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| Emerging Forensics Field May Hit Legal, Ethical Obstacles |
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Martin Enserink The Dutch parliament adopted a law in 2003 regulating forensic DNA phenotyping, the use of DNA samples to predict a suspect's ancestry or physical characteristics. But the Netherlands is still the only country to have done so. A year after a 16-year-old girl was brutally raped and murdered in the Netherlands in 1999, forensic geneticist Peter de Knijff broke the law himself. At the police's request, he set out to determine the geographic ancestry of the murderer from DNA in his semen. That was, he later admitted, “completely illegal” under Dutch law, which at the time allowed using DNA for traditional DNA identification but not for determining race, looks, or disease risk. De Knijff has no remorse. The police were unable to solve the case, and tensions were escalating in the rural community where the girl lived. Many pointed fingers at a nearby hostel for Kurdish, Iraqi, and Afghan asylum seekers. De Knijff's analysis showed that the killer was most likely from northwest Europe, which helped cooler heads prevail. |
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If you know of a case in which forensic DNA phenotyping was used other than those included on our site, please tell us about it! |
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| Emerging Forensics Field May Hit Legal, Ethical Obstacles 25/02/2011 | Science Martin Enserink The Dutch parliament adopted a law in 2003 regulating forensic DNA phenotyping, t ... |
resources
| Cases OverviewCases Overview It is not known how often law enforcement agencies have turned to FDP as part of an attempt to identify an unknown suspect or victim; some reports claim that the method has been used in several hundre ... |
| Laws Overview Is forensic DNA phenotyping regulated?
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| Research Overview We are collecting references for papers, reports, conference presentations, or abstracts that report findings relevant to FDP. Our intent is to periodically publish an annotated bibliography that trac ... |