FBI notifies Maricopa County Attorney’s Office about DNA data errors
Jun 2, 2015, 6:49 PM | Updated: 6:50 pm
PHOENIX — The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has received information about errors in FBI DNA Profile Frequency Data.
However, the errors are minimal and will not affect many cases if any around the nation. MCAO speculates it will not have an affect on any cases in Arizona.
MCAO was notified May 28 of clerical and transcription errors in FBI Short Tandem Repeats (STR) Population Data from 1999 and 2001. An amendment is needed to account for any errors that occurred during the creation of the original database.
The FBI says these discrepancies are, “unlikely to materially affect any assessment of evidentiary value,” according to MCAO.
The data provides the basis for calculating the frequency that a particular DNA profile would be found within a given population. This algorithm was created in the late 1990s and is used in crime labs and as evidence in court.
As science and technology advanced, the FBI realized it was time to update the algorithm. After updating, they found that some of the previous data had slight errors.
The FBI will announce its findings in the July 2015 issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences and include data demonstrating the minimal effect of these statistical differences on DNA profile probabilities, says MCAO.
The Phoenix Crime Lab has already found that changes to the original statistics will be minimal.
MCAO is dilligently reviewing any existing cases to, “ensure that adequate notifications are made to the courts and defense counsel in order for this information to be properly assessed from a legal and scientific standpoint.”
MCAO says the reason for releasing this information to the public is because as prosecutors, they have an “ethical duty” to do so, no matter how insignificant it is.
KTAR’s Cooper Rummell contributed to this report.
