4 Univ of Idaho Students Murdered, Bryan Kohberger Arrested, Moscow, Nov 2022 #87

[NextSprint]

Genealogical DNA evidence is like a reverse dragnet.

The FBI gets to go out into this massive pool of DNA held by private companies, and apparently override the opt-out that people select when providing their DNA.

This provides them with a massive dragnet that they can test non-CODIS-matching DNA against.

It's like taking the DNA of every person in America if there were a murder investigation. That wouldn't be constitutional, and it wouldn't sit well with the public. It is forbidden by the DOJ.

Genealogical databases without regulation have opened a massive can of worms... Regardless whether they've heralded "good" results up to now. I think the window is rapidly closing on how the FBI use them without any oversight or regulation.

Principles of Forensic DNA for Officers of the Court | DNA Dragnets

Learn more about the principles of forensic DNA, with an emphasis on collection of DNA Evidence from suspects and arrestees, specifically DNA dragnets.

nij.ojp.gov

 

[wary]

Here is a questionairre (WI DOJ)that police use to detrrmine if DNA is qualified for CODIS.
If the samples are not presumed to be perpetrators, then not qualified.

"[COLOR=var(--noir-inline-color)]DNA Evidence Submission/CODIS Eligibility Questionnaire (CEQ)[/COLOR]

The answers to these questions will assist the laboratory in determining if a DNA profile developed in a case is eligible for CODIS (Combined DNA Indexing System). A DNA profile becomes CODIS eligible when it is obtained from biological material collected from a crime scene and is attributable to a presumed perpetrator. We ask that a completed CEQ be submitted whenever DNA testing is requested. If a CEQ is not submitted, it may result in a delay in analysis and or CODIS entry.

For All Cases: Please give a brief description of the events that allegedly occurred.






What evidence are you submitting for DNA analysis; and how is that evidence associated with the crime scene, the victim, or the suspect? If it is not immediately obvious (just two examples - a sexual assault kit and blood on a broken window at a burglary), please include why you think a DNA profile will assist in your investigation. If clothing or bedding is being submitted, tell us where it was taken from.





For Sexual Assault Cases

To improve our service, we ask that you tell us the following information:
1. What type of contact allegedly occurred (oral, vaginal, anal penetration, penis, finger, mouth, with or without ejaculation)?


2. Did the victim have consensual sexual relations any time in the five days (120 hours) prior to the incident or any time between the incident and the evidence collection? —
If this answer is yes, an elimination standard from the consensual partner is needed to help us differentiate between DNA profiles which are legitimately present and those of the perpetrator. Only foreign DNA profiles may be uploaded to CODIS (i.e. those profiles not from a victim or a consensual partner).

3. What is the relationship between the victim and the suspect,and did they live together?


For Property Crimes & Other Offenses (e.g. Burglary, Robbery, Felon in Possession, Controlled Substances, etc.)
1. Do the items being submitted belong to the victim or a resident or an owner of the property? —

2. Did the victim, a resident, or an owner handle the evidence at any time? —
If this answer is yes, standard samples from the victims/residents/owners who handled the evidence will be needed for elimination purposes prior to entry of any profiles into CODIS.

3. Can the victim, resident, and owner of the property be eliminated as the source of the item? —
(For example, a cigarette butt from a home where no one smokes. A hat that the homeowner denies owning.)
If yes, please explain what eliminates them as a source.



4. For possession-related crimes, where were the items recovered from? If the item was recovered directly from the suspect’s person or possessions, please be specific.



5. For controlled substance cases, if DNA analysis does not identify the known suspect on any of the submitted items, will the DA charge any other person whose DNA ends up being identified on the items? — "

My first speculation is that the other ‘foreign DNA’ fails the ‘attributable to a presumed perpetrator’ test.

 

[schooling]

I see the DNA in this case a little differently. Nothing about this process should be secret.

