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Probabilistic Genotyping on Trial: Can We Trust 
the Secret Algorithms Deciding Guilt?

Loaded on Aug. 1, 2025 by Michael Thompson published in Criminal Legal News August, 2025, page 1
Filed under: DNA Testing/Samples, Crime Labs, Blood Samples/Tests, Scientific Testimony or Evidence. Location: United States of America.

DNA evidence has long been hailed as the gold standard of forensic science—unassailable, precise, and definitive. But what happens when that gold standard is processed through proprietary algorithms that operate in secrecy, shielded from scrutiny by trade secrets and alleged technical complexity?

Probabilistic genotyping (“PG”) software promises to unravel ...

 

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More from this issue:

  1. Probabilistic Genotyping on Trial: Can We Trust 
the Secret Algorithms Deciding Guilt?, by Michael Thompson
  2. SCOTUS Announces Sentence ‘Has Not Been Imposed’ 
for Purposes of First Step Act Retroactivity Upon Resentencing When § 924(c) Offender Sentenced Prior to Act’s Enactment 
but Sentence Subsequently Vacated, by Richard Resch
  3. Fifth Circuit Announces When Initial § 2255 Petition Not Decided on Merits and Appeals Court Later Recalls Mandate Dismissing Direct Appeal and Affirms Conviction, Subsequent § 2255 Petition Not ‘Second or Successive’ Under AEDPA, by Douglas Ankney
  4. U.S. Sentencing Commission Adopts 2025 Amendments 
to Resolve Circuit Conflicts, by David Kim
  5. The Flawed Science of Cannabis Impairment Detection: 
The Need for Evidence-Based Reform, by David Kim
  6. Summary of the 2025 Drug Offenses Amendment 
by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, by David Kim
  7. Tenth Circuit Announces Motor Vehicles Are Not Per Se Instrumentalities of Interstate Commerce Under Commerce Clause for Purposes of the Federal Kidnapping Statute, by David Kim
  8. SCOTUS Announces Courts May Not Consider 
§ 3553(a)(2)(A)—Retribution—When Deciding Whether 
to Revoke a Term of Supervised Release, by Richard Resch
  9. Nebraska Supreme Court Clarifies Procedure for Crediting 
Jail Time to Multiple Contemporaneously-Imposed Sentences, by Matthew Clarke
  10. First Circuit: Prosecutor’s Breach of Plea Agreement 
Requires Government’s Specific Performance of Agreement, 
Not Specific Performance by District Court, by David Reutter
  11. The Quiet Transformation of Government Data 
into a Mass Surveillance Tool, by David Kim
  12. California Court of Appeal: Trial Court Misconstrued Elements 
of Implied Malice Theory of Provocative Act Murder Under Current Law and Reverses Denial of Petition for Resentencing, by Sagi Schwartzberg
  13. Ninth Circuit: ‘Dominion and Control’ Provision of Search Warrant for Suspect’s Computer That Lacked Temporal or Other Limitation Constitutes General Warrant, by Anthony Accurso
  14. Illinois Supreme Court Announces Conviction 
for Attempted First Degree Murder Requires 
‘Intent to Kill Without Lawful Justification, by Jeffrey Cohen
  15. AI Honeypots: Police Are Using Chatbots to Pose 
as Teens and Sex Workers to Entrap Suspects, by Michael Thompson
  16. The Arrival of REAL ID: National ID Cards 
and Internal Passports in America, by David Kim
  17. Eleventh Circuit Announces Sixth Amendment Right to Proceed Pro Se at Sentencing if Defendant ‘Clearly and Unequivocally’ Expresses Desire to Do So After Faretta Inquiry, by Jeffrey Cohen
  18. Beyond the City Limits: How Rural Sheriff’s Departments 
Are Driving the Spike in Police Killings, by David Kim
  19. DEA’s Secret Phone Surveillance Program ‘Hemisphere’ 
Sparked Internal Warnings—Then a Cover-Up, by Charles "Keith" Wampler
  20. Fourth Circuit Announces Sentencing Disparity 
Between Defendant and Co-Defendants Alone Constitutes ‘Extraordinary and Compelling’ Reason Sufficient 
to Justify Compassionate Release, by David Kim
  21. News in Brief

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