Comments on: Police Could Use DNA to Learn the Color of Suspects’ Eyes

By: Jockaira

Jockaira — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 02:36:30 +0000

TheCritic’s right. Any thoughtful juryperson, prosecutor, or even defense attorney would lend little credence to a 94% probability, which puts it into the same category as “maybe.”

By: B.E. Henriksen

B.E. Henriksen — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:39:04 +0000

Clone and arrest :S

By: TheCritic

TheCritic — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:50:07 +0000

I agree, but just wanting to reiterate that 94%, from a strict statistics standpoint, is an insignificant percentage. You could read that as having a 6% chance of a random person having the same eye color as the perpetrator, which for a test such as this, would be reckless to use with such an inaccuracy. So, I agree, better to wait til it’s 99.5% or better.

By: MrsG

MrsG — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 04:20:52 +0000

It will be prohibitively expensive to restest all the felons in the national databases for eye color. The databases are used for searching the evidence on an “unknown suspect” case. SNP testing would take huge chunks of time and money. The labs are already severly backlogged. I love it when non-forensic folks come up with these ideas and then say the labs can produce this type of work! Local & state government labs can outsource this work and the money comes from Federal sources in the form of grants. Are you willing to throw the country into further debt to SNP test millions for eye color?

By: Smarti

Smarti — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:12:13 +0000

Criminals with even a modicum of brains will wear colored contacts which will definitely be easier than altering their fingerprints!

By: Jockaira

Jockaira — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:23:41 +0000

This eye-color test could be of great value in the elimination of suspects which would translate to a better allocation of investigatory resources. It could also be used defensively in court, but with a 94% efficacy, it would usually still be only strong circumstancial evidence and would need corroborating evidences except for disqualifying eye-witness evidence based in large part on eye color.

When the test’s accuracy approaches or arrives at 100%, it will then only serve mainly as negative evidence which is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.