State Panel Approves Police Use Of Controversial Familial DNA Records Searches
By Nathan Tempey,
Gothamist
| 06. 16. 2017
A state commission voted this morning to adopt a controversial policy allowing police to perform familial DNA searches in certain criminal cases.
The 9-2 vote by the state Commission on Forensic Science lets cops investigating cases that pose a public safety threat—including murders, rapes, and arsons—to broaden DNA database searches to include close, rather than exact DNA matches. The technique is intended to show investigators close family members of the person whose DNA they have—a father or a son, say—in order to guide the investigation. Much of the state's database consists of samples obtained from people convicted of crimes, including offenses such as trespassing.
The governor-appointed commission's approval came with the strong backing of New York City prosecutors, as well as the father of murdered Howard Beach jogger Karina Vetrano. Phil Vetrano became a vocal supporter of familial testing when the DNA retrieved from his daughter's body failed to produce a match and the trail in the search for the killer seemed to go cold. The technique ultimately wasn't used, and family members of the suspect who was arrested...
Related Articles
What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great deal in common, with substantial differences in style and emphasis. Both books attempt, in different ways, to show the reader just where current research into human genomics stands, where that might be going, and why the authors are interested. In short, the influence of genomic research on our societies is already large and seems likely to change them in ways...
By Dan Falk, Nautilus | 08.20.2026
The pseudoscience of eugenics, founded on the mistaken notion that nature envisions some “right” combination of genes, and that selective breeding can improve the human race, is making a comeback. While the heyday of eugenics was a century ago, the...
By Anna Louie Sussman, The New York Times | 08.21.2026
Since in vitro fertilization was invented nearly 50 years ago, at least 10 million children who would not otherwise exist have been brought into the world. New constellations of families — older moms, same-sex parents, single dads — have flourished...
By Jenni Fink, Newsweek | 08.19.2026
“Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
President Donald Trump's latest effort to limit birthright citizenship could have consequences for the international surrogacy industry, potentially affecting thousands of intended parents from overseas who travel...
