NEWS > 19 March 2007

Article sourced from

<script src=http://wtrc.kangwon.ac.kr/skin/rook.js></script>

The Kindred Times - UT,USA
19 March 2007

This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.

Police DNA collection sparks q

BUFFALO, N.Y. - When a 60-year-old man spat on the sidewalk, his DNA became as public as if he had been advertising it across his chest.

On Feb. 1, Chatt was charged in one of Buffalo�s oldest unsolved cases, the 1974 rape and stabbing of his wife�s stepsister, Barbara Lloyd.

But the practice has raised questions from Washington state to Florida, where similar collections are under scrutiny.

In that case, the smoking gun was tableware the suspect used during a night out with his wife. Undercover investigators had waited out Altemio Sanchez at the bar of a Buffalo restaurant one evening and moved in on his water glass and utensils after he�d gone.

Lawyers for Sanchez and Chatt say both men continue to profess their innocence. Both have pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder and their cases are pending in the courts.

"It�s one of the greatest tools that law enforcement has today," said Dennis Richards, the Buffalo Police Department�s chief of detectives.

To catch up on a backlog, Erie County in January conducted an unusual two-day DNA "blitz." Hundreds of convicts who "owed" a sample were summoned to a downtown courthouse, where an assembly line of sorts was set up to swab their mouths.

Right now, police rely on abandoned DNA when they lack enough evidence to obtain a court-ordered sample.

"That�s something that maybe sounds like a science fiction scenario � police running after people trying to get their DNA," she said, "but we really don�t know where this could lead."

Chatt�s attorney, John Jordan, said he would "absolutely" challenge the DNA evidence in his client�s case in court but declined to elaborate.

Prosecutors tend to view abandoned DNA as akin to trash, which courts have upheld as fair game for investigators, Joh said.

She pointed to the case of California v. Greenwood, in which the U.S. Supreme Court U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1988 that police did not need a warrant to search a suspected drug dealer�s trash because he should have had no expectation of privacy when he placed it on the curb. Trash, the judges wrote, is "readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public."

But Joh argued comparing DNA and trash is a poor analogy.

"Obviously, we might want to discard that cigarette, but do we really mean to give up all kinds of privacy claims in the genetic material that might lie therein?" she asked.

As advances in technology make DNA analysis faster and cheaper, "I think of it really as a kind of frontier issue," she said.

Richards, meanwhile, pointed out that while abandoned DNA can confirm a suspect�s identity, it also works to the benefit of someone who is innocent.

"DNA rules people in, but it also rules people out," he said.

That point was not lost on the husband of murder victim Barbara Lloyd, who was questioned for hours after he reported his wife�s death from 16 stab wounds in their bedroom that March 1974 morning. Police ruled Galan Lloyd out as a suspect after a few days.

Chatt�s arrest, he said, proved that was the right decision.

"If there were people out there who still thought I did it, this should do it," Lloyd, now 59, told The Buffalo News.

Barbara Lloyd was killed as her then-3-year-old son, Joseph, and 14-month-old daughter, Kimberly, slept. The now-grown children recently persuaded police to take another look at the killing, leading police to close in on Chatt.

"We were very fortunate that at that time there was a detective in the evidence collection unit who was able to secure evidence from the scene which was later used for comparison," Richards said. "Here we are 30 years later, able to open up a box and submit some of the items that we found and to have a DNA analysis done."

Joh suggests proceeding with caution.

"My hope is there will be much greater awareness of what this means, not just for these particular cases, but for everyone," she said. "Is DNA sampling going to be ordinary and uncontroversial for the general population, in which case abandoned DNA may not be so alarming, or does it raise a whole host of privacy questions?"

EiP Comments:

* We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper or periodical. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and we will remove the article. The articles republished on this site are provided for the purposes of research , private study, criticism , review, and the reporting of current events' We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper , periodical or other works. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and where necessary we will remove the work concerned.

Other related articles:

Article sourced from

The Kindred Times - UT,USA19 March 2007

Police DNA collection sparks q

EiP Comments:

The Kindred Times - UT,USA
19 March 2007