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Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

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Re: Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

#41

Post by barry-cotter »

oaththrowaway wrote: post #13
stirlo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you take a life you forfeit any more rights you have, if there’s probable cause and a warrant and it can bring closure to the victims then it’s 100% acceptable.

> When you take a life you forfeit any more rights you have Does that include the state?

If we held the state and it’s servants to the same standards as the state sometimes holds private individuals society would collapse. Assange wrote about this in some documents about wilileaks. If the way things actually worked were public people would be calling for heads on spikes.

There’s no reason to believe it’s possible to run a state morally and the state enables more human flourishing than the state of nature. The universal hypocrisy is moral.

Re: Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

#42

Post by droithomme »

verisimilitudes wrote: post #2

I find it disconcerting that someone's remains would be violated due to being a murder suspect. This is one of many reasons to have your remains cremated, I suppose. It also avoids wasting space in a graveyard and whatnot. I'm beginning to seriously hear people discuss that it's perfectly okay to use DNA people submit in these ways and even that it would be okay for the government to collect trash and other things th…

I agree with what you say but more interesting to me is that the way DNA is used in forensics is pseudoscientific nonsense, along with bite and footprint matching.

As a separate issue, this guy is dead and has no ability to defend himself in court such as by providing an alibi. In the Golden State Killer case, the first "match" they found in their cold hit/blind match search (using an extremely small number of 9 to 13 SNPs) found a guy that had a solid alibi. They shrugged, kept looking, and found some other guy who didn't have an alibi. Which proves nothing given the state of cold hit against massive databank methodology combined with a bare minimum of competence at genetics and statistics. Such is the unprofessional state of so-called DNA forensic "science".

Frank Wypych, as an undisputable legal fact, is innocent until proven guilty. Since there's no been trial or jury verdict LEGALLY HE IS INNOCENT. That is the legal fact. Anyone claiming otherwise, such as the experts in this article, is lying and should forever more not be trusted to speak their own weight much less decide who is guilty of a capital crime.

Re: Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

#43

Post by wpietri »

verisimilitudes wrote: post #2

I find it disconcerting that someone's remains would be violated due to being a murder suspect. This is one of many reasons to have your remains cremated, I suppose. It also avoids wasting space in a graveyard and whatnot. I'm beginning to seriously hear people discuss that it's perfectly okay to use DNA people submit in these ways and even that it would be okay for the government to collect trash and other things th…

I don't agree at all. They're not digging people up willy nilly. They had to get a warrant. It's reasonable to have our interest in catching murderers sometimes override our right to privacy. As long as there's a reasonable apparatus for determining the balance, I'm fine with it.

I'm also not particularly troubled by DNA technology as such. If I'm going to worry about totalitarian control of society, I think it's one of the least scary technologies out there. Face recognition, gait analysis, voice recognition, financial tracking, cellphone tracking, spyware, and hoovering up social media are much better suited as instruments of instruments of control.

Re: Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

#44

Post by criddell »

rootusrootus wrote: post #24
verisimilitudes wrote: post #2

I find it disconcerting that someone's remains would be violated due to being a murder suspect. This is one of many reasons to have your remains cremated, I suppose. It also avoids wasting space in a graveyard and whatnot. I'm beginning to seriously hear people discuss that it's perfectly okay to use DNA people submit in these ways and even that it would be okay for the government to collect trash and other things th…

I have a problem with the recent practice of using innocuous places like ancestry.com as a tool to find murderers through their familial relationships. Definitely I think we need to see some more regulation there. But, as a separate issue, when there is enough evidence to convince a judge to sign a warrant, I do not have an objection to exhuming a body. I have to trust the judicial system to handle this sanely.

What are the downsides of using databases like ancestry.com to solve crimes?

Re: Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

#46

Post by jeffdavis »

iwasakabukiman wrote: post #19
saagarjha wrote: post #5

Getting your DNA sequenced is a bit like letting an app have access to your contacts: in both, your choice has consequences for hundreds of other people. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like it’s possible to undo the effects of something your friends/family might have done :/

That's a good analogy. At what point does what we're giving up become worth it to solve all these crimes? I don't have an answer, I'm just wondering. Obviously solving 1 or 2 crimes isn't worth giving up so much private information. But 10,000? 100,000? Is there even a number?

Crime is a declining problem in the U.S. and many other areas. Most of the criminals left have poor impulse control and/or are involved in gangs -- not exactly CSI material. Cops on the beat will do a good job without the fancy lab.

