Mapping Justice through Genetics: The Significance and Application of Familial DNA Analysis in the Legal System
Minerliz Soriano, or Minnie, as her loved ones knew her, was a 13-year-old girl from the Pelham Parkway area of the Bronx, New York. Soriano was a straight-A student who was adored by all. In her free time, she enjoyed writing poetry about love and rainbows in her journal. Her best friend, Kimberly Otis, said that Minnie once dreamed of becoming an astronaut. “I used to make fun of her about it.” Otis recollected saying to Soriano, “We’re from the Bronx, we’re not going to be astronauts.”
On February 24, 1999, Soriano was spotted leaving her school. This was the last time she was seen. Following her disappearance, her family searched tirelessly in the close vicinity of her school on Wallace Avenue, never giving up on their resolve that their loved one was still alive. However, on February 28, Soriano’s remains were found inside a garbage dumpster behind a video store in the Co-op City area of the Bronx, two miles away from her residence. Her case would go cold, remaining unsolved for 22 long years.
On the 20th anniversary of the disappearance in 2019, Soriano’s family spoke out, remaining hopeful that new scientific breakthroughs could help bring Minnie’s case to justice. And that’s exactly what happened. On November 30, 2022, authorities charged a suspect, Joe Martinez, with two counts of murder in the case of Minerliz Soriano. Martinez, 49, was Soriano’s next-door neighbor at the time in 1999. Martinez was a local astronomer in Pelham Parkway. Reportedly, he frequently offered children free lessons about space, gaining notoriety as ‘Jupiter Joe’.
Martinez was apprehended through the use of a relatively new technology: familial DNA testing. Familial DNA testing is a technique that is used when an unknown person’s DNA does not match the DNA stored in any current government database. In this situation, the police conduct a cross-analyzation of the unknown DNA profile with known databases of genetic information. This process searches for a partial match to the sample from the unknown individual. A partial DNA match occurs when a DNA profile in a database has a similar genetic composition to the unknown person’s DNA but does not align completely. The algorithms that analyze and process genetic information are extremely methodical and can provide close matches with very high degrees of accuracy and reliability. Although this means that the individual themselves is not identified, the partial match can be that of a close relative. After such a match is identified, the police conduct additional measures to locate the close relative, which then leads to further investigations to determine the suspect themselves. Authorities then turn their focus onto the identified suspect, assessing whether it was plausible for them to have committed the crime. This can be done, for example, by examining their whereabouts at the time of the incident. When authorities have gained further corroborative evidence that their identified suspect is indeed the perpetrator, they can apply for a DNA sample to be harvested from the suspect. At this point, the collected DNA sample is compared to the original unknown DNA profile through testing. A positive test result typically leads to an arrest warrant being filed.
The use of familial DNA technologies in criminal investigations technology was first implemented by the Suffolk Police Department in England in the early 2000s, to identify the perpetrator in the Suffolk Strangler Case. More recently, police departments all across America have begun integrating and employing familial DNA technologies. In 2008, such technologies were used to identify the “Grim Sleeper” serial killer in California. The identification and arrest of Joe Martinez in 2022 was the first case in which familial DNA technologies were used to solve a crime in New York City.
The advancements in familial DNA technologies have been a monumental breakthrough for the criminal justice system. Since its implementation across the United States, an estimated number of over 500 cases of murder and rape have been solved with the technique, with many of these cases remaining unsolved for over 10 years. Additionally, thousands of cold cases have the potential to be solved in the coming years, with this process being accelerated by the widespread adoption of familial DNA technologies across the country. In terms of legal cases, familial DNA provides persuasive evidence that prosecutors can use to condemn a suspect or at least prove their presence at a crime scene. Partial DNA matches are extremely reliable, with this accuracy increasing in conjunction with the closeness of the familial relationship. One study found that the rate of false negatives in one specific familial DNA technology is only 0.058%, with the rate of false positives being 0.0007%. Nonetheless, it is still salient to recognize that one’s DNA profile being found at a crime scene does not prove their guilt, as their DNA may have been left there at another point in time or may have been unintentionally transferred through a proxy.
