Legal Challenges in Reference to DNA Evidence

What are the legal challenges in reference to DNA evidence?
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Introduction
Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) is defined as a chemical molecule that carries genetic instructions or information. Introduced by Jeffrey Glassberg into forensic science in 1983, DNA has remained a major breakthrough in criminal investigation. Today, DNA evidence is collected from skin cells, hair, blood, and several other body substances. DNA evidence can help solve decade long crimes, including those that occurred before DNA technology. ideally, DNA evidence is powerful and its impact in the criminal system is significant, however, there are legal challenges surrounding DNA evidence.
Legal challenges
While DNA is a major milestone in criminal justice system there are major legal challenges that affects its use. First, it its argued that the mandatory DNA testing violates an individual’s right to freedom from seizure or unreasonable searches (Murphy, 2018). Accordingly, when felons are confined to the prison system, the fourth amendment requirements for a probable cause does not apply. Courts continue to uphold DNA extraction citing that felons have a diminished expectation for matters confidentiality and privacy. However, legal framework disagree with laws governing DNA databases because DNA databases pose major privacy concerns regarding ancestry, family relationships, and predisposition. So far, so states have responded to privacy concerns by imposing harsh penalties on any intentional misuse of DNA data.
Secondly, DNA databases while a solution to crime creates room for crime framing, unfairness, and overburdened crime labs. Crime framing remains a significant legal problem because it creates room for criminals to plant DNA evidence. Convicted criminals have in the past smuggled DNA evidence to crime scenes in order to divert attention and frame wrong suspects (Machado & Granja, 2018). Ideally, the DNA evidence is based on probabilities generated by laboratories and for some legal experts, the use of statistical estimate can be skewed mainly by an incorrect assumption about a population’s genetic variation. Ideally, some people in a population can be genetically similar such that DNA sample match. In some instances, suspects can be...