Up until the early eighties the term DNA was common only to scientists working on specific
projects. Nobody up to that point
really considered using it for
criminal case solving reasons.
Overseas doctors began experimenting with the idea a decade or so earlier it may help in matching criminals with crimes. For the most part though not much notice was given. Slowly it became what it is today, a major crime solver.
Thanks to the efforts of a lawyer named Barry Scheck, innocent men are going free. His astute knowledge in the field and belief in innocence resulted in more a dozen men so far out of prison. On the side of the coin though more and more guilty men and women too are doing time in jail. They are confronted with solid evidence they can not deny.
It is unlikely back in the fifties and sixties the researchers working on the DNA theory could have predicted its impact in the field of criminal investigations. We owe these men a debt of gratitude for beginning their
projects. Forensic science owes them. Whatever they were looking for in the onset, the criminals of this world need be afraid, very afraid.
No longer is a strand of hair left a crime scene just another strand of hair. Cigarette butts once discarded as mere trash now represent the difference between acquittal and conviction. Saliva left on a cup or glass used to go unnoticed. Not anymore though.
First there was the finger print identification process. Now we have the most spohisticated finrger print of all, DNA. It is unfathomable how many cold case files decades old will now be solved. Just how many innocent people will freed is unknown. What is important is the men in law enforcement have a tool that can't be underminded, DNA.