DNA samples are not a silver bullet
May 6th, 2008, 1:18 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Le Templar
Sen. Jon Kyl
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., wasn’t happy about a recent Tribune editorial urging caution in further expansion of the occasions when government can forcibly record a person’s DNA for future reference. The Tribune Editorial Board was reacting to a Kyl-sponsored law that directs the federal government to grab DNA samples from illegal immigrants before they are deported.
Kyl publicly tried to lay a guilt trip on us opinion writers by repeating his argument that the Chandler Rapist would have been caught sooner if DNA from the current defendant had been recorded when he was deported years earlier.
Of course, a close reading of the Tribune editorial will tell you that we weren’t objecting to this specific law, but to government’s eagerness to embrace DNA as a magic tool for solving more and more problems regardless of possible loss of personal and medical privacy.
But Kyl’s main point relies on flawed reasoning – there’s no guarantee that a DNA sample would have led to an immediate arrest after the Chandler Rapist attacked his first victim.
Monday’s news about a possible serial killer in Mesa illustrates this. Mesa police have used a national DNA database to link two murders and a violent assault to the same person. But the police still don’t know who they are looking for, and Police Chief George Gascon held a news conference Monday specifically to enlist the public’s help in identifying possible suspects.
As for the man accused of being the Chandler Rapist, obviously he already was doing his best to avoid the police without fleeing the area. Even if the police had been able to connect crime-scene evidence to a name in a DNA database, that wouldn’t have automatically put a suspect in jail. Investigators still would have had to track the man down.
DNA samples aren’t a silver bullet for criminals. They are another tool for law enforcement, one that must be used carefully and never should be treated causally by policymakers.
