“Discorsi sulla prova” (“Conversations on evidence”) is a conference that will be held in Milan, next Apr. 4.
Judges, philosophers, physicians and scientist will talk about the different meaning of the word “evidence” in their specific fields.
How Linkedin Helped to Fight a Possible Scam
Among the usual daily flow of e-mails that submerges me, today I’ve spotted a request for contact coming from a North-European research firm active in the healthcare sector. Its CFO asked for information about a possible breach of contract litigation.
I didn’t have any reason to think of this e-mail as a scam, but there was “something” definitely odd in the message. So I checked both the person and the company name on the Internet and they were real. Still, I wasn’t convinced and decided to have a look at the message header: again, I got contradictory results. The mail server used to send the message was in a remote part of the US, belonging to a local ISP with no apparent connection with both Europe and the Healthcare industry the message was (apparently) coming from.
This couldn’t be a coincidence so I’ve searched the Linkedin profile of the manager that allegedly sent me the message and dropped him an in-mail (so to be sure about his identity and affiliation) and… gotcha! He replied confirming that it wasn’t him the sender of the message.
To put it short, it was a scam and being on Linkedin helped both me to avoid a fraud and this company to discover that it is targeted by an identity theft.
Monsanto to challenge EU biotech inventions directive
The EU Court of Justice will soon issue a decision on a biotech-patent case filed by Monsanto Technology LLC trying to broaden the scope of the EU directive on biotechnological inventions.
On March, 9 2010 EU Court’s Attorney General released an opinion, although not forcing the Court to accept it – ? dismissing Monsanto’s legal claims.
Faked DNA and Criminal Trials in Italy
“Authentication of forensic DNA samples” is a paper released on the last Forensic Science International: Genetics issue by a group of Israeli researchers. Authors claim to have found a method to fabricate artificial biological samples (and the way to tell the differences from the original one) and wish that their finding will become a standard in forensic procedures to maintaini “the high credibility of DNA evidence in the judiciary system.”
Does this method really affect criminal investigations and trials?
“We still are in the “bad cop” (or evidence tamperer) field who planted faked biological samples on the crime scene” – says Andrea Cocito, researcher at IFOM, Milan (IT.) In fact, the “fabricated-genetic-evidence defense” has been proven viable in the ? OJ Simpson case tried between 1994 and 1995 in Los Angeles, USA. Mr. Simpson’s lawyers were able to raise the suspicion that the results of the analysys on the biological samples coming from the crime scene – aiming at Mr. Simpson as “owner” of the DNA – weren’t reliable enough because of the police handling lack of care. “If” – Cocito argues – “a biological sample has ? really been found on the crime scene, if the sample isn’t planted and if it’s not been degraded, then I might analyze both samples (the crime scene one and the one belonging to the defendant) to see if I get a match. In these case, there couldn’t be reasonable doubts on the results.” Thus, matching the defendant biosample collected in a controlled environment with the sample found on the crime scene it is possible to tell the probability of a reciprocal match.
The actual problem, then, is not the intrinsic scientific reliability of a genetic analysis-produced evidence. The problem is the strength of the chain of custody (i.e. the possibility of tracking all the intermediary steps, from the crime scene to the Court.) It is evident that if during the journey some part of it is not verifiable, a possibility comes to arise a legitimate doubt that what came in Court might not be what has been found on the crime scene.
On this issue, Italian law n. 85/2009 that creates a local National DNA Database is very lazy. There is neither any explicit duty of guaranteing the chain of custody, nor a provision that prevent the use in Court of wrongly-handled biological samples.
This is the translation of an article I’ve written for Nova-IlSole24Ore. The Italian version is available here.
Italian NDNA database. The devil is in the details
On June 30, 2009, the Italian Parliament finally passed Law No. 85 that ratifies the Prum Convention and forms the legal ground for the creation of an Italian National DNA Database (NDNAD.)
Although this law might have benefited from UK and USA court experience in the field of DNA forensics, the current text indicates that neither British nor American case law have been taken into consideration. Furthermore, the law is flawed by a foggy understanding of the technicalities behind DNA profiling and sloppy wording that certainly will not facilitate the work of lawyers, prosecutors or judges. Just to highlight a few of these inconsistencies, it must be noted that art. 8 (Attivita` del laboratorio centrale per la banca dati nazionale del DNA – Activity of NDNA Database Central Laboratory) lacks any general provision that would oblige all the responsible parties to adopt serious and adequate security measures against unauthorized access, data tampering, and illegal handling of data and information. Continue reading “Italian NDNA database. The devil is in the details”