Bill of Health contributor Dov Fox has a new op-ed at the Huffington Post on “junk” DNA and the future of genetic privacy in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling, in Maryland v. King, that police may collect DNA from people under arrest. Fox argues, The next great controversy over forensic DNA won’t have anything to…
By Michele Goodwin Less than an hour ago, Indianapolis prosecutor, Mr. Terry Curry agreed to drop first degree murder charges against Bei Bei Shuai in an agreement that required her to plead to a misdemeanor. The case was a month away from trial in what would have been the first prosecution of a pregnant woman…
A new article in The Atlantic, “Could the Government Get a Search Warrant for Your Thoughts?: Why remain silent if they can just read your mind?“, cites Bill of Health blogger Dov Fox’s research on brain imaging. Last year, a Maryland man on trial for murdering his roommate tried to introduce results from an fMRI-based lie…
By Nicholson Price In a unanimous opinion (pdf) in Cook v. FDA, the DC Circuit just held that FDA must prohibit the importation of misbranded or unapproved new drugs, including those made by unapproved manufacturers abroad. In this case, a set of prisoners on death row sued FDA to require it to prohibit the importation…
By Michele Goodwin I conclude Part III in this series from Uganda—a nation recovering from what one doctor describes as a “genocide” from HIV and AIDS. Parts I and II can be found here and here. As a society, do we really care that teens and preteens have sex? On the one hand we care…
By Michelle Meyer In my last post on Maryland v. King, I suggested that both proponents and opponents of King should find the philosophical case for a universal DNA database stronger than they might otherwise have thought. Obviously, moving in that direction — or even including mere suspects in a database — would raise legal…
By Michelle Meyer Disclaimer: I’m not a Fourth Amendment person. Rather, my interest in King is in its implications for policies for the use of DNA in the criminal justice system. I spent the better part of a year after my Ph.D and before beginning law school helping to research and edit a book on DNA…
By Michelle Meyer The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this morning, in Maryland v. King, that it is constitutional under the Fourth Amendment’s protection against “unreasonable” searches and seizures for the state to compel collection of DNA from arrestees. The probable cause required to arrest someone under the Fourth Amendment permits fingerprinting and taking photographs during…
By Michele Goodwin This post is the second in a three part series on the use of criminal law to police teen sex. The first part can be viewed here. In recent years, thousands of judicial proceedings against children result in teens as young as thirteen being adjudicated as sexual predators and placed on sex…
By Michelle Meyer A few weeks ago, I blogged about a recent episode of This American Life, “Dr. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde,” about the quest of one Dr. Gilmer (Benjamin) to understand why another, beloved Dr. Gilmer (Vince), had brutally murdered his own father after hearing voices that compelled him to do so. The episode…
