NSF Award Abstract - #0240482

AWSFL008-DS3

Dissertation Research: Taming the Hypervariable Witness: The Introduction,
Contestation, and Regulation of Forensic DNA Evidence in the American Legal
System

Abstract

This dissertation grant supports research to examine the introduction, contestation, and regulation of forensic DNA analysis within the context of law enforcement institutions, biotechnology companies, and the American legal system. The primary objective of this research is to construct a historical narrative that answers questions about how the technique evolved from an academic invention in late 1984 to a highly commercialized tool of forensic science by early 1995. The investigator will focus on the disputes and negotiations among biotechnology firms, forensic scientists, law enforcement agencies, lawyers, academic scientists, and legislators over the proper means to ensure the quality, reliability and admissibility of DNA evidence in an adversarial legal setting. The intellectual merit of this project is that it critiques the most prevalent argument about the relationship between science and law: the notion that there is an inevitable culture clash when these two powerful institutions interact. In opposition to this theory, the investigator will argue that the history of DNA typing represents the hybridization of knowledge and practice from various legal sources, corporate culture, and a multiplicity of scientific disciplines. Thus, DNA typing was not simply a product of science being introduced into the legal system; instead, it was co-produced by actors in multiple disciplines over the course of a decade. The investigator has both the opportunity and challenge to supplement the published and archival record with oral history interviews. To this end, about 40 interviews have already been conducted with a diverse array of historical actors. In addition, the investigator has collected patents, court transcripts, technical reports, protocols and instruction manuals from law enforcement agencies and biotechnology companies, news articles, conference proceedings, as well as transcripts of testimony before legislative bodies and policy committees. The NSF dissertation improvement grant will allow the investigator to complete this research by funding trips to California, New York, and Washington, DC to interview historical actors and to examine their private materials. It will also allow him to make use of the DNA Fingerprinting Archive at Cornell University's Kroch Library, which was collected with the support of the NSF. The broader social impact of this project is that it will provide much-needed insight into how science and law interact with one another. This knowledge will be useful in training judges and lawyers who must deal with scientific and technical issues, as well as scientists who increasingly find themselves involved in legal disputes. The results of this project will be disseminated not only through the investigator's dissertation and articles in scholarly journals, but also through articles in law reviews and scientific journals like Genetics and Journal of Forensic Science.