I have also seen cases where DNA is given for one purpose and then used for another and that's a violation of the 4th amendment. It seems to me that BK's distant family member gave their DNA to a database for some other reason than identifying a family member for a crime. I even wonder if this situation could open up the family member who gave their DNA for other purposes to liability as well as the company which had the DNA profile should BK be found not guilty. Did the family member actually opt in for LE purposes or not? If not, this opens up a whole can of worms.

For example, a rape victim in San Francisco was identified for a 2016 property offense via her rape kit.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/San-Francisco-police-linked-a-woman-to-a-crime-16918673.php

This was later found to be a violation of the 4th amendment.

https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/APPLYING-THE-FOURTH-AMENDMENT-WHEN-DNA-COLLECTED-FOR-ONE-PURPOSE.pdf

Is this situation a violation of BK's fourth amendment? It probably is.

Then there is the whole question of the technique used to identify BK:

IMO how DNA identifications are made in the future for criminal justice are going to need to be documented step by step with replicable results to be admissible in court. This process should be replicable to remove any question about exactly how the identification was made and if it was done correctly. Without this information, I don't think that the DNA in Kohberger's case should be admissible in court, unfortunately.

I don't understand why the prosecution in this case cannot get and give this information to the defense. It is a straight forward process with a beginning, middle and end. That it is finite tells me it is possible for the information to be documented even now and it should be possible for both the prosecution and the defense to send BK's DNA to another lab AND the same lab the prosecution used as well and get the exact same results from both labs. If the results cannot be replicated, then there is a problem and the DNA testing cannot be trusted. To me this is a simple straightforward question. Was the testing done correctly and can it be replicated? If not, it should not stand as evidence. If the prosecution cannot give the defense information proving the testing was done correctly, then unfortunately, it should not be admissible.

Please cite where the defense has challenged the locally pulled sheath DNA that matched (5 OCTILLION probability) to BK's cheek swab in January.

I'll sit here and wait for you to share the court filing....

There is no challenge to that DNA because that's his DNA. The defense knows this. They've seen the receipts. They've likely seen the chain of custody that surrounds the sheath that illustrates it was perfectly handled and tested locally. And that's why they wouldn't dare file anything challenging it in court, on record.

Their inquiries are around what happened to the sheath when it was presumably sent out to another lab.
But for some reason people continue to keep making this about the local sample and continue to weirdly attribute it to the defense team's arguments. Not sure if it's willful or what.

The defense isn't even directly challenging that the DNA that the 3rd party pulled (after the local sample) belonged to BK. They want to see who did the tests, their notes on how they used familial search.

 

[wendy44]

I figure that at trial, the State will bring an actual IGG expert (likely one of the amazing people at Othram, but it would delight me if they also brought in the awesome CEO of 23andme).

To use an analogy, DNA matching is easily done - all scientists had to do was figure out a way to easily get read-out of the 3 billion separate base pairs that make up human DNA. 3 billion is a large number (multiple that by 2 if you want the individual nucleotide number). But the science exists to do this, and to do it accurately, repeatedly, be double-checked, etc.

Matching existing DNA data with something else is just like that card game kids play, where they turn over a card and try to remember where its match is. Except of course, the cards are already turned over. They either match or they don't. I match 47.9% with my half-sister and 49.99 with my daughter. Close matches of that type denote close kinship - because there are 3 BILLION individual components, and at each of those sites, there are up to 1000 different variants. The average number of variants per site is unknown, but a rough estimate would be 100. So 3 billion to the 100th power (big number) and I match almost 50%? That's because my daughter, my sister and I all got our DNA from the same source (our ancestors).

IGG is simply comparing one card to other cards in the deck and finding a percentage of matches that either do or do not denote complete identity, or degree of relationship (there are statistics that govern the average number of alleles we inherit from each grandparent...)

