RARELY has the role of DNA evidence in court been discussed so publicly and in such detail. When Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were cleared on Monday of murdering British student Meredith Kercher in 2007, the judge said the evidence linking the two to the murder was 鈥渘ot reliable鈥�.
The case has raised the issue of whether international standards for forensic analysis should be enforced. At the moment there is no global agreement on how procedures are carried out.
鈥淔orensics comes out of a frontier mentality, with one lab pushing the boundaries and testing new techniques,鈥� says Greg Hampikian of Boise State University in Idaho, who reviewed the DNA evidence in the Kercher murder. He says successful forensics often come from a lab trying something new, testing its validity in court, and then making the procedure standard. 鈥淟ow-template number DNA, like they attempted to use in the Knox case, that鈥檚 one of these new frontier areas.鈥�
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In June, court-appointed forensic experts from Rome鈥檚 Sapienza University concluded that Italy鈥檚 police forensic science laboratory had not followed the correct procedure for testing small amounts of DNA. The lab is a member of the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes, but Wim Neuteboom of the ENFSI says the network is not considering imposing stricter regulations on members in light of the Kercher case.