In the state of Delaware, Jeffrey Chase was on trial for killing his parents. His defense team used neurogenetic defense, claiming he had a gene mutation that made him unable to control his acts.
Surprisingly, the state found that Jeffrey had a mutation that causes hyper-excitability, chronic impulsiveness and violent discharges. While this type of mutation does not cause the traditional active insanity, it does cause an aberrant mental state closer to mental illness than to mere personality disorders.
However, the court did not agree to reduce his punishment, stating that Jeffrey’s condition poised him to make his criminal choices, but had not predestined him to do so.
Judge Wisher ruled against testing the DNA of his parents to verify if the disfunction was inherited. To do so would violate the family’s privacy.
There have been many incidents such as the State v. Jeffrey case, where judges have had to understand the science behind genetics to make a ruling in the court.
“In one way it’s nothing new, judges have been repeatedly asked to answer scientific questions on trial,” says Christine Durham, Utah Supreme Court judge, “but in another way the science of genomics is so new, and so vast and complicated, from genetically modifying foods to possibly learning about the relationship of human genes and behavior.”
The relationship between a person’s genome and his or her behavior, privacy matters?such as an employer gaining access to an employee’s genetic profile or an insurance company not accepting a high-risk client?are issues that many judges face when genetics enter the courtroom.
However, not all judges are well prepared for these sorts of cases.
“Basically, these judges are very smart people that didn’t take many biology classes,” says Lynn Jorde, U professor of genetics.
In 1997, the Einstein Institute for Science, Health and the Courts (EINSHAC) held its first conference for educating judges about cases involving genetics. Since then, Jorde and Ray Gesteland, U vice president for research, have been conducting seminars through EINSHAC. Durham has also been involved in creating these seminars for educating judges about genetics.
“Judges are expected to be experts in everything. That is why I support programs for educating judges. We need as much help as we can get to stay current.” Durham says.
Federal funds support the program. When Congress gave funds to map out the human genome, they set aside a portion for the ethical and legal concerns that would arise.
EINSHAC holds seminars for educating judges in different places in the world. The most recent one was in July 2001, in Hawaii. Judges from different countries attended. One conference was held in Utah in 1998. Jorde and Durham both participated in that conference.
The format involves a lot of dialogue between judges and scientists about how science is done. They discuss how scientists test a hypothesis, which is very different from legal fact finding, according to Durham.
In each conference, typically between 75 and 100 judges and about 20 to 25 scientists attend.
The topics range from basic lectures about how genes instruct the body to form, grow and perform, and how genes are inherited. They also address specific court situations, like a rape case where the accused rapist is suspected of having the gene associated with Huntington’s disease.
“The main point of it is to give [the judges] some idea of what is going on in genetics in a few days,” Jorde says.
Jorde has appeared as an expert witness in some court cases. One of these cases was the State v. Butterfield. In this case, Raymond Butterfield, the defendant, asked for the reversal of his convictions because the trial court improperly allowed the State to admit DNA evidence without showing that the scientific principles and techniques used were reliable. Butterfield had objected to the use of a new method for matching the DNA of the suspect to the DNA samples found in the crime scene.
Jorde examined the results of the Butterfield case when it reached an appeals court and testified that the probability of a random individual’s DNA matching that of the blood on Butterfield’s undershirt was 215 billion to 1.
Durham says in many cases, the question is: Was the underlying evidence reliable?
The issues involved in human genetics are likely in all fields of law, according to Durham. She uses bankruptcy as a field that may seem to not have much use for genetics.
“But the judge might have to rule a claim of ownership in a company that did genetic testing,” Durham says.
The use of an expert witness, like a geneticist, for genetic cases is common in many courts.
“Not only are [expert witnesses] there to explain, but they are the only way the testing can be turned into evidence,” Durham says.
According to Jorde, however, the need for expert witnesses is decreasing.
“What has happened now is that DNA is accepted. If a person matches a DNA sample, there is no other person who matches it.” Jorde says.
Genetic testing has become like fingerprinting, according to Jorde.
“Now an expert like me usually won’t get called, because there is nothing to argue.” Jorde says.
At the 1998 EINSHAC conference held in Utah, the feedback was extremely positive, according to Durham.
“I’d like the process of educating judges about genetics to become a day-to day process, rather than a once in a lifetime event,” she says.