by Jo Ellen Nott
The National Institute of Justice (“NIJ”) is the research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. Its motto, “strengthen science, advance justice,” informs all its activities. One crucial area of forensic science it has helped strengthen through grants is DNA research and development. Since the late 1980s, law enforcement demands for tools and technologies of DNA testing have continued to exceed what is available in their jurisdictions.
In 2018, the Forensic Technology Working Group at NIJ asked for studies that would “provide foundational knowledge and practical data” about the persistence of DNA left on surfaces versus DNA collected from individuals via bloodstains or visible fluids at crime scenes or found on victims. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory received an NIJ grant to quantify how long touch DNA would persist on different surfaces under varying conditions. Scientists at South Dakota State University then took the Lincoln Lab findings and created predictive models of how touch DNA degrades.
Issues that forensic scientists face when dealing with touch DNA are many: low quantity of useable DNA, high variability in the amount left by one person, high variability in the amount left from person to ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia signed into law Senate Bill 92 (“SB 92”) on May 5, 2023, creating the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission (“PAQC”). The new oversight group is tasked with discipling and removing “far-left prosecutors” who make Georgia communities “less safe,” according to the ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On March 28, 2023, a criminal indictment from the Department of Justice was unsealed accusing Joanne Marian Segovia, 64, of importing thousands of opioids and other pills from abroad to her home in San Jose, California, with an intent to distribute them elsewhere in the U.S. ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
A police K-9 involved in the execution of a search warrant for a 27-year-old drug trafficking suspect on March 15, 2023, in Cleveland, Ohio, was given NARCAN after an exposure to fentanyl. The unnamed K-9 was taken to Westpark Animal Hospital where he was found to ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Oregon law enforcement stopped Nicholas Chappelle on January 30, 2022, for expired tags. When the officer ran them, Chapelle appeared in DMV records as having a suspended license.
A previous suspension had expired in 2021, but the Oregon DMV database of driver’s licenses is mismanaged and ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On March 3, 2023, Governor Tim Walz signed legislation that will give 50,000 Minnesotans previously convicted of a felony immediate voting access. The bill restores political franchise to those who served their time without having to complete probation or parole.
Advocates of restoring rights to the ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On March 1, 2023, New York City agreed to settle a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of more than 300 protesters who were penned up by NYPD officers and then brutally assaulted with batons and pepper spray and restrained with zip ties on June 4, ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
Police misconduct is costing the city of Chicago nearly $40 million a year in outside legal fees. Although the city has its own in-house counsel to handle legal problems, it outsources many cases involving police violence. Defense attorney Andrew Stroth claims those outside firms are prolonging ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
An epidemic of police officers using excessive force in situations that do not require police brutality to subdue or arrest an individual in the United States has a gruesome death toll. In case after case, from Tamir Rice in 2014 to Philando Castile in 2016 to ...
by Jo Ellen Nott
On February 23, 2023, the city of Palm Beach Gardens, 77 miles north of Miami, agreed to settle with the family of slain motorist Corey Jones for $2 million dollars. Jones was shot by former police officer Nouman Raja as Jones called for assistance from his ...
