Re: jury nullification, jury veto, jury pardon

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 07:12:36 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Larry) wrote:

>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ken Smith
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>FRE 901(a) is about authentication.  I can say "that's the DNA bag I put
>in the evidence locker."  I don't need to say "... and i watched it every
>sincgle second since then."  I don't even need to say "it's impossible
>someone could have tampered with it."  You need more than "but it could be
>a different DNA sample" to get it excluded.  But you can argue it to the
>jury all you like.

         With PCR techniques,  the real issue is cross-contamination
in the lab.      Because of the multiplication step,   even the
smallest amount of cross-contamination betwen the suspects sample and
the crime scene sample can give a false positive.

        Likely,  this accounts for some of the cases here in Houston,
where the crime lab reported a match,  but later tests on the primary
sample revealed with no DNA or a no match.     

Dr P