The body was found in a yard, where the owners of the house thought it was a neighbor kids doll, and left it for a few days, till the weather warmed again anyway...
Now the police have created a list of all women in the area that are in their child bearing years, going to their homes and work places to demand DNA samples for all of them.
My nephew's wife's parents live across the street from the crime scene, and she was grilled about it, while still carrying her second now. They called her a lair that she didn't abort and throw the kid away, she's a big girl and you can't really tell she carrying, till they get a report from her doc.
I can see a lot of law suits against the police there getting underway, but I can also see them trying to cover themselves with new anti terror laws on taking these near draconian measures.
Your thoughts and opinoins on blanket DNA testing for a case like this???
Posted by E. Keeler (Member # 1272) on :
I do think that blanket DNA testing is a bit intrusive but then again if you have nothi ng to hide then whats the problem...?
There have been a number of disturbances along the road me and my boyfriend live on- some of them were sex attacks, some fetish burglaries and general pervert like behaviour, the only descriptins given for the person are rather vague-so every male along the street has been questioned and asked if they would be willing to give DNA should the situation require it- in other words as soon as one of these attacks actually becomes rape.
In a case like this I really dont see the problem with blanket DNA testing.
Posted by E. Keeler (Member # 1272) on :
However I forgot to say that it was wrong for the police to accuse anybody of lying and specifically accusing a pregnant woman of aborting her child and throwing it away is just sick.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"I do think that blanket DNA testing is a bit intrusive but then again if you have nothi ng to hide then whats the problem...?"
So, if you have nothing to hide, you should just go along with any measure, no matter how draconian or intrusive, to solve a crime (a horrific one, admittedly) you have nothing to do with?
You know what that leads to? A reversal of the "innocent until proven guilty" principle and the abolition of due process, aka YOUR RIGHTS as a suspect. THAT is the problem with blanket screening.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I agree with Cartman.
Why not have everyone fingerprinted and mug-shots taken of everyone as well? Mabye everyone should carry travel papers stating your state-apporved reason for driving trough town?
The burden of proof MUST remain with the prosecution if our criminal justice system is to work at all.
Besides, as the states reviewing Death Row convictions can readily tell you, mistakes happen periodically with state's evidence and who's to oversee the honest use of your DNA sample?
Posted by E. Keeler (Member # 1272) on :
who's to oversee the honest use of any information you give about yourself, how many times have a company/bank/website given out your details to somebody else, and who's to say what is done with those reams of information-the the Ian Huntley case of recent news shows some of the majoe flaws in the data protection act.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
What stops the government from down the track using your dna profile to determine what privalages you should receive? From letting employers use your DNA profile as another prerequisite for a job? From people planting evidence at crime scene as DNA evidence becomes the sole object of evidence? From people tracking your wear-abouts? From maybe even people cloning you against your wishes? These things aren't out of the realm of possibility. Then we may even get segregation of people based on their genes and maybe only allowing people of specific genetic profiles from conceiving babies? This does sound like science fiction - but it doesn't take long for science fiction to turn into science fact.
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
70 years ago, the usual police response was to have a dragnet and round-up anybody looking remotely suspicious. After roughing them up, if nobody confessed, they would be let go and a new group rounded up. It tended to go along with the vagrancy laws.
Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :
Do we have a source on these "mandatory" DNA tests?
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
DaWoozle: "70 years ago, the usual police response was to have a dragnet and round-up anybody looking remotely suspicious."
70 years ago, fighter pilots could fly in war planes painted in a purple-pink giraffe pattern. They were also entitled to about two half-pints of hard liquor each day of battle.
Things were more fun 70 years ago.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Even if you looked suspicious.....
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
quote:They were also entitled to about two half-pints of hard liquor each day of battle.
Now they just get uppers, much easier to carry.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Let's say the police were trying to match DNA from a rape. They could ask all men in a town to voluntarily provide DNA samples. Of course, the real rapist or anyone else who had committed a similar crime would try to avoid giving a true sample. In addition, any one who didn't give a sample out of a fear of the government abusing its powers, such as Andrew and Cartman, would likely be considered a suspect as well. You can't win. Any attempt to exercise your civil right to privacy raises suspicions about you.
Doesn't the UK already have a DNA database of some kind? I thought I read once that anyone arrested for any offense is put into the database.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote: Doesn't the UK already have a DNA database of some kind? I thought I read once that anyone arrested for any offense is put into the database.
Yeah, we have a centralised database of all evidence such as DNA, fingerprints, etc from convicted criminals. This may be collected from any person who has been arested by the police according to the rules in the Police And Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984. Any evidence of this type on those who haven't been convicted must be destroyed.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
And TPTB are in 100% compliance of this, right?
I guess the police have backed off a little, law suits scare a cash starved municipality....
Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :
"Guilty until proven innocent" is a fact of life for many people these days. As a teacher I was fingerprinted and had a background check before I was ever allowed into a school. I was guilty of any crime until they proved otherwise.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
****UPDATE****
It turns out that it was my nephew's sister-in-law that did the deed......
Her DNA was already on file from her earlier crimes against society and matched up.
They asked for every woman of child bearing age to submit to a DNA test, which the county covered the payment for, and suprisingly only 2 women didn't get it. My nephews wife, she was seeing a doc at the time and was very pregnant, so she was disqualified, and her sister.
A search warrant was obtained, and when served she tried hiding. After the blood was taken she confessed to the whole ordeal. Oddly enough she wasn't considered a flight risk and was released.
There is a police report, from your truly, pending against her for stealing my cell phone, she has a case pending for forgery in one county, and has already been convicted of a number of crimes, including forgery in the same county.
I am in the process of trying to get the local papers to keep the pressure on the county, as some people seem to think that this girl should only get mental help, instead of jail. But she knowingly and willfully pitched the body over the fence (literally) and kept the fact hidden until she was caught anyway.
The 'experts' were not in agreement on the length of time, if any, the child may have lived after the birth, being about 6 weeks premature. But I have experience there, with my 10 year old having been 6 weeks early.
As more evidence becomes available I'll keep you all informed....
Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :