I went back and watched. It kind of started when AT said that she believed there was missing information from the "private" (and we all know which one) lab's profile. Then she said that she had received in discover a SNP profile that she believed came from "private lab" and that it is not in the "general format that those come out in." She said it was not a FASTQ file but a different kind of format/file, and she said that it was a much smaller data file than the FBI's data file. She emphasized that she thinks the private lab's file/profile that was provided to the defense was "missing something."
The the judge said something like "Oh, I thought there was only one SNP profile and now I'm hearing there are two?"
quoting as best as I can hear from the not so awesome audio:
Bill Thompson said, "That's correct, your honor and the difference is that the one
from the private lab is the initial profile the private lab analyst created from the DNA portion of the DNA sample. Then what was transferred to the FBI was after that
original SNP had been uploaded into a database, access to the database was transferred. And it's our understanding that once a SNP is put into one of these databases, the database adjusts the SNP to fit what their criteria are for them to do their searches. So there are there differences between the two, the entirety of the two SNPs."
He then asks Attorney Nye, since he is knowledgable in this area, to jump in and correct hi if he's not stating it clearly.
BT continues, "So in an excess of caution we wanted to make sure the defense had both-- had the original SNP that the private lab created, and also the SNP (that?) was transferred via the transferring of the database to the FBI."
He then says, "We are told, we understand, that like I just said the databases adopt (* I think he meant "adapt"*) the SNPs to their search *audioblip*, and so they're going to look slightly different."
Judge J then asked Attorney Nye if he wanted to add anything to that, and Nye said no, he thought he was very well said.
AT then requests 2 things (which I'll discuss out of order):
1) She wants Judge J to explain what he means by in camera review and wants to know what the judge is going to do if he needs help understanding the info. She wants to make sure that there's not an FBI agent there with Judge J as he's trying to understand all this stuff and asks for him to clarify what he would do if he needs external help.
2) She wants the Judge to make a list (not the content though) of everything he gets from the State that he will then be going through and using to make his decision and then give it to her. Because she wants to make sure Judge J has a full packet of information upon which to make his decision. She specifically mentions:
--things like the raw data snip profile from "private lab"
--the communications between private lab and the FB--not the content, just that you have those
--the statistical analysis that happen within the profiles when making decisions when the genetics genealogists make decisions about the family tree
--the bioinformatics for the micro array
--the court should include that the FBI complied with requirements in MyFamilyTree
Judge J makes no promises to provide her with this privileged log of content. He says he might, it just depends on how things go. He also says that if he brings in an independent expert, he will let both sides know.
Mr. Thompson then replies that he is concerned about the list of things AT mentioned because based on the prosecution's understanding, there are items that AT thinks that should be there but that won't be because either
1) those things can't be provided to the State because they aren't kept per FBI protocol or
2) the defense has a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between SNP profiles and traditional DNA comparisons, and how that process works. "We start talking with statistics, and those sorts of things don't necessarily apply in the investigative geneology world, so I don't want there to be false expectations. I certainly don't want the court be misled that things of relevance exist that do not...I was just just reacting to the laundry list of things the state was reciting that based on what our experts
told us, don't necessarily exist in an investigative genealogy SNP analysis. They may exist in a traditional STR DNA analysis, and those are two separate and distinct processes. They do not overlap at all, so we want to make sure that there's no confusion because
some of the things have been submitted by the defense don't accurately talk about the distinction."
AT replied that she does not want the judge to think she was trying to mislead the court or that she is misunderstanding or making things up in that list. "A lot of that
- comes from expectations based on reading Department of Justice policy that was included for the court with our briefing before the August 18th hearing. A lot of that information comes from the testimony of the two genetic genealogist experts that we put on and the
information that they provided to the court at the hearing. These aren't made up things. We absolutely understand that the genetic genealogy investigative process is different than what the Idaho State Police lab does with STR profiles, but there's analysis that happens along the way in building out these family trees to identify somebody
that was talked about in deposition."
BT then replies, "I'm not suggesting that they are trying to mislead the court. It is our position that they have been provided with information that's not accurate and it's creating false expectations. And I don't want the court to be misled by that and to have expectations that are not accurate."
I do hope that Judge J does get an independent authority on DNA and IGG analysis to come talk to him who can explain things in a similar fashion to 10 of Rods. IMHO, BT was a bit inaccurate in his word choices. And I think Judge J SHOULD be allowed to have someone from the Justice Dept AND the FBI come and verify what procedure is and how it is followed in actual practice.
www.newsnationnow.com