I'm really curious to see how they're going to handle this at trial. I think one of the tweets said that the defense admits they don't intend to call the experts they brought in yesterday at trial. So they're essentially admitting that if they can't use the IGG process to get the dna thrown out, they don't intend to make IGG an issue.

If the prosecution succeeds in keeping the dna in, I feel like they might also avoid bringing in IGG experts and stick to the investigative techniques laid out in the PCA to head off potential appeals. The IGG litigation is coming, if not this case, another. It's such a powerful tool and complete game changer. Because we share dna, law enforcement does and will have access to dna without consent via someone who did give consent. It's pretty disheartening to see a genealogist testify about illegal methods because people who use it for genealogy don't want to lose this tool.

 

[schooling]

Genealogical DNA evidence is like a reverse dragnet.

The FBI gets to go out into this massive pool of DNA held by private companies, and apparently override the opt-out that people select when providing their DNA.

This provides them with a massive dragnet that they can test non-CODIS-matching DNA against.

It's like taking the DNA of every person in America if there were a murder investigation. That wouldn't be constitutional, and it wouldn't sit well with the public. It is forbidden by the DOJ.

Genealogical databases without regulation have opened a massive can of worms... Regardless whether they've heralded "good" results up to now. I think the window is rapidly closing on how the FBI use them without any oversight or regulation.

Principles of Forensic DNA for Officers of the Court | DNA Dragnets

Learn more about the principles of forensic DNA, with an emphasis on collection of DNA Evidence from suspects and arrestees, specifically DNA dragnets.

nij.ojp.gov

Not to make this political. But the current composition of our courts across the country tell me that civil liberty issues like this are going to lose each and every time to law enforcement and perceived safety. And I'm not sure what in our post 9/11 history has told you otherwise...

There's no editorializing implied or explicit in the sentences above. I am not sharing a political opinion either way.

The window is not closing and to use another analogy....the floodgates are going to open. Not close. And businesses will be built around the water that flows through it.

And when you complain you'll just hear - "if you didn't do anything, why are you worried?"

 

[iamshadow21]

Could this all be a ploy to somehow overturn the original arrest? To say that they found him through some shadowy means - NOT the means they stated in the PCA - and therefore, everything is tainted and you have to let him go?

It is VERY late here, so I apologise if either a) everyone else figured this out a million motions ago or b) what I'm imagining is completely nuts and isn't how the law works. But could this whole thing be a push from the defense, however far out and futile, to have their client never see a trial at all?

MOO

 

[NextSprint]

Not to make this political. But the current composition of our courts across the country tell me that civil liberty issues like this are going to lose each and every time to law enforcement and perceived safety.

There's no editorializing implied or explicit in the sentences above. I am not sharing a political opinion either way.

The window is not closing and to use another analogy....the floodgates are going to open. Not close. And businesses will be built around the water that flows through it.

And when you complain you'll just hear - "if you didn't do anything, why are you worried?"

I agree with most of that, except that states - like e.g. Maryland just recently - are starting to regulate its use and put it under judicial oversight. Then if this challenge in Idaho vs Kohberger succeeds, it's going to very clearly highlight that it's a dangerous tool, and then even more oversight comes.

 

[NextSprint]

Could this all be a ploy to somehow overturn the original arrest? To say that they found him through some shadowy means - NOT the means they stated in the PCA - and therefore, everything is tainted and you have to let him go?

It is VERY late here, so I apologise if either a) everyone else figured this out a million motions ago or b) what I'm imagining is completely nuts and isn't how the law works. But could this whole thing be a push from the defense, however far out and futile, to have their client never see a trial at all?

MOO

In a nutshell yes that's what this is about. "Fruit from the poisoned tree" etc.

 

[Cool Cats]

I don't think this is at all about the testing. The dna is his. I don't think the defense is trying to dispute that.

This is not about the testing, it's about the investigating. Why did they decide to test the father? What investigative techniques led to his name? The PCA lays out a standard investigation, like looking for the owner of the Elantra. The defense suspects it was actually IGG. If they can find improprieties in the IGG investigation, they think they can get the dna thrown out because the IGG led to the dna.

