[2006alum]

It might surprise you to know that no one goes to trial on DNA or fingerprints alone. 

If so, I'd be curious for you to explain what this law professor at UC Berkeley got wrong, from "Safety in Numbers - Deciding When DNA Alone is Enough to Convict": 

Cases like Puckett are part of an emerging phenomenon of "pure cold hit" DNA prosecutions in which the entirety of the government's case against the suspect, aside from his prior conviction, is a DNA profile match or a match accompanied only by general evidence, such as age or race, that limits the suspect population only to a small and quantifiable degree. These cases have been made possible by law enforcement's increased reliance on DNA databases to investigate crimes, the newfound ability to develop DNA profiles on old, degraded, and mixed evidence samples, and the modern practice of securing so-called "John Doe" indictments against DNA profiles of yet-unknown suspects."

Technically speaking, in most cases yes, there is some other circumstantial evidence. But it's really disingenuous to suggest that DNA tests aren't being used by prosecutors as silver bullets when they lack any other concrete evidence, and there's so many documented problems with DNA evidence I don't even know where to begin. 

This finding documented in the Atlantic was particularly striking:

As recognition of DNA’s revelatory power seeped into popular culture, courtroom experts started talking about a “CSI effect,” whereby juries, schooled by television police procedurals, needed only to hear those three magic letters—DNA—to arrive at a guilty verdict. In 2008, Donald E. Shelton, a felony trial judge in Michigan, published a study in which 1,027 randomly summoned jurors in the city of Ann Arbor were polled on what they expected prosecutors to present during a criminal trial. Three-quarters of the jurors said they expected DNA evidence in rape cases, and nearly half said they expected it in murder or attempted-murder cases; 22 percent said they expected DNA evidence in every criminal case. Shelton quotes one district attorney as saying, “They expect us to have the most advanced technology possible, and they expect it to look like it does on television.”

[2006alum]

It might surprise you to know that no one goes to trial on DNA or fingerprints alone. 

If so, I'd be curious for you to explain what this law professor at UC Berkeley got wrong, from "Safety in Numbers - Deciding When DNA Alone is Enough to Convict": 

Cases like Puckett are part of an emerging phenomenon of "pure cold hit" DNA prosecutions in which the entirety of the government's case against the suspect, aside from his prior conviction, is a DNA profile match or a match accompanied only by general evidence, such as age or race, that limits the suspect population only to a small and quantifiable degree. These cases have been made possible by law enforcement's increased reliance on DNA databases to investigate crimes, the newfound ability to develop DNA profiles on old, degraded, and mixed evidence samples, and the modern practice of securing so-called "John Doe" indictments against DNA profiles of yet-unknown suspects."

Technically speaking, in most cases yes, there is some other circumstantial evidence. But it's really disingenuous to suggest that DNA tests aren't being used by prosecutors as silver bullets when they lack any other concrete evidence, and there's so many documented problems with DNA evidence I don't even know where to begin. 

This finding documented in the Atlantic was particularly striking:

As recognition of DNA’s revelatory power seeped into popular culture, courtroom experts started talking about a “CSI effect,” whereby juries, schooled by television police procedurals, needed only to hear those three magic letters—DNA—to arrive at a guilty verdict. In 2008, Donald E. Shelton, a felony trial judge in Michigan, published a study in which 1,027 randomly summoned jurors in the city of Ann Arbor were polled on what they expected prosecutors to present during a criminal trial. Three-quarters of the jurors said they expected DNA evidence in rape cases, and nearly half said they expected it in murder or attempted-murder cases; 22 percent said they expected DNA evidence in every criminal case. Shelton quotes one district attorney as saying, “They expect us to have the most advanced technology possible, and they expect it to look like it does on television.”