The New Technology of DNA Testing

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) deoxyribonucleic acid testing is actu in everyy a molecular duplicateing technique that tramp generate reliable data from relatively handsome amounts of deoxyribonucleic acid in crime scene samples (Warden, 2003, p. 1). The term PCR applies to a wide variety of different desoxyribonucleic acid tests, but they all have in common the fact that they isolate and copy the sections of deoxyribonucleic acid strings that vary across individuals (as opposed to the sections of DNA strings that are "conserved" or the same for all people), thereby making more DNA available for typewriting (Riley, 1998, p. 1). These variable regions are copied in a test tube that is placed in a device known as a "thermal cycler," which is itself heated and cooled in several cycles (Riley, 1998, p. 1). During severally cycle, DNA fragments from the targeted variable section are copied and the quantity of DNA available for typing increases exponentially during each cycle (Riley, 1998, p. 1). Notably, however, PCR copies can be contaminated and give inaccurate results if the initial DNA is in poor condition or is simply in addition small to provide enough DNA for PCR treatment (Riley, 1998, p. 1).

The loss between the reliability and conclusiveness of the results afforded between RFLP and PCR testing was the unlikeness between freedom and life in prison for Kirk Bloodsworth. In March 1985, a jury convicted Bloodsworth of brutally raping and murdering a club year old in

July 1984 based entirely on circumstantial evidence and erroneous DNA evidence from RFLP testing (Innocence Project, 2001, p. 1). The judge sentenced Bloodsworth to death and he spent cardinal years on death path before a court granted him a wise trial after an appeal during which Bloodsworth demonstrated that the police had withheld perhaps exculpatory evidence. On retrial, however, a jury convicted Bloodsworth again and sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences (Innocence Project, 2001, p. 1).

It was not until Centurion Ministries interceded on Bloodsworth's behalf in 1992 that he was able to obtain court approval for re-testing of biological framework preserved in the crime for which he was convicted (Neufeld, 2000, p. 1).

Centurion Ministries is a non-profit arranging that works to free people it believes have been wrongly imprisoned. on with Centurion Ministries, Bloodsworth's defense lawyer, Robert Morin, persuaded the prosecution in the case to consent to re-testing of the biological material in Bloodsworth's case given the emergence of red-hot forensic identification methods unavailable to Bloodsworth at the time of his offset trial (Rago, 2003, p. 856). Thus, in April 1992, Morin sent the victim's panties and shorts, a stick bring inside her body, reference blood samples taken from the victim and Bloodsworth, and an necropsy slide containing a semen sample to Dr. Edward Blake of Forensic intuition Associates (FSA) for (PCR) testing (Rago, 2003, p. 856).

Riley, D. (1998). DNA testing: An introduction for non-scientists. Scientific recommendation: An Online Journal. <"hypertext transfer protocol://www.scientific.org/tutorials/articles/riley/riley.html#PCR">.

Connors, E., Lundregan, T., Miller, N. & McEwen, T. (June 1996). Convicted by juries, exonerated by science: subject area studies in the use of DNA evidence to establish artlessness after trial. National Institute of Justice Research Report. <"http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles/dn'vid.txt">.

Genetic Identity. (2003). Differential lys
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