(Court TV) —
DNA evidence is no stranger in the modern courtroom. To make their cases,
lawyers have used blood and semen samples. They have used fingernails, skin
and saliva. They even have used dog hair.
And soon the list will include dope.
Forensic scientists have been working to expand the scope of scientific
evidence by researching how to use DNA technology to identify strains of
marijuana, and then putting the information into a database.
"Marijuana DNA is just a new technology in fighting crime ... Many times
the victim's pocket will have a trace of marijuana ... [and you can] find
where that batch comes from," said Dr. Henry Lee, director of the
Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory and one of the nation's
foremost forensic scientist. "This is going to have a major impact for the
future."
Fingerprinting plant DNA has been around since the mid-1990s when
scientists in the Netherlands developed it as a way of patenting strains of
rice, according to Heather Miller Coyle, criminalist and research
coordinator at the Connecticut lab.
The major difference between human and plant DNA fingerprinting is that
each human fingerprint is unique. However, many plants have the same DNA
because identical clones can be created through a process of cutting leaves
and stems and then putting them in a hormone solution to encourage root
growth. Growers often use this method to perpetuate potent strains of
dope.
"What they're doing is making it easier for us to trace them," Coyle
said.
Plant DNA has already made its way into the courtroom. In the 1990s,
Arizona authorities
successfully connected Mark Bogan to the strangling death of a woman after
matching seed pods found in his truck to a Palo Verde tree at the scene of
the murder. Bogan was sentenced to life in prison, and in 1995 an appeals
court upheld the conviction.
"It's not new or different that plant DNA can be used," said Lisa
Kreeger, a former Miami-Dade County prosecutor who now runs the DNA program
at the American Prosecutors Research Institute in Alexandria, Va. "It's
important for the quality of information and the quantity of information. We
have developed a cynical population that no longer likes to believe
people."
Because the database — which is necessary to point out the
statistical relevance of matching strains of marijuana — is still
under construction, marijuana DNA evidence has yet to enter courtroom
testimony.
But based on the drug's role in crime, employees at the Connecticut
forensic lab see a huge potential in profiling even the tiniest of samples
from pot plants.
"Yes, we could do oak trees. But the reality is pretty clear that there
is a plant out there with a lot of implications in the justice system. And
that's marijuana," said Maj. Timothy Palmbach, an attorney and director of
scientific services at the Connecticut lab.
More potent drugs like cocaine and heroin were ruled out because DNA
cannot be seen in samples seized from users. These types of drugs, which
cannot be grown in the United States because of climate, are distributed and
used as purified chemicals extracted from plants, and do not contain intact
plant material and cells like marijuana, Coyle explained.
Not only can DNA evidence support courtroom testimony, but a database of
marijuana DNA could be used to connect suppliers, distributors and users
across the country, Coyle said. With a database of seized marijuana,
researchers in Connecticut hope to create an "information map" to illustrate
just where the drug is coming and going.
"How many people are doing this? And where is it going?" said Coyle.
The database will hold the codes of marijuana strains as well as case
numbers correlating with information in paper files about where and from
whom the marijuana was seized. So far, the Connecticut lab, which received a
$300,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice to develop the
database, has collected strains from Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Wyoming,
West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Vermont, Canada and Taiwan.
But there's no reason to spend money creating a marijuana database when
there are other ways of curbing drug trade, like finding treatments for drug
abusers, said Alan Silber, a member of the board of directors for the
National Association for Criminal Defense Lawyers in Washington, D.C. and
chairman of its drug law reform committee.
"How much money do we need to spend? What's the point? What's the
government gain?" Silber said. "Here's another cost to try to enforce
marijuana prohibition with more high-tech gadgets."
But the database information could be very effective in the courtroom by
linking crime scenes to suspects and cracking down harder on drug rings,
Coyle said. By matching DNA from cloned plants, the database can connect
seemingly small, separate operations together, which can then bring much
tougher penalties.
"If you can show they're all linked, you're showing a giant industry. The
penalties are certainly more severe than someone growing 50 plants," Coyle
said. "You're showing a multimillion dollar industry as opposed to a $30,000
industry."
But Kreeger warned that DNA alone cannot prove individuals share a
pot-profiting business.
"It still has to be a part of an overall, comprehensive investigation.
You still need traditional things like statements from people and records or
something to show they made profit together," Kreeger said.
Palmbach agreed that a case is never solved simply by a DNA match. "It's
a good, resourceful scientific technique that is one piece of the puzzle,"
he said.
And DNA-profiled marijuana can, of course, be used as a tool to disprove
the prosecution's theory of conspiracy.
"There's good DNA and bad DNA. One thing the O.J. Simpson case
demonstrated was how sloppy police work can be with DNA evidence," Silber
said.
Collecting enough data to create a sufficient database to use in court is
never a quick process, Dr. Henry Lee said.
"Your database will not happen tomorrow [The sex offender database] took
us years, years to collect that data," Lee said.
Still, Coyle expects the marijuana database to be up and running by early
2004. And the lab has already received half a dozen requests "screaming" for
its use in pending trials in several states, Palmbach said.
"I think it's huge," he said. "I'm not sure we know the value of it
yet."
