This article is within the scope of WikiProject Law, an attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardised, pan-jurisdictional and up-to-date resource for the legal field and the subjects encompassed by it.LawWikipedia:WikiProject LawTemplate:WikiProject Lawlaw articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Statistics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of statistics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.StatisticsWikipedia:WikiProject StatisticsTemplate:WikiProject StatisticsStatistics articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject United KingdomUnited Kingdom articles
Use of probabilistic methods will wither, because improvements in DNA manipulation should soon allow unique matching to a person (unless he or she has an identical twin). Samples from cases such as this should be preserved and re-tested as technology improves - AG, Stockport, UK.
AG - what could happen there is a prosecutor would make a claim such as 'there is a one in a trillion chance anyone has DNA matching this', but then there is always the chance the accused was born in a country that kept poor records and had was separated at birth from a twin. That might occur with a probability of one in 20,000 - there's every chance the 'twin' could end up in the same part of the world. I'm a bit aghast that someone could be convicted after being narrowed down to 6 people in the UK, but have evidence appearing to rule him out (evidence from the victim). I mean the DNA evidence alone makes the probability of innocence at least 2/3, not one in 2 million. Gomez2002 (talk) 09:26, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
