Court Opinion

ID: 9604276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:17:37.161224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:28:53.691442
License: Public Domain

Dore, C.J.
(dissenting) — I dissent. DNA testing is not rehable; it does not pass the Frye standard; and it is not admissible. In order for novel scientific evidence to be admissible in court, it must be generally accepted in the scientific community. Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013, 1014, 34 A.L.R. 145 (D.C. Cir. 1923); State v. Martin, 101 Wn.2d 713, 719, 684 P.2d 651 (1984). The novel scientific evidence in this case is DNA fingerprinting. This method of identification is based on the scientific principle that no two persons, except identical twins, have matching DNA. Clearly, the relevant scientific community accepts this principle as conceptually accurate. It follows that, if DNA fingerprinting could accurately show that a DNA sample taken from a crime scene matches a defendant's DNA, it would be strong inculpatory evidence.
DNA fingerprinting may be conceptually accurate, but it is plagued by two problems. First, although whole DNA molecules from different persons cannot match, portions of DNA recur in some persons. Second, the technology does not exist to test an entire DNA molecule; rather, tests can only evaluate individual sections of DNA molecules at a time. Majority, at 900. This is significant because the fact that one section of a DNA sample matches another has no meaning without knowing the statistical probabilities of that match occurring. Majority, at 901; see Commonwealth v. Curnin, *912409 Mass. 218, 222 n.7, 227, 565 N.E.2d 440 (1991). In the present case, accurate statistical probabilities are not available. Scientists compute statistical probabilities from DNA databases. The databases currently used by scientists, however, are not generally accepted by the scientific community. Rather, they are the subject of significant debate. Majority, at 902-03. The fact that these databases are not accepted in the scientific community is central to a Frye analysis.
As the majority states, the core concern of Frye is whether the evidence being offered is based on accepted scientific methodology.
This involves both an accepted theory and a valid technique to implement that theory. . . . any remaining concerns about the possibility of error or mistakes being made in the case at hand can be argued to the factfinder.
Majority, at 889. The inability to compute statistical probabilities accurate enough to be accepted by the relevant scientific community is not merely a "possibility of error" such as mixing up DNA samples dining an experiment. On the contrary, it is an inherent flaw in the scientific methodology, and it is because of this flaw that the majority should have held that DNA fingerprinting was inadmissible.
Instead of holding the evidence inadmissible, however, the majority sidestepped the statistical probabilities issue by dividing the DNA fingerprinting theory into two parts, the underlying theory and the statistical analysis. In doing so, the majority was able to shield DNA fingerprinting from the controversy surrounding statistical probabilities and hold that at least the underlying theory met the Frye standard. The majority then dispensed with the statistical issue by holding that it did not affect admissibility; it only went to the weight afforded the evidence by the jury.
The majority's holding is correct only in that if accurate statistical probabilities were available, those probabilities would go to the weight of the evidence. In this case, however, the databases from which the probabilities are computed are the subject of debate, and without those databases the scien*913tifie methodology is useless. It follows that the majority's holding that the underlying principle of DNA fingerprinting meets Frye is irrelevant. The theory that no two DNA molecules are identical is only the first part of the scientific methodology. The second part, a valid technique to implement that theory, simply does not pass the Frye standard.
Although scientists may develop an acceptable statistical database in the future, the contemporary statistical probabilities are still the subject of significant scientific debate. Until such time, I would hold that the testing does not pass the Frye admissibility standard. I dissent.
Utter, J., concurs with Dore, C.J.