Re: Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

#47

Post by Data_Junkie »

rootusrootus wrote: post #24
verisimilitudes wrote: post #2

I find it disconcerting that someone's remains would be violated due to being a murder suspect. This is one of many reasons to have your remains cremated, I suppose. It also avoids wasting space in a graveyard and whatnot. I'm beginning to seriously hear people discuss that it's perfectly okay to use DNA people submit in these ways and even that it would be okay for the government to collect trash and other things th…

I have a problem with the recent practice of using innocuous places like ancestry.com as a tool to find murderers through their familial relationships. Definitely I think we need to see some more regulation there. But, as a separate issue, when there is enough evidence to convince a judge to sign a warrant, I do not have an objection to exhuming a body. I have to trust the judicial system to handle this sanely.

Regulation is only to stop harm. Who does this hurt ? I don't think capturing criminals counts as harm. It's not trust that's needed, what's not to trust ?

Re: Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

#48

Post by efitz »

skookumchuck wrote: post #11
stirlo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you take a life you forfeit any more rights you have, if there’s probable cause and a warrant and it can bring closure to the victims then it’s 100% acceptable.

> When you take a life you forfeit any more rights you have When you're convicted of it. Not before. > bring closure This seems to be a very recent thing. First off, I don't think the justice system is meant to "bring closure" to the victims, whatever that means. And secondly, if someone close to me was murdered, I seriously doubt that "closure" would make me feel any better about it.

>This seems to be a very recent thing. First off, I don't think the justice system is meant to "bring closure" to the victims,

A stable society needs a mechanism to achieve justice other than vigilantism. So yes, "closure" (and, as mentioned elsewhere, "revenge") are aspects to punishment.

There are several aspects to punishment that must be considered to have an effective justice system:

1. Deterrent - the punishment combined with the chance of getting caught should ideally cause most people to reject committing the act in the first place.

2. The punishment should protect other people from the person who has shown willingness to cause harm.

3. The punishment should be severe enough as well as proportionate to provide a sense of justice/fairness/revenge to the victims and remove the impetus for vigilantism.

4. Many people also want the punishment to rehabilitate the convicted so that they no longer pose a threat to others.

Re: Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

#49

Post by xfitm3 »

freedomben wrote: post #3
verisimilitudes wrote: post #2

I find it disconcerting that someone's remains would be violated due to being a murder suspect. This is one of many reasons to have your remains cremated, I suppose. It also avoids wasting space in a graveyard and whatnot. I'm beginning to seriously hear people discuss that it's perfectly okay to use DNA people submit in these ways and even that it would be okay for the government to collect trash and other things th…

I do agree. The "if just one person is saved" argument and "why do I care about privacy if I'm doing nothing wrong" are the worst. I try very hard to keep emotion out of arguments but those two really trigger me and make it hard to stay calm. I'm deeply concerned about the potential surveillance state that is emerging. I just read an article about a smart city attempt in Toronto that is becoming a nightmare. There ha…

Have you been to Shenzhen lately? You must swipe your ID card before buying a train pass, mandatory random police checkpoints, tens of thousands of cameras+facial recognition laser scanners. All in the name of "reducing crime". It's complete bullshit. Crime stats are pumped up and these measures are slowly introduced with little to no pushback from citizens.

Re: Seattle police use family DNA, latest science to identify killer 52 years later

#50

Post by technofiend »

stirlo wrote: post #6
verisimilitudes wrote: post #2

I find it disconcerting that someone's remains would be violated due to being a murder suspect. This is one of many reasons to have your remains cremated, I suppose. It also avoids wasting space in a graveyard and whatnot. I'm beginning to seriously hear people discuss that it's perfectly okay to use DNA people submit in these ways and even that it would be okay for the government to collect trash and other things th…

When you take a life you forfeit any more rights you have, if there’s probable cause and a warrant and it can bring closure to the victims then it’s 100% acceptable.

Don't presume to speak for victims because you're painting with too broad of a brush. My sister's killer was convicted and sent to prison. Justice may have been served but for me the day after his conviction was the same as the day before: she was still dead and nothing can change that.

There are too many downsides to putting causal DNA collection into the law enforcement toolkit. Starting with the fact the frankly anything given to law enforcement is often abused and used out of context to the fact that a false positive means anything from financial ruin to possibly a plea bargain for a crime the person didn't commit due to the abusive charge stacking prosecutors use the days.

And although it may feel righteous to you to punish the guilty it should never been done at the cost of due process. We really can't afford the erosion of any more civil liberties, IMHO.

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