After hearing from the personal side of someone who has experienced a wrongful conviction in Anna Vasquez, I then moved on to the legal side and spoke to Chase Baumgartner, attorney with the Innocence Project of Texas. Mr. Baumgartner was a DNA analyst and specialist who became frustrated with the misinterpretation of his evidence and became a lawyer recently to use his expertise to help combat wrongful convictions. Because of his major forensic specialization, our interview was largely centered around DNA which was helpful for me because this was an area I didn’t have a complete understanding of at the time. Mr. Baumgartner is a relatively new lawyer, getting his first staff attorney position with the Innocence Project last November, but has a wealth of experience in the field of DNA and has shown how there is a clear connection between this field and the field of criminal law. Through this interview I was hoping to learn more about what a lawyer in the Innocence Project of Texas would do and what specifically he does as a DNA based lawyer. Mr. Baumgartner not only explained information about DNA and how this is pertinent to wrongful convictions, exonerations, and criminal law as a whole, but he also gave me advice as a young student interested in the field and helped share some of his experience that would be helpful for me in the future. This interview was helpful to both my research into wrongful convictions, my understanding of DNA and the role it plays in criminal cases, and my path forward towards becoming a criminal lawyer.
Because of my lower understanding of the processes of DNA examination and the use of DNA as a whole in criminal law, the first thing we discussed was the way that DNA examination works and how this is used in cases. What is important to note is that DNA is not necessarily used to prove a single person is undoubtedly a match but is more of a way to establish probability and more importantly in the world of exonerations and wrongful convictions, prove that a specific person is not possibly a match. DNA is looked at in graphs where the length and repetition of DNA components is looked at. This can then be compared with the DNA of an individual to find a match. If there is a match it is up to the lab to analyze the DNA and rarity of its repetition in order to develop a probability of this DNA being replicated in other people. Understanding this process is good information to have as a baseline before diving into DNA in the context of the issue and looking for possible mistakes in DNA analyzation or interpretation.
As DNA misinterpretation was a major part of Mr. Baumgartner becoming a lawyer in the first place, we discussed what causes this to be so often misconstrued. He explained that no matter what explanation he provided, people would use the numbers and the probabilities he developed and stretch them to fit whatever was needed for them. Fro example, if he was analyzing data that showed a 1 in 3 chance that the defendant would have a specific characteristic of the true perpetrator, the prosecution would often take this and stretch it to the likelihood of the defendant being the perpetrator. This is simply not what the data and evidence supports. He argues that the human brain tends to think more in natural probability and so hearing “1 in 3” immediately moves to help the prosecution, or, if the chances were slimmer in a separate probability, the defense. In prior research, the misinterpretation of DNA and forensic evidence was highlighted by the Korey Wise Innocence Project under the Colorado University School of Law as a major factor leading to wrongful convictions.
He also explained the three different types of DNA analysis presented in court: random match probability (RMP), likelihood ratio (LR), and combined probability of inclusion (CPI). RMP can be basically explained as the probability of someone chosen at random having the same genotype that was discovered in the forensic evidence. This is used to show the likelihood that there is a coincidental match in DNA between the suspect and the DNA that was tested by seeing how likely it would be that someone else has the same DNA match. This can often be misconstrued in court as a probability over the current population of the world would make prosecutors report this as impossible. This is not the case; it is still a probability. RMP can only be used if one DNA set is evidence (not a mixture). The next area of analysis is LR. Most simply this is a fraction 1/RMP and is a way of summarizing DNA evidence. The National Institute of Health uses the example that If the LR is 1,000, the probability that the profiles are the same is 1,000 times as great if the samples came from the same person as it is if they came from different persons. This shows a summary of the likelihood that the defendant matches the DNA as opposed to some other person matching the DNA. This can be difficult to calculate and more difficult to present in court than RMP and CPI. The last DNA analysis type, CPI, is used in mixtures of DNA to determine the probability that a random outside person would not be a contributor to the mixture of evidence. Because of the nature of these calculations, this can add weight to an argument because it does not need to specifically apply to a suspect. However, this was one of the concerns Mr. Baumgartner had. Because of the complex interpretation of mixtures, CPI had for a long time wrongfully included innocent people as possible contributors to the DNA. While this was corrected in 2016 and a board was set up to review cases and look to rectify this issue where it may have applied, it is concerning that some areas of DNA that are being used in cases are flawed and may be unreliable. Because of this and my interview with Mr. Baumgartner, I plan to do further research into DNA and the role it plays in criminal justice as a whole and in wrongful convictions. I want to thank Mr. Baumgartner for his time, his personal advice that I did not highlight in this paper, and his knowledge of DNA that he shared. This was a very helpful interview and opened a door for me to the forensic side of criminal law.