[BugsJustFindMe]

Ignoring for a moment the obvious hitch that sperm does not automatically equal murder, there's also the problem that DNA forensics suffers from the same fakery problem that other criminal forensic techniques suffer from especially when samples are old and mixed https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727733-500-fallible...

DNA matching from a decades old mixed tissue slide is not an exact process and many factors from handling to a desire to close the case can lead to a wrong conclusion.

The most that can be said is that the detectives are satisfied enough to stop digging, not that the case is solved. Let's remember that a posthumous process allows for zero defense and criminal justice depends on defense.

And besides all of that, it strikes me as wildly unethical to burden the family with this information just to satisfy detective curiosity and desire for closure. I see zero benefit to going through the final steps after they determined that their suspect had already died. The corpse's ashes can't go to prison. The family just lives with this now. That's a negative outcome.

[fairity]

> I see zero benefit to going through the final steps after they determined that their suspect had already died

If the victim has living friends & family, it provides closure. Additionally, solving cases, however old, boosts public confidence that crimes will not go unpunished, which in turn acts as a deterrent for future crime.

[kaminar]

Yep, it's egregiously irresponsible of them to do that. Like being smug happy about correcting sometimes grammar. F them.

[sebastien_b]

> Additionally, solving cases, however old, boosts public confidence that crimes will not go unpunished

But in this particular case, the family of the suspect was really the only one to get “punishment”, not the actual suspect (which now had no way of defense as others have pointed out).

[moron4hire]

The threat of punishment has never been shown to be a deterrent to crime.

EDIT: I would have thought this was a well-known issue by now, but for those who are disagreeing, "punishments do not deter crime" is also the opinion of the National Institute of Justice: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterr...

[krrrh]

I think you’re getting downvotes for the statement “never been shown”. It’s an overly broad claim, and even the link you posted talks more about the severity of punishment being a weaker deterrent than the certainty of being caught (and punished). There’s still no doubt that if theft was suddenly not punished at all then there would be more theft.

From other reading I’ve done the consistency of punishment is more important, and it’s better for criminal justice systems to provide a certain small punishment than an inconsistent outsized punishment, and this has a lot to do with the way humans evaluate risks, and improved paths towards helping criminals becoming non-criminals.

Anyway, I learned a bit from the link you posted, mostly that this sort of thinking is mainstream enough to be presented like this by the DoJ. So have my upvote.

[thatguy0900]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/san-franci... Seems to be a direct counter example. Punishments for shoplifting was effectively made nonexistent and then organized crime rings sprung up to begin shoplifting.

[syshum]

The problem with that is the government has no only removed prison as a punishment, but also removed all possible punishment as they have refused any accountability at all and disallows the use of force to defend property.

That is far far far different than what the OP is talking about

[ummonk]

The comment by the appropriately named “moron4hire” said the threat of punishment doesn’t work, not “prison isn’t the best form of punishment”.

[rightbyte]

Do more drivers turn right at red lights in the US than in say UK were it is illegal?

[moron4hire]

The legality of the action is not the only difference between those two locales. A right turn on red is significantly more dangerous in the UK than in the US.

[rightbyte]

Oh ... ye well lets pretend I wrote "turn left at red lights in UK" shall we?

[kortilla]

The very first statement in that link directly contradicts what you said. It says:

> The certainty of being caught is a vastly more powerful deterrent than the punishment.

The “certainty of being caught” is the threat of punishment. You’ve gotten it confused with the severity of punishment.

[moron4hire]

The line you quoted clearly makes a distinction between getting caught and being punished. Punishments are not the only possible response to someone having committed and being convicted of a crime. A heroin user could be put in prison or sent to a rehab program. One is a punishment, the other is not.

The action taken being against what the recipient wants to do with their time is not what defines a punishment. Punishments are correctional actions that rely on the power of violence deprive the recipient of something: money, freedom, comfort, life. Rehabilitation is a correctional action that relies on reason and education for the recipient.

