DNA WARS CONTINUE

As an attorney who for the past five years has specialized in handling cases involving DNA identification evidence, I was appalled at the misrepresentation of every court case mentioned in “The DNA Wars,” by Edward Humes (Nov. 29).

I was the prosecutor in People vs. Soto, the first of the cases mentioned by name in the article. The author implied that there was no evidence in the case, other than the DNA, the fact that the suspect lived next door to the victim and the victim’s statement to the police that “Soto didn’t do it.” In fact, the victim said she didn’t think it was possible for Soto to have been the suspect, because the suspect’s hair, under a beige nylon stocking mask, appeared lighter than Soto’s. Omitted from the article were the facts that the defendant was the only young man she had told of the Medic-Alert button she had been wearing under her blouse. The attacker, both during the assault and as he left, ordered the victim to keep her arms away from her chest. Further, the DNA evidence in the Soto case has been analyzed three separate times, each time declaring a match between the evidence sample and the DNA from Soto’s blood.

The article claims that the evidence in the New York vs. Castro case was “kicked out.” In fact, evidence that the blood on Castro’s watch was not his own was admitted and resulted in his guilty plea.

The rendition of the case of Texas vs. Hicks is the most misleading of the article. It quotes from the prosecutor’s letter to The Sciences, but blatantly omits other salient facts recounted in that same letter. For instance, Hicks had told or authored at least eight distinct versions of his alibi and his explanation about who really did it. The article implies that Hicks’ community was small and inbred, thus making his DNA pattern common, and likely shared by other potential suspects. But the prosecutor’s letter notes that seven additional suspects, including four close relatives, were also analyzed by DNA typing. No one else matched the evidence.

The article ended with a version of the Virginia vs. O’Dell case: “DNA technology shows the blood on O’Dell’s clothing cannot be matched to the victim’s, according to briefs filed in his appeal.” Briefs by the defense are hardly an unbiased source. At some point, the author chose to listen to only one voice--that of the defense.

Yes, a controversy exists. However, it is wrong to suggest that the existence of a controversy proves that DNA identification statistics are unreliable.

DENNIS D. BAUER, SENIOR DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY

County of Orange

Edward Humes replies: It seems that what prosecutor Bauer really objects to is seeing both sides of the DNA controversy reported. To respond to his specific points:

--Bauer, his forensics expert and the defense attorney all stated that the make-or-break evidence against Soto was DNA. Soto was convicted, albeit on a lesser charge, after jurors accepted some, though not all, of the prosecution’s assertions about DNA matching.

--In Castro, New York Supreme Court Judge Gerald Sheindlin declared inadmissible DNA tests that sought to match the victim’s DNA to blood on Castro’s watch.

--In Hicks, Bauer ignores the key point: Jurors were told that DNA tests showed a 96 million to 1 probability that Hicks was a killer; they never heard defense experts who now argue that the DNA evidence was far shakier.

--In O’Dell, prosecutors are fighting to keep out DNA evidence that seemingly exonerates--reversing their usual pattern. Indeed, three U.S. Supreme Court justices, in an unusual message to lower courts, suggest that the courts consider new evidence that might clear O’Dell.