laboratories. In the most recent iteration of this report, it found
that only 15,751 of 107,074 total pending cases, or 14.7 percent, at these
laboratories had been closed on time as of December 31, 2011. 118 These fig-
ures do not include evidentiary samples that for one reason or another are
never sent to forensic laboratories for testing despite containing potentially
useful evidence; many rape kits, for example, languish in police storage
facilities and are never sent for analysis. Estimates of this rape kit backlog
nationwide alone range from 180,000 to 400,000 cases. 119 Lack of political
will and a dearth of funding—testing one rape kit alone costs upwards of
$1,500—have prevented many evidentiary samples from being analyzed to
create DNA profiles for inclusion in NDIS, which has undermined the abil-
ity of law enforcement officials to link seemingly separate cases by matching
evidentiary profiles.
Granted, the following statement is difficult to quantify, but I have a
strong impression that much more injustice is engendered by the backlog
than by any of the other issues raised by critics. There are thousands upon
thousands of victims who do not get their day in court, for whom justice
is denied, and thousands of criminals who are spared punishment and left
free to commit more crimes as a direct consequence of the backlog (and it
seems, to a lesser extent, due to errors and misrepresentations). Neverthe-
less this issue is not often listed among the criticisms raised about forensic
usages of DNA, it seems because this challenge does not have the cache of
a major constitutional or ethical issue. It deserves much more attention.
Moreover, like other issues raised by misallocation of resources, by dis-
tributive justice, it has major moral implications.
This concern alone should be considered as providing a very strong case
for extensive DNA usages for forensic purposes.
All this suggests that finding ways to expedite DNA analysis and reduce
its costs should be granted a much higher priority in the allocation of funds
available for law enforcement than, say, long jail sentences for nonviolent