Cook County Public Defenders Blog

As a reminder, it is reversible error in a DNA case for the judge to permit the prosecution, over the objection of the defense, to introduce any evidence that the defendant’s DNA profile was in a DNA database. People v. Jackson, 865 N.E.2d 195 (1st Dist. 2007).  This situation comes up mostly in cold-hit cases, where the prosecution seeks to inform the jury that a database hit to the defendant’s profile occurred.  According to the First District Appellate Court, it is error to admit reference to the database.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 9:46 am and is filed under Hot Legal Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.