Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 3, 1993 TAG: 9304030130
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER NOTE: Above
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
DNA TESTING CAN CONVICT ACQUIT
When DNA testing emerged in Roanoke courtrooms four years ago, it appeared to be a powerful tool for the prosecution.Through the analysis of body fluids or other evidence, "genetic fingerprinting" can determine a suspect's involvement with scientific accuracy. In a Richmond capital murder case, for example, an expert testified that the chances of the same DNA pattern showing up in the blood samples of a man other than the defendant were 1 in 750 million.
But in the three Roanoke cases in which DNA testing has been used, none resulted in a conviction.
Instead, the tests in two cases indicated that the defendants were innocent in prosecutions that otherwise would have proceeded.
"It's a test that can help both sides," Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell said. "It doesn't concern me if it helps the defendant, because we're all trying to get to the truth of the situation."
By using DNA testing, authorities can match basic cell patterns in someone's blood, semen, perspiration or hair to evidence found at a crime scene or taken from a victim.
In the 1990 case of a newborn baby left in a Mountain Avenue Southwest trash bin, blood samples were taken from the infant after he died and compared to the blood of a woman who confessed to having the child.
When the tests showed the woman could not have been the mother, prosecutors dropped charges of felony child neglect. But if police should develop another suspect - even years from now - DNA could be used to make a strong case that otherwise might have weakened with age.
Caldwell said DNA samples have been saved from several other unsolved cases.
The most recent Roanoke case that involved DNA was unusual in that the testing was requested by the defendants and paid for by the state. Prosecutors dropped rape and abduction charges against William "Munch" Dungee and Darren Lamont Cobbs after tests cast serious doubts on the account of the accuser.
Because DNA testing is expensive and the procedure often takes months to be completed in backlogged labs, authorities are not using it routinely.
"We don't use it unless it appears that it's going to make a difference" in a close case, Caldwell said.
"Under the right circumstances, it's dynamite. But if it's not right for the particular case, it has limited applicability."
The first time DNA was used in a Roanoke case was 1989, when a man was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old girl. Comparing his blood to samples taken from the victim's aborted fetus, DNA experts found the man was 590 million times more likely than a randomly selected man to be the father of the aborted fetus.
However, a judge dismissed the charge because he said prosecutors had not shown that the man acted with criminal intent. The man testified that he awoke one night in a drunken stupor and had sex with the 14-year-old, who was sleeping in the same bed, thinking that she was his wife.
While DNA testing ultimately helped acquit the woman accused of leaving "Baby Isaiah" in a trash bin, a long delay in waiting for lab results kept her in jail longer than necessary, Roanoke Public Defender Ray Leven said.
Leven, who represented Carolyn Smallwood Snyder, argued that the case should have been dismissed long before DNA tests were back from the lab, given medical evidence that indicated Snyder was sterile.
Prosecutors, however, said the remote chance that she could have given birth was made more likely by evidence found that corroborated her confession - which she later recanted.
"But for the fact that DNA testing was available," Caldwell said, "she may well have been convicted."