Opinion ID: 2262050
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Determining a Match.

Text: During the Frye hearing, Porter subjected the FBI's RFLP procedure for determining a match between his own DNA and the evidentiary sample to a blunderbuss attack [9] from a number of different directions. [10] He reargues most or all of his contentions in this court, often in colorful if not altogether understated rhetoric. [11] The trial judge addressed each of Porter's contentions in considerable detail. He concluded that the method of DNA typing used by the FBI forensic laboratory was generally accepted in the scientific community. Porter, 120 Daily Wash.L.Rptr. at 503. He found some of the defense objections to the FBI's procedures to be overstated, some irrelevant, and some unsupported by scientific evidence. Id. The recent NRC REPORT has generally reinforced the judge's views. See Bridgett, supra, 120 Daily Wash.L.Rptr. at 1703-04. Neither Porter, nor the Public Defender Service as amicus curiae, has brought to our attention any judicial decision holding or even implying that the FBI's technology for determining a match (as distinguished from its methodology for calculating the probability of a coincidental match) lacks general acceptance in the relevant scientific community. [12] The case law overwhelmingly supports the trial judge's conclusion that the match technology is generally accepted. See State v. Vandebogart, ___ N.H. ___, ___-___, 616 A.2d 483, 491-93 (1992); State v. Davis, 814 S.W.2d 593, 602 (Mo.1991); Axell, supra, 235 Cal. App.3d at 856 & n. 7, 1 Cal.Rptr.2d at 422-23 & n. 7; Wesley II, supra, 183 App. Div.2d at 77-79, 589 N.Y.S.2d at 199-201; Bridgett, supra, 120 Daily Wash.L.Rptr. at 1703-04, all citing numerous precedents. For the reasons stated by the trial judge in this case and by the courts in the opinions cited above, we are satisfied that, provided the FBI's methodology is properly carried out, the possibility of a false positive match is negligible. Even if [an erroneous match] were theoretically possible... the statistical likelihood of an artificial match at all eight bands is extraordinarily low. Axell, supra, 235 Cal.App.3d at 860, 1 Cal.Rptr.2d at 426. Clinical errors are far more likely to cause an inconclusive or no match result than a false positive. Mohit, supra, 579 N.Y.S.2d at 995. Any failure by the scientists to adhere to the appropriate procedure is, of course, a proper subject of inquiry, but does not raise an issue which implicates Frye.