Furthermore, familial DNA technology can be used to eliminate alternative suspects. The identification of potential close family members can lead investigators to focus on individuals who are closely related to an unknown perpetrator’s DNA profile. This can lead to other suspected individuals being cleared from the investigation. This helps to accelerate the criminal justice system, which in turn accelerates the legal system as a whole. Additionally, familial DNA technology can be used as a tool to re-evaluate past cases and exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals. All of these new prospects mean that the criminal justice system can operate more efficiently, with more perpetrators being identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This will result in more criminal cases being resolved, providing much-needed closure for the families of victims upon learning that the perpetrator has been identified and apprehended. “When we have a success like this, it’s a great thing,” retired NYPD Detective Malcolm Reiman reported. “Homicide cases have a ripple effect, so you are not only working for the dead victim, but the other people surrounding that victim as well.” Implementing these innovations will help combat the declining homicide clearance rates, which dropped to a record low of around 50% in 2020.
Despite the significant benefits that familial DNA techniques bring to the investigation and closure of criminal cases, these innovations are not without their fair share of criticism and controversy. As of May 2022, a mid-level New York appeals court has halted the usage of familial DNA technologies to aid criminal investigations within the state, with the panel of judges ruling that “regulations for the technique were invalid” because state-governed committees had employed them without receiving consent from the legislature. This raises fundamental issues in regard to the privacy, or the lack thereof, of individuals, in terms of state-led efforts to administer familial DNA mechanisms. Judge Judith J. Gische, who presided over the court ruling, noted the presence of “overwhelming policy issues” in terms of the usage of familial DNA matching collected in the New York State genetic databank, concluding that “the challenged regulation cannot stand”. While the court’s decision addressed contention regarding the investigation of public state-owned genetic databases, there are also further debates relating to the usage of private genetic databases in aiding police investigations. More people are arguing that companies such as 23&Me–a genetic testing company that uses genotyping to analyze the DNA of their customers–should be obligated to maintain the absolute privacy of their genetic databases. This is because the details collected by these companies were provided by customers who did not consent to the genetic information they provided for personal reasons to be used for state-governed purposes. Accordingly, the data should remain entirely confidential. As such, it is fair for us to question the degree of authority that police investigations can and should hold over private property in their pursuits to solve criminal cases, and if these issues can only be adequately mitigated by dismissing the usage of familial DNA technologies to sufficiently safeguard consumer privacy.
It is important to recognize the potential for racial discrimination latent in familial DNA matching technologies. One significant concern that has been raised is that of state-owned genetic databases being reflective of the racial bias within the wider legal system. Proponents of this concern argue that a disproportionately large percentage of African Americans are arrested and prosecuted by the criminal justice system every year. This fact is highlighted in a New York Times article by Jeffrey Rosen, in which he notes that while African Americans only comprise approximately 13% of the US population, they also account for approximately 40% of all arrests. This leads to a skewed proportion of genetic information being collected from African American individuals by police forces. This is moreover underlined in investigations conducted by Hank Greely of Stanford Law School, which estimates that approximately 17% of African American citizens may be identified through familial DNA searches in comparison to only 4% of white citizens. This fact alone underscores the structural patterns of racial discrimination that have permeated the American legal system, encouraging us to examine the moral and ethical framework of familial DNA matching more closely. It can be argued that there should be more research in this field in terms of how to design familial DNA technologies that can identify bias in genetic databases and eliminate them from their searches.
Despite the posed criticisms of familial DNA searching technologies, it is nonetheless important to recognize the good that has come from these innovations. For the family of Minerliz Soriano, and so many others, the introduction of familial DNA technology into the policing and criminal justice system has granted them some degree of much-needed closure. While gaining closure will never come close to bringing back the lives of their loved ones, the success of identifying the perpetrator, in any case, is a reminder of the ongoing efforts to honor the innocent and to bring the guilty to light. It is a testimony to justice.
Cat Gao is a freshman at Brown University, planning on double concentrating in Philosophy and Literary Arts. She is a staff writer for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be reached at cat_gao@brown.edu.
Julian Cohen is a sophomore at Brown University, double concentrating in History and International & Public Affairs. He is an editor for the Brown Undergraduate Law Review and can be contacted at julian_@brown.edu.