There's no indication the IGG was done improperly, but they need to try. Trying to create doubt with the jury that his dna is on that sheath because he's the one who was there that night and left it there is the biggest hurdle they have right now (that we know of--how many times have we been gobsmacked at what come out at trial). If there were any irregularities with the IGG, that will be sad and frustrating because of how absolutely unnecessary it was.

All this rigmarole boils down to getting Judge Judge to rule the DNA inadmissible. This is AT's only chance at gaining an acquittal.

Once the DNA goes before the jury and the prosecution's DNA expert testifies (on a screen for the jury to see) that the.......

STR profile is at least 5.37 octillion times more likely to be seen if Bryan Christopher Kohberger is the source than if an unrelated individual randomly selected from the general population is the source.

An octillion is a number equal to a 1 followed by 27 zeros...

1,000000000000000000000000000

 Once the jury sees and understands and believes this, then in my opinion it won't matter to the jury what the defense's IGG expert witness says.

2 Cents

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

He is looking straight at the camera over her head. (Whoever that is, looks like it might be AT)

The only thing sad and dysfunctional is what BK did to innocent students. I don't get on the "poor BK" Band Wagon, "poor BK" lonely with Visual Snow. (Not saying you do and I appreciate your post)

People fight chronic illness every single day.

Mr Kohberger had plenty of help and resources for his problems. I remember the days when there was no internet groups to reach out to for any help, no vast internet resources available for information on any health conditions.

BK had internet group help and internet information resources, he had medical care, he had family supporting him every step of the way. He certainly was well enough and sane enough to get a Bachelor Degree in Phychology then a Master's Degree, then get accepted into a Doctorate Degree Program. All these are things the majority of the population haven't done or can't afford to do.

On top of all that he had the rare privilege of teaching at the College level in a University.... no small feat. He was certainly well enough to get to this place in his life only still in his 20's.

His undergraduate professor who studied the BTK killer and wrote published work about him and interviewed him, etc...was very enamoured of Kohberger. She thought he was "Mr Wonderful."

2 Cents

I think there's a large gap between being able to appreciate the pathos in a situation and 'defending' BK which in no way I was.

 

[iamshadow21]

In a nutshell yes that's what this is about. "Fruit from the poisoned tree" etc.

So their approach is 'all the LE who worked on this are corrupt or incompetent', between that and the digging into the background of the officers...

Also a bit of narcissism from the defendant creeping in there, I think. 'There's no way they could have identified me from what was in the PCA, therefore, they must have cheated.'

MOO

 

[Cool Cats]

So their approach is 'all the LE who worked on this are corrupt or incompetent', between that and the digging into the background of the officers...

Also a bit of narcissism from the defendant creeping in there, I think. 'There's no way they could have identified me from what was in the PCA, therefore, they must have cheated.'

MOO

I would like to know BK's reasoning for not giving up his Speedy Trial Rights.

It sounds like, from AT's filing, that this is BK's idea.....2 Cents

 

[MassGuy]

So their approach is 'all the LE who worked on this are corrupt or incompetent', between that and the digging into the background of the officers...

Also a bit of narcissism from the defendant creeping in there, I think. 'There's no way they could have identified me from what was in the PCA, therefore, they must have cheated.'

MOO

Lol. That’s legit the argument. “They cheated with genetic genealogy.” Won’t work. Idiots.

 

[iamshadow21]

I would like to know BK's reasoning for not giving up his Speedy Trial Rights.

It sounds like, from AT's filing, that this is BK's idea.....2 Cents

As I've said before, this is a game to him. Maybe even more fun than the actual killings, who knows.

