Word: dna
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Jerry Bruckheimer is the Michael Moore of criminal law. Defense lawyers love his CSI shows because they have caused juries to demand DNA analysis in nearly every two-bit 7-Eleven holdup. Prosecutors, meanwhile, feel hampered by the fact that 10 eyewitnesses are not enough to satisfy CSI-watching jurors who crave the supposedly conclusive proof of hair follicles on a knife...
...those sprays and lasers and high-tech microscopes, it turns out, are expensive. "DNA analysis is used every six seconds on CSI," says Robert J. Castelli, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who was a police officer for 21 years. "To analyze properly a sample of DNA can cost as much as $10,000. You're not going to be using DNA analysis in every burglary." So prosecutors are now spending a lot of time trying to explain to juries that DNA evidence isn't always essential. Joshua Marquis, a pro-death-penalty district attorney in Oregon...
...DNA is in more than cop shows. Even new medical series--such as NBC's hit Medical Investigation and Fox's upcoming House, in which doctors hunt down disease outbreaks abetted by the latest medical, and special-effects, technology--are structured like cop procedurals. You can see the influence in a show like NBC's Las Vegas, the sophomore hit about casino security that like CSI combines frisky visual effects and over-in-an-hour stories. What goes around, comes right back to Vegas...
...Number of exonerations of falsely convicted U.S. prisoners since 1989; about half of those since 1999 have been based on DNA evidence...
...COVER STORY THE GOD GENE Is religion part of evolution's scheme? Scientists are asking whether spirituality is embedded in our dna...