Popular Ancestry Sites Being Mined By Cops For Dna Evidence

[thesometimesaint]

That is for judges over all.  That's not the judge you described.  ( a judge that thought arrest equals conviction)

 

Thought you might like this one.

SEE http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/10027268843

[hagoth7]

Thought you might like this one.

SEE http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/10027268843

 

"However, defendants routinely wait in jail for months without speaking to an attorney because Mississippi doesn’t set a time limit for prosecutors to seek an indictment. Gordon, who is facing an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit for excessive pretrial detention and denial of counsel, told a reporter that he understands the system is flawed, but he said most criminal defendants were “con people” who probably deserved jail time. “Lady, people charged with crimes, they are criminals, and they say what meets their purpose,” Gordon said. “Now they told you they had requested an attorney. They had not requested an attorney in 98 percent of the cases. You never hear of that, I never hear of that.”

 

Argh. Don't get me going on pretrial detention and public attorneys. Months can go by between visits from overly-busy public defenders, and between each legal motion they slowly file, Each time, one is left with the choice (i) to go to trial without them being prepared with the evidence needed to convince a judge (no thanks), or (ii) to plead guilty to lesser charges (no thanks), or (iii) to sign away Constitutional rights to a speedy trial and continue pacing in a small cell while they slowly get their ducks in a row (no thanks, but it can unfortunately be the lesser of three evils). My process involved almost a full year in pretrial detention.

 

That being said, I am grateful for the outcome, and for the public defender's work, even though it took a surprisingly long period of time.

 

As to the specific conflict of justice regarding public defenders, I defer to yet another example of the effective reporting of John Oliver.

 

Based on things like both of John Oliver's reports linked to in this thread, I would imagine that miscarriages of justice are considerably more common than most Americans might want to believe. I would imagine they are also more common in other nations than some might imagine.

Edited October 22, 2015 by hagoth7

[sunstoned]

Hmmm ... I'm somewhat of two minds about this.  This comes with the usual caveats: I am not a lawyer; anyone who is concerned about the privacy implications of such issues as this should contact an attorney who is licensed to practice in the jurisdiction where the questions arise.  Now that we've gotten that out of the way [sigh! ] . . .

 

If a person voluntarily surrenders something, he usually surrenders a privacy interest in the thing surrendered, as well.  And if a contract I sign says, "We'll turn this information over to law enforcement if approached with a duly-authorized, properly-issued subpoena, search warrant, or similar instrument," the government's public policy interest in investigating crime and in prosecuting criminals probably outweighs my privacy interest.  Courts have upheld taking DNA from, say, a discarded cigarette butt or a discarded soda can.

 

On the other hand, I don't think a defense attorney who says, "Hey, my client's DNA profile on Ancestry isn't just garbage.  And besides, he surrendered it for the narrow purpose of connecting with his roots and relatives, not so the government could come pawing through his surrendered data any time it feels the urge" would be laughed out of court, either.

 

It's a brave, new world, folks.  Orwellian?  You decide!

I think this might be further complicated by the fact that Michael Usry's father gave DNA to a church project.  Later the church took all of the donated DNA and other genealogy information and sold it to a for-profit company, who made it public.

[Kenngo1969]

I think this might be further complicated by the fact that Michael Usry's father gave DNA to a church project.  Later the church took all of the donated DNA and other genealogy information and sold it to a for-profit company, who made it public.

I'm not doubting your assertion, but I would like to know where you got your information.  Do you have a link, or another source?  Thanks.

[Calm]

From the article...."Years ago, New Orleans filmmaker Michael Usry's father gave a DNA sample to a Mormon Church-sponsored genealogical project [sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation database]. Its database was later acquired by the popular Ancestry.com website."

There is no suggestion of selling it.
 
My understanding, which could be quite wrong, was that Ancestry got the database in exchange to letting LDS members use their service for free. add-on:  I was thinking of a different database, not the DNA one but the family history one.  I assumed it was the same thing as I hadn't registered when I first read it they were talking about about the SMGF.

Add on from the SMGF site, it would seem it was purchased, but I am now wondering in what way did the Church sponsor the project:
 
http://www.smgf.org
 

We regret to inform you the site you have accessed is no longer available.

Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF) was founded in 2000 with the philanthropic goal of helping connect mankind. It was the organization's goal through the sharing of genetic data, to show how the similarities we possess are greater than our differences. The site was created in the spirit of openness and it is in that spirit AncestryDNA purchased the DNA assets from SMGF to further its mission and support the intentions on which it was founded. Unfortunately, it has come to our attention the site has been used for purposes other than that which it was intended, forcing us to cease operations of the site.

We understand the site has been a helpful resource for genealogists and plan to advance the original vision of Mr. Sorenson by continuing to develop tools like ethnicity estimates, matching, DNA Circles, and New Ancestor Discoveries, which are connecting mankind. There are no plans to destroy the DNA that was contributed, but have no plans to make the service available in the future.

