Education is at the heart of our mission – so pgEd was thrilled that students from Duke University’s Genome Sciences and Policy Certificate Program were interested in conducting research about the state of DNA and the criminal justice system. We were thrilled to have them present their work to us ahead of our Congressional briefing that took place on March 19th, 2015.
Kudos to Duke University undergraduate students Mike Gloudemans and Nachi Shamaprasad for preparing a detailed survey of the state and federal laws related to DNA and the criminal justice system. The pgEd team found it extremely helpful in advance of the briefing, and appreciate the effort and attention to detail that went into the paper and presentation. The research was done under the guidance of Professor Misha Angrist, who is part of the faculty in the Bioethics and Science Policy program at Duke.
The students prepared both a one-page summary and a longer white paper, both available here: “Current-Issues-in-Forensic-DNA-Applications.” Their paper includes a discussion of the recent Supreme Court ruling in King vs. Maryland, a look at the issues in backlogged DNA samples, the Innocence Project, and a state-by-state analysis of laws regarding DNA collection and use. Please have a look, and thank you again to Nachi, Mike and Misha.