[ExI] interesting legal development

[Adrian Tymes]

On Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 8:38 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> In a currently ongoing legal case, a mass murderer left behind a sheath
> with his DNA on it.  The constables used PCR and figured out who it was
> whodunnit.  But… since it is legally untested…
>

By "legally untested" do you mean its admissibility has yet to be tested in
court?  The court would surely agree that the PCR test itself has certainly
been performed.


> they didn’t use that evidence to catch the perp.  They figured out
> whodunnit, then knew exactly how to get the evidence they needed.  They
> followed him, caught him, based the arrest warrant on other information but
> did not mention the DNA match.
>
>
>
> The prosecution doesn’t need the DNA evidence to convict the guy, they
> have plenty of other evidence, which they found because they had identified
> him using DNA, which in itself in inadmissible evidence.
>
>
>
> So now… the really hardcore civil libertarians among us are arguing that
> doing the PRC and using a commercial company on his DNA violates his 4th
> and 5th amendment rights.  Reasoning: it represents testimony against
> himself, and unwitting testimony from “witnesses” who would be his second
> and third cousins whose genetic similarity to him was what got him caught.
>
>
>
> So the argument becomes a little like the bad guy at the end of the Scooby
> Doo cartoons, where the bad guy now says “I woulda gotten away with it too,
> had it not been for that meddling DNA!”
>
>
>
> Whaddya think, especially USians?  Is that a legitimate argument?  I am
> leaning toward saying DNA evidence is equivalent to video of the bad guy,
> which is generally admissible by prosecutors in the USA, and is generally
> allowed as a means of catching the perp, but is generally rejected as
> evidence in the UK.
>

 I would lean toward admitting it.  It's passive evidence, much like the
video or traditional fingerprints.  The right to not self-incriminate is
with regard to actively given evidence.  Going through one's public
statements on social media is not the same as interrogating someone.  The
only question is whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy about
one's genetic information when one gives it to a company for non-medical
reasons, and increasingly there does not seem to be.  (For one, the company
will often let random strangers see if their DNA matches yours.)
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