Ancestry is committed to helping people understand their family's unique story and through AncestryDNA, make new discoveries about their family's past and cultural roots. Like the original founders of SMGF, Ancestry also believes one can have a better understanding of who we are and where we come from. Through our continued work on family history and DNA, we will encourage the same mission of SMGF in hopes of making the world a smaller, more relatable place.

 

SMGF originated in 1999 and was inspired by several conversations between inventor and philanthropist James LeVoy Sorenson and professor Dr. Scott Woodward.^[5] Mr. Sorenson envisioned the development of a genetic genealogical blueprint of all humankind. This blueprint, as developed by Dr. Woodward, would show how closely humans are related to one another, demonstrating the familial relationships between unique individuals. The collection of DNA samples and associated family pedigrees began in 2000, beginning first with Brigham Young University students, and quickly branching outside of Utah, then to the rest of the world.

In 2003, SMGF moved its operations from the Brigham Young University campus to Salt Lake City, Utah. SMGF also outsourced all of its laboratory work to Sorenson Genomics, freeing researchers to create a publicly available online repository. This repository was known as the Sorenson Database.

By 2012, SMGF had collected more than 100,000 DNA samples and familial pedigrees from donors around the world, all of which were available in the Sorenson Database.

 

http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Sorenson_Molecular_Genealogy_Foundation

 

Besides being hosted at BYU for a few years, I can't find any suggestion it was church sponsored.

Edited October 26, 2015 by Calm

[Calm]

http://www.ancestryinsider.org/2015/05/ancestrydna-negative-publicity.html

 

Let me offer one clarification to the story. I’m doubtful that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called the Mormon Church in the article, sponsored a project to give DNA samples to Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation. To be sure, there are numerous connections between the two. Sorenson Molecular was founded and financed by wealthy Church member, James L. Sorenson. It was started at Brigham Young University, which is owned by the Church. It was the subject of a news story in the Church News, an official publication of the Church. (See “Unlocking DNA.” The article states that “The foundation has no connection with the Church.”) I gave my sample to Sorenson at a meeting of a local genealogical society held monthly inside one of the Church’s buildings. Maybe there was support of Sorenson’s project by individual Church leaders, but it sounds uncharacteristic for the Church to have officially sponsored this project.

 

[Calm]

http://www.newsmax.com/US/dna-police-ancestry-com-mormon-church/2015/10/19/id/696990/

This appears to be a more detailed article than the Advocate's story that was the source of the above one, though it repeats the claim that the Church sponsored the database or encouraged people to submit their DNA by linking back to the original article which did not provide documentation (I can easily see members, including FHC consultants telling people about the database and encouraging them to use it but I don't know if that counts as "sponsoring"*** and it has some claims that contradict the original story as indicated by the blog i post below:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/how-private-dna-data-led-idaho-cops-wild-goose-chase-and-linked-innocent-man-20

****In the comments in the link in the previous post one man claims he got his kit at the local FHC, they were sitting on a table and everyone was encouraged to take one.

We had nonmembers working at our FHC in Kansas, I was the only member consultant for my shift. Apparently the rule was there had to be at least one member for each shift, iirc, and that was the way it was for all shifts, twice as many nonmember consultants as members. Still even if that FHC was manned mainly by nonmembers, it was overseen and held in church owned buildings and it was church own microfilm that was being used, so I am not claiming it was not church sponsored.

 

I am just wondering if actions taken by volunteers are extended to the organization they volunteer for and if encouraging people to participate is "sponsorship"...I always imagined it would require funding to be a sponsor.  We have tons of people handing out information for our FairMormon conferences for us but none of them are sponsors unless they choose to donate a certain amount or more of money towards FM.  I assume this is standard.  Just because our conferences get written up on the Church News does not indicate we are sponsored at all by the Church (since they don't fund us contrary to some claims).

Edited October 26, 2015 by Calm

[Calm]

Another article trying to determine actual facts in the case:

 

http://legalgenealogist.com/blog/2015/05/03/facts-matter/

 

It is true that the police submitted the crime scene sample to the Sorenson lab — now owned by Ancestry. It’s true that the lab disclosed there were matches, including one close match. 

It is not true that the police simply asked Ancestry to hand over the identifying information about the close match and that Ancestry simply gave it to the police when they asked. 

What really happened is that the police went to a judge, presented the information that they had, and got a court order directing Ancestry to hand over the identifying information about the match. That’s clear in the New Orleans newspaper story the EFF story is supposed to be based on.7

All that the lab simply gave the police was the fact that there was a match. No names. No addresses. No identifying information. The identifying information was not given to police until a court ordered that it be given.

Score one in this round for the Constitution: the police did exactly what they should do, and went to a judge; Ancestry did exactly what it should do, and refused to hand over the information without a court order from the judge.

When they got the information about the close match, the police didn’t run right out and arrest the person whose DNA was sampled. He didn’t fit the profile of the likely killer. Instead, they began an investigation into the closest male relatives of the match.

And they found one who was definitely a person of interest. It wasn’t just, as the EFF report says, that he had Facebook friends from the area where the killing had occurred or that he was a movie maker whose films depicted violent killings.

