In the case of Meredith Kersher, one of the complexities derive from the fact that on both the bra clasp and the knife, only minute amounts of DNA was reported to be present. Genetic material present only in low amounts does not render the analyses impossible in principle, but it may make them more difficult to conduct practically, and results, as mentioned before by Tasha, may show more variation than is typically found in regular quantity and quality or controversial traces. The DNA on the bra clasp was scarce. The expert who conducted the analysis confirmed that due to the limited quantities of DNA, stochastic effect might have occurred. The expert did not replicate the analysis. If it can be done, our replication may be useful in clarifying interpretative issue of the first analysis. The defense expert argued that the police were not following a well settled protocol, and worse, that they may have been biased against the suspect. The information DNA quantity surfaced only when the expert was compelled by the judge to give the defense the raw data of the analysis. Another potential problem arise in the case; pollution. A pollution occurs when a trace is mixed with some other genetic material resulting in the appearance of additional allele peaks. It can occur before, during or after the commission of the crime, during the collection of the stain and item, or during the analysis in the lab. Pollution imply the contribution of material from a real contributor. In this respect, it must be distinguished from another phenomenon, the drop-in, as mentioned before by Tasha. Due to the limited amount of DNA recovered on some item says in this Knox and Sollecito case, the low template DNA analysis requires stringent measures to guard against possible pollution. The police may have taken such measure, but these were not clearly documented, which allow the defence to argue that pollution might indeed have occurred. According to our judgment, some of the police officer admitted that they were wearing gloves when at the scene of crime, but they did not change their gloves after touching each object. One expert declared that there were a dozen people in the victim's room during their first visit of the scientific police. Some of them might have gone from one room to another without changing their shoes' protections. Such circumstances shed a doubtful light on the condition under which low template DNA analysis were conducted. Another element that rises concern is that the clasps of the bra that the victim was apparently wearing around the time she got murdered was not collected during the initial processing of the crime scene and took place the day after the murder but only six week later. Six week later, when the police return to the scene of the crime, the clasp of the bra was spotted one meter away from where it was originally been photographed, and the forensic expert who was questioned about it say she could not explain how they could have been moved. This aspect was heavily criticized by the Italian Supreme Court in its final judgment. Problem related to decisions in the course of determining which peak was or was not representing a real allele were discussed at trial. Laboratory accreditation and the use of international standard are the also used cues and criticized at trial. But our main concern is that the expert did not use a probabilistic approach to assess the value of their findings by integrating all the possible artefacts. So, they did not account, for example, for the possibility of drop-in and not drop-in, dropout and not dropout, starters, real alleles and so on. This is problematic. The conclusions that concerned the male DNA recovered on the bra clasp reported the following: ''The DNA analysis of the Y-chromosome has permitted the determination of the Y haplotype." That is the Y DNA profile of type so and so, "relative to the DNA extracted from trace B. This result also confirms the presence of DNA belonging to Raffaele Sollecito in the analyzed trace, since the Y haplotype obtained is equal to that belonging to Raffaele Sollecito." Although one might argue that the word "confirms" expressed a degree of support, the sentence clearly suggests that the DNA state of Sollecito. It is therefore not in agreement with the NFC guideline. In addition, there is no clearly stated alternative, nor are the scientists expressing themselves in terms of probability of the evidence. But the verdict of the court, as underlined in some Italian law review papers, was more alerted by the possibility of pollution. The fact that the evidence may have been compromised played a major role in not considering DNA evidence. The verdict provoked a change in the jurisprudence. The judge should check if the science was correctly applied. Yes, and this has been discussed also by Professor Luca Luparia, Professor of Law at the University Roma Tre and President of the Italian section of the Innocent Project. He's offered us some input on this aspect. Let us see the interview of Professor Luparia that we have recorded recently. [FOREIGN] [FOREIGN]
