A DNA Dragnet

An investigation technique wherein a large section of a population is asked or forced to

submit to DNA fingerprinting, usually in an effort to solve a violent crime. While all
dragnets seem to clash with the concept innocent until proven guilty and are on
questionable legal footing concerning the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, DNA dragnets
raise further issues of bioethics and genetic privacy. These can be demonstrated by
analysing an ongoing example of one.

As of this writing, a comprehensive collection of DNA samples from the men of Truro,
Massachusetts is underway in an effort to solve a three-year-old murder case. Christa
Worthington was stabbed to death in her home on January 6, 2002. With no remaining
suspects after three years, state and local police are attempting to match the DNA of
semen found on Worthington's body to one of the 790 men that live in the tiny Cape Cod
town year-round.

This DNA dragnet hopes to utilize DNA fingerprinting in true crime drama fashion; the
miracle of science used to crack an otherwise uncrackable case. Even understanding that
the male who deposited the original DNA evidence might have nothing to do with
Worthington's murderer, the officials are desperate for a lead. Large scale sweeps of this
sort have been conducted in the U.S. a handful of times, and are more common in
Europe, but it remains to be seen whether they are any more effective than traditional
police work.

DNA fingerprinting has been used very effectively when there are a small number of
suspects. However, when the suspects are everybody capable of producing semen in a
idyllic American town things tend to get a little sticky. The precedent setting case
occurred in Britain in 1987, and is well described in Vorbis's DNA fingerprinting
writeup. That dragnet aimed to collect 5,000 samples; the adult male population of three
neighboring towns. In the end, the killer, Colin Pitchfork, was discovered not by his DNA
sample, but rather by his attempt to avoid providing one. This is an important facet to
keep in mind when thinking about the ethical implications of this investigation technique.
We'll get back to that in a moment.

The overall response to the Truro dragnet has been compliance and support. However,
some of the residents have already refused to submit to the testing. Unsurprisingly, there
have also been several complaints to the American Civil Liberties Union. The
Massachusetts branch of the ACLU has called for an end to the sweep, claiming that
although the tests are ostensibly voluntary and thus not a violation of constitutional
protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, the implications of refusing to
submit DNA samples in this context are coercive. Police have recorded the identities and
license plate numbers of men who refuse the test, which could mean that refusing is
tantamount to becoming a suspect.
Truro's citizens and the ACLU are concerned with issues of privacy, as well. The police
claim that DNA samples will be destroyed after it is proven they do not match the
evidence initially collected, though many are skeptical. Participants in other dragnets in
the United States have had sued to ensure their samples were purged from databases, but
were met with very limited success. There are no official guidelines for conducting such
searches; participants and protesters alike are concerned that the DNA collected could be
sold or otherwise given to interested parties, such as other criminal databases or insurance
providers. Genetic discrimination is a frightening prospect that is quickly becoming more
and more realistic.

There are also logistical concerns with these kinds of sweeps. For the cost (an estimated
$80,000) and the time it will take to process all of the collected samples (the DNA testing
of the few original suspects took several months), it is unclear if the dragnet will be any
more effective than traditional, less intrusive police work. Critics of the technique argue
that such dragnets have been showed to be unreliable and fail far more often than they
succeed. A Baton Rouge, Louisiana murder case that employed a DNA dragnet targeting
about 1,000 white males proved to be moot when a black man was convicted. Recent
dragnets in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Miami, Florida and Omaha, Nebraska were also met
with similar results. In the U.K., where many more DNA dragnets have been conducted,
only 61 of the 292 sweeps have come up with significant results.

This brings us back to the the Pitchfork case. While two-dimensional electrophoresis was
necessary of linking Mr. Pitchfork to the two crimes, his DNA was not caught by the
proverbial net. He had convinced someone else to take the blood test in his stead, and it
was only after a third-party tipped off the police to this fact that Pitchfork was directly
tested and arrested. If the Pitchfork model is to be considered standard operating
procedure for success in U.S. DNA dragnets, it seems that they are clearly in violation of
the Fourth and Fifth amendments. Specifically, it pits the two Amendments against one
another. When asked to voluntary sample under a DNA dragnet, one must abdicate their
Fourth Amendment right to refuse such a search, or else abdicate their Fifth Amendment
right from potentially incriminating themselves.

With the overwhelming support and passage of Proposition 69 in California last

November, which allows police to take DNA samples from all arrestees, it seems that the
number, and acceptance, of DNA dragnets like Truro's is only going to rise. Although the
prospect of conclusively solving violent crimes is very appealing, it will take the
combined effort of civil libertarians and responsible scientists to ensure that these
dragnets do not become an abusive fixture of the U.S. criminal justice system.