The police also confirmed that the person of interest — Michael Usry — had two sisters who had attended school in the area of the killing not long after the killing. They confirmed that he was of an age to have been in the area at the time. Others involved in the case had identified a “Mike” as involved and had given a physical description. Michael Usry is known as “Mike” and he generally matched the physical description.

Armed with this information, the police did not run right out and arrest Usry. Instead, they took their information to another judge and asked for another court order: one that would compel this person of interest to provide a DNA sample to compare specifically to the crime scene sample.

You see, the police knew darned good and well that you can’t make a positive one-to-one identification based on genetic genealogy testing. We, in genetic genealogy DNA tests, look for markers that make us like other people. The police, in forensic DNA tests, look for markers that make us unique — that set us apart from everyone else.

The judge gave the police the warrant they asked for, they got the DNA sample from the person of interest, they did the one-to-one comparison the law would require as proof of identity — and it cleared the filmmaker. 

Score one for the Constitution — and for science — here too.

Usry was never arrested.

He was never charged.

He was never jailed for a single moment.

The science cleared him of involvement in the crime.

And every step of this case was reviewed by and passed on by a neutral and objective judge. None of his private data, or his father’s private data as the person who took the genetic genealogy test, was simply handed over to police. A judge ordered everything that was done. All of that is also clear in the news article the EFF piece is supposed to be based on.

So let me repeat, again, what I said back when this story first broke:

If the police have probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and that you committed it, they can walk into any judge’s office in this country and get a search warrant that will let them pick you up, trot you down to the nearest medical facility, and take whatever blood or saliva they want for a DNA sample and they’ll use their own lab, not that from a genetic genealogy company, to do the tests they want.

So when that cousin asks you, once again, whether his genetic genealogy test can be used by the police, remind him, once again, that except in really extraordinary cases where the crime is very serious and the police have no clues at all, the chances that the police are going to turn to genealogy DNA databanks are pretty slim.

This Big Easy case shows that using genetic genealogy tests isn’t easy for the police. Our tests are so different from what the police need for a criminal case that, quite frankly, the police don’t particularly want our results — and when they have probable cause to think we’ve committed a crime, they don’t need them.

 

Edited October 26, 2015 by Calm

[Robert F. Smith]

Argh. Don't get me going on pretrial detention and public attorneys. Months can go by between visits from overly-busy public defenders, and between each legal motion they slowly file, Each time, one is left with the choice (i) to go to trial without them being prepared with the evidence needed to convince a judge (no thanks), or (ii) to plead guilty to lesser charges (no thanks), or (iii) to sign away Constitutional rights to a speedy trial and continue pacing in a small cell while they slowly get their ducks in a row (no thanks, but it can unfortunately be the lesser of three evils). My process involved almost a full year in pretrial detention.

 

That being said, I am grateful for the outcome, and for the public defender's work, even though it took a surprisingly long period of time.

 

As to the specific conflict of justice regarding public defenders, I defer to yet another example of the effective reporting of John Oliver.

 

Based on things like both of John Oliver's reports linked to in this thread, I would imagine that miscarriages of justice are considerably more common than most Americans might want to believe. I would imagine they are also more common in other nations than some might imagine.

You are correct on all counts.  American prosecutors use high bail and long incarceration in jail to extort nolo contendere (no contest) pleas, which means confessing to a crime you may not have committed just so that you can get out of jail after a year or more -- even if you are innocent.  Even though it is unconstitutional, it has become a common practice, and judges allow it.  The America system of justice is broken, but  rich folk don't care since they can buy their way out of it.  We no longer have a presumption of innocence for the accused.

 

Take a look, for example, at BYU Law Professor Shima Baradaran, “Restoring the Presumption of Innocence,” 72 Ohio L J 723 (2011), online at 

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/oslj/files/2012/01/Baradaran.pdf  [Ohio State Law Journal, 72/4 (2011):723-776],  Prof Baradaran is Chair of the ABA Pretrial Justice Taskforce.

 

America now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world (including totalitarian countries), which means that we spend more than any other country on keeping people locked up.  It would be much cheaper to provide entirely free education and training to everyone who wants it.  Particularly for non-violent crimes, we need to find ways of dealing with the criminals which prevents recidivism and does not require expensive incarceration.

[Kenngo1969]

Since it is relevant to topics we have been discussing on the thread:

 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865639948/Utah-legal-defender-system-inconsistent-lacks-oversight-report-says.html

 

Here is the report, which was discussed in the article linked above: 

 

http://www.utcourts.gov/knowcts/adm/docs/Indigent_Defense_Committee_Report.pdf

Edited October 27, 2015 by Kenngo1969

[The Nehor]

In theory I agree, but we get into the fact that juries have about an 80% conviction rate while judges have about a 50% conviction rate.

 

Yeah, to be honest if I am genuinely innocent I would much rather my case be decided by a judge.

 

Maybe not in the US though. It is something of a scandal to me that we still elect judges.

[mtomm]

AJC Breakdown is a podcast that will make you shake your head at the criminal justice system and the public defender problems we face.