Over the summer, the Texas Forensic Science Commission came to an unsettling conclusion: There was something wrong with how state labs were analyzing DNA evidence. At first they assumed the update wouldn’t make a big difference but it discovered the numbers changed quite a bit. It’s unsettling to find out DNA analysis can vary like this because it threatens to undermine the deep faith people have placed in the technology. If we now push this technology too hard — say, by prosecuting someone on nothing more than a genetic match — then DNA may also be headed for the kind of reassessment that has battered the reputation of older types of physical evidence.”
Experts say the field of forensic DNA is having a moment of truth about years of overstated claims, and it may tarnish its reputation as the “gold standard” of legal evidence.
Source: ‘Great Pause’ Among Prosecutors As DNA Proves Fallible : NPR