My audience for my research essay would is meant to be Professor Crowe, as well as Professor Kemeny, my science professor. Because of this, I made sure that my language and rhetorical choices appealed to professor Kemeny’s standards, so I included scientific terms and facts about genomics (the main topic of our science class as well as the research paper). As for Professor Crowe, I made sure to rhetorical strategies we talked about in class to help make my writing more compelling. 

Something in Phase 3 that was meaningful in to me was when we learned how to properly cite resources in APA research format.  It helped me a lot because it showed me how to properly cite my sources, as I was not very familiar with APA format since I usually used MLA format in my writing.  The assignment we were given was to write a research paper from one of 9 topics.  I chose the 7th topic “Investigate genomics, use of genomics in law enforcement”.  Doing the assignment helped me to conduct my research efficiently and to properly write down the information I was gathering from my sources.  Overall, Phase 3 was very helpful just like how Phase 1 and 2 were when it came to helping me improve my writing, as well as my research.

Jayden Santiago

The City College of New York

2022 Fall Semester Composition for Scientific World FIQWS 1011

Professor Brenna Crowe

Forensics: Law and Genomics

Science is an extremely important field of study.  Different types of scientific studies revolve around different things on Earth, and even beyond.  Biology, specifically, is the scientific study of life.  Biology covers a lot of topics, such as cells, evolution, elements, compounds, etc.  Genes and genetic information are especially important parts of biology.  There is even a field of study revolving around them, called Genomics.  Genomics is a field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes.  Genomes are the entirety of an organism’s hereditary information.  The reason that this field of study is so important is because of how useful it is.  Genomics gives access to important genetic information that can have a number of uses, such as genetic tests, bioengineering, and even uses in law enforcement, which is by far one of the most interesting uses of it.  So, how exactly does law enforcement use genetic information?  What does it do for them?  Well, all of it can be tied to the most basic information of genomics.

Before we can talk about law enforcement, we need to learn more about genomics in general, as well as forensic science.  Forensic science (forensics for short) is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly during criminal investigation.  Being more specific, forensics is when DNA science is applied to the legal field to determine “what happened, where it happened, when it happened, and who was involved” (Rudin and Inman 2002).  So how is this actually related to genomics?  Well, as previously stated, genomics is the study of genomes.  As technology has progressed, there have been new ways of studying certain things in certain fields of science, like genomics for example.  Due to the progression of technology, lots of different things can be done in genomics, such as phenotyping, ancestry assignment, as well as many other things by analyzing and assessing someone’s genomes.  One thing that is very interesting is full mitochondrial genome analysis, or in other words, analyzing genomes/DNA that exist in the mitochondria of our cells.

Mitochondrial DNA analysis using MPS (massively parallel sequencing) has proved to be extremely useful in forensics and the Department of Defense DNA registry.  It can be used to analyze people’s corpses/skeletal remains to identify who they were.  This method is even capable of identifying “skeletonised human remains from conflicts as far back as the Second World War.” (Scudder, McNevin, Kelty, Walsh, Robertson 2018).  It is worth noting that while this is extremely useful, there are some privacy issues.  Analyzing mitochondrial genome sequences can reveal health information about individuals or family members, so steps are being taken to safeguard genetic information and make sure that the families involved are fully consenting to the process.  Nonetheless the process is still extremely useful.

When it comes specifically to forensics,  using mitochondrial DNA analysis to identify someone is extremely useful.  In crime scenes, it can be used to identify people involved in whatever crime was committed.  There are different things that can be analyzed as evidence. 

The mitochondrial DNA team examines biological items of evidence from crime scenes to determine the mitochondrial DNA sequence from samples such as hair, bones, and teeth. Typically, these items contain low concentrations of degraded DNA, making them unsuitable for nuclear DNA examinations. (Minnesota Department of Public Safety 2021)

Let’s make a hypothetical scenario to understand this better.  Lets say, a man is murdered and his body is found by the police.  Let’s also say that the man doesn’t have anything that can immediately identify him, such as a driver’s license or some other form of id.  A hair sample, like previously mentioned, can be taken and analyzed to identify the victim.  In the same scenario, let’s say that the culprit and the victim were in a fistfight before the culprit pulled out a gun and shot the victim.  During the fight, the victim got a few good hits in and literally knocked a tooth out of the culprit’s mouth.  The tooth can be analyzed the same way that the victim’s hair was, and the culprit can be identified in the same way that the victim can be identified.  Afterwards, the culprit can later be tracked, arrested, and the legal system can take it away from there.