He reminds me a lot of Bundy, and Bundy was arrogant enough, intelligent enough, and had just enough education to get himself into trouble at trial, too. He doesn't have the superficial social skills Bundy had, but he doesn't need them at this stage. He's not representing himself or cracking jokes with reporters outside courthouses. All he has to do is sit there in his new suits and steer his defense the way he wants. Hopefully, right into the rocks.

MOO

 

[Jurisprudence]

I get it, sure, build out that tree on every unidentified snippet of DNA found at the crime scene. Then figure out who in that tree could possibly have left their DNA at King. Go through their garbage, identify them, and bring them in for questioning. I wonder at the expense, manpower, and privacy rights when they have DNA on the sheath of the murder weapon. And his car matches the car they are looking for, he fits the witness description, his phone has pinged in the area, touched the King wifi, puts his trash out in the neighbor’s pails in the middle of the night…


I am glad there are rules in place for CODIS. Otherwise literally every citizen will be in CODIS eventually.

Those 4A arguments here aren't responsive to the DNA of these 3 unidentified males that the defense has placed at issue. I think there is a misunderstanding there.

jmo

 

[wendy44]

Genealogical DNA evidence is like a reverse dragnet.

The FBI gets to go out into this massive pool of DNA held by private companies, and apparently override the opt-out that people select when providing their DNA.

This provides them with a massive dragnet that they can test non-CODIS-matching DNA against.

It's like taking the DNA of every person in America if there were a murder investigation. That wouldn't be constitutional, and it wouldn't sit well with the public. It is forbidden by the DOJ.

Genealogical databases without regulation have opened a massive can of worms... Regardless whether they've heralded "good" results up to now. I think the window is rapidly closing on how the FBI use them without any oversight or regulation.

Principles of Forensic DNA for Officers of the Court | DNA Dragnets

Learn more about the principles of forensic DNA, with an emphasis on collection of DNA Evidence from suspects and arrestees, specifically DNA dragnets.

nij.ojp.gov

I don't think the FBI gets to do this at all. They need a court order to access private databases. It's also important to note that GEDmatch is "opt-in", not "opt-out". You're automatically opted out unless you actively select to opt in to be visible to law enforcement.

 

[MyBelle]

All this rigmarole boils down to getting Judge Judge to rule the DNA inadmissible. This is AT's only chance at gaining an acquittal.

Once the DNA goes before the jury and the prosecution's DNA expert testifies (on a screen for the jury to see) that the.......

STR profile is at least 5.37 octillion times more likely to be seen if Bryan Christopher Kohberger is the source than if an unrelated individual randomly selected from the general population is the source.

An octillion is a number equal to a 1 followed by 27 zeros...

1,000000000000000000000000000

 Once the jury sees and understands and believes this, then in my opinion it won't matter to the jury what the defense's IGG expert witness says.

2 Cents

Even if the DNA is ruled inadmissible, the DA can prove he owned the knife, fit the description the witness provided and was seen in the vicinity of the crime scene.

BK is going down. From the desperation by his attorney, I think the DA is refusing to offer a plea deal.

JMO

 

[MassGuy]

I don't think the FBI gets to do this at all. They need a court order to access private databases. It's also important to note that GEDmatch is "opt-in", not "opt-out". You're automatically opted out unless you actively select to opt in to be visible to law enforcement.

Correct. I did ancestry and uploaded it there. It was automatic at the time, but a couple years or so that changed.

 

[maskedwoman]

I would like to know BK's reasoning for not giving up his Speedy Trial Rights.

It sounds like, from AT's filing, that this is BK's idea.....2 Cents

He could be afraid that the more time the prosecution has the more evidence they will find against him.

 

[NextSprint]

I don't think the FBI gets to do this at all. They need a court order to access private databases. It's also important to note that GEDmatch is "opt-in", not "opt-out". You're automatically opted out unless you actively select to opt in to be visible to law enforcement.

They absolutely don't need a court order. And as we've seen in the evidence given this week, the agencies can opt to see matching results whether or not a person opts in or opts out.