A real life example of this can be found in the case of Holmes v South Carolina.  To summarize, in 1989, 86-year-old Mary Stewart was beaten, raped, and robbed in her own home, and later died from her injuries. Bobby Lee Holmes was convicted by a South Carolina jury of murder, first-degree criminal sexual conduct, first-degree burglary, and robbery, and was sentenced to death.  Holmes definitely got what he deserves, but if it wasn’t for genomics, he would never have gotten caught.  At the second trial of the case, there was a lot of evidence provided that proved that Holes was the culprit.  

(1) [Petitioner’s] palm print was found just above the door knob on the interior side of the front door of the victim’s house; (2) fibers consistent with a black sweat-shirt owned by [petitioner] were found on the victim’s bed sheets; (3) matching blue fibers were found on the victim’s pink nightgown and on [petitioner’s] blue jeans; (4) microscopically consistent fibers were found on the pink nightgown and on [petitioner’s] underwear; (5) [petitioner’s] underwear contained a mixture of DNA from two individuals, and 99.99% of the population other than [petitioner] and the victim were excluded as contributors to that mixture; and (6) [petitioner’s] tank top was found to contain a mixture of [petitioner’s] blood and the victim’s blood. (Supreme Court of the United States 2006)

This, along with other evidence, essentially proved that Holmes was the one who did all of those horrible things to Mary Stewert.  Even so, Holmes attempted to prove himself innocent by naming a completely different person, Jimmy McCaw White.  Holmes intended on proving that White was actually the one that attacked Stewart, not Holmes himself.  At a different hearing, White presented several witnesses, some who confirmed that White was in the neighborhood on the say that Stewart, and some who attempted to confirm Holmes as innocent.  Strangely enough, one of the witnesses that was brought in had stated that he asked White about the incident when Holmes’ accusation first became public, and apparently White oddly acted arrogant and stated that he “liked older women”, as well as admitting to doing it and not having regrets at all.  Another witness also claimed that White admitted to attacking Stewart.  White denied the allegations and even provided an alibi.  After everything that happened with White, Holmes was eventually convicted again.  Why?  Well, the “eyewitnesses” that he brought in to provide evidence against White were unreliable.  But the main reason was that there was already lots of strong forensic evidence that proved that he was the culprit.

Overall, the case of Holmes v South Carolina ended with Holmes being convicted due to the evidence that proved that he beat, robbed, and raped Mary Stewert.  Despite his efforts to prove himself innocent, it didn’t matter because all of the evidence was there.  The case was even cited in a completely different case where forensic evidence was a deciding factor.

The trial court excluded Holmes’ third-party guilt evidence based on State v. Gregory… On appeal, the South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, citing to both Gregory and its later decision in State v. Gay. The State Supreme Court held that ‘where there is strong evidence of an appellant’s guilt, especially where there is strong forensic evidence, the proffered evidence about a third party’s alleged guilt does not raise a reasonable inference as to the appellant’s own innocence.’ Applying this standard, the court held that petitioner could not ‘overcome the forensic evidence against him to raise a reasonable inference of his own innocence.’” (Supreme Court of the United States 2006)

This all just goes to show how important forensic evidence is when it comes to convicting criminals.

To conclude, the study of genomics and genetic information, as well as Mitochondrial DNA Analysis,  is extremely important and useful not just in science, but also in law enforcement.  With forensics it is possible to analyze any DNA left at crime scenes to identify people involved and provide evidence to convict them, which was seen with Bobby Lee Holmes in the case of Holmes v South Carolina.  It will continue to be used for a long time to come, and maybe in the future there will be more advances in genomics that will allow even better methods of law enforcement to be used.

References

Nathan Scudderac Dennis McNevina Sally F.Kelty Simon J.Walsh JamesRobertson, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1355030617301156?casa_token=O114t5ps0rMAAAAA:VOPx9N_fzDs49XVlL2Y0GIXiST_XdgOO8QUAwOfFFIjt-xVeyTDm1ia4B-LP69QhC5-xXvWoNQ

Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. (n.d.). https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/bca/bca-divisions/forensic-science/Pages/dna-mitochondrial.aspx

Kleinpeter, A. V. (2021, December 08). LSU’s renowned FACES lab helps to identify everything from mummies to murder victims. https://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/louisiana/2021/12/08/lsu-forensic-science-lab-identifies-missing-persons-mummies-victims/6408194001/

Rudin, N., & Inman, K. (2001). Introduction to Forensic DNA Analysis. C R C Press LLC.

Supreme Court of the United States (2006). Holmes v. South Carolina  ]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11162601498725937144&q=genomics+forensics&hl=en&as_sdt=6,33