[throwawayboise]

How do you punish a dead man?

[Someone]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthumous_execution (with several historical examples, among which https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod: “the ecclesiastical trial of Pope Formosus, who had been dead for about seven months, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome during January 897. The trial was conducted by Pope Stephen VI, the successor to Formosus' successor, Pope Boniface VI. Stephen had Formosus' corpse exhumed and brought to the papal court for judgment”. I guess the judgment was “this case stinks”))

[BugsJustFindMe]

That's a performance which doesn't actually punish the dead person because the dead person is...well...dead.

[temp8964]

A. They tested the suspect's children's DNA and got a positive.

B. It's true sperm doesn't equal murder. But in this case the victim was asexually assaulted and then murdered. The likelihood of both crimes committed by the same person is way higher than two different persons.

[vmception]

Does my reasonable doubt count?

The fall guy they pulled in for a raped and murdered jogger in NYC was willing to confess and then was like "woah woah I didn't do the rape where did that charge come from"

There could just as easily be a Brock Turner in the woods seeing an incapacitated girl and fiddling around, except this time the victim would already be or about to be dead.

Too many examples for me to make that conclusion. So, my reasonable doubt would count if I was on the jury. Convicting/Acquitting someone is one thing, we all pat ourselves on the back, but the thing that really bothers me is when the dangerous person is still out there. Who cares about debating the doubt when there is a greater likelihood of ongoing danger in the community but now the investigation isn't even happening. Its debating someone's freedom versus debating the safety of the community which is a larger group of people, the greater doubt is actually about whether the community is now safe instead of whether I like this person's alibi.

[valuearb]

So you think the accused killers family would be much happier if they found out he didn’t kill either of them, just had sex with the dying girl and left her to die?

[vmception]

That's where your mind went. In this article, it would be just as easy for them to have had consensual sex beforehand.

The feelings of the family is not a factor in investigating and prosecuting the right people.

[bytelines]

> That's where your mind went

This is in the post he's replying to:

> There could just as easily be a Brock Turner in the woods seeing an incapacitated girl and fiddling around, except this time the victim would already be or about to be dead.

Brock Turner is a well known recent case of rape, the rapist (Brock Turner) sexually assaulted an unconscious woman before two graduate students intervened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner

[vmception]

Except they were conflating the examples with the article along with the Brock Turner reference

Its almost impossible to respond except in the way that I did

Half the parent level comments are also saying semen isn't a great for helping with anything except investigating a sexual assault

[valuearb]

> “ There could just as easily be a Brock Turner in the woods seeing an incapacitated girl and fiddling around, except this time the victim would already be or about to be dead.”

You posited he could have merely raped the dying victim (semen isn’t left by “fiddling around”). I ask you again whether hit matters if he was a rapist-murderer or merely a rapist of bound murder victims.

Reasonable doubt doesn’t mean constructing convoluted scenarios to explain how he left his semen in her without raping or murdering her. Occams Razor falls very hard on the obvious answer here.

[vmception]

You will never understand what I wrote.

[boomboomsubban]

The potential benefits here are that it's possible the assumed culprit has committed other crimes, and this knowledge could solve other cases, some where potentially the crime has been pinned to an innocent person.

I'm unsure how this potentially positive match would enter databases though, and find it very unlikely that any potentially "solved" case would have DNA tested against such a database.

Publishing the assumed culprit's name and details seems fairly egregious though.

[lolinder]

Yes, the publishing of the details is what gets to me. Throughout the article they treat the case as solved and the man as the guilty party, which they would never do to a living person before a verdict. To thousands of NPR readers, this man is not only the prime suspect but also the guilty party, in spite of the fact that charges will never be filed and guilt or innocence will never be formally determined.

[ChrisKnott]

Why is it a burden for the family? The family surely wanted the case solved...?

[vorticalbox]

I believe the comment was about the murders family.

Up until this point they had no idea, they now have to live with that knowledge.

The only people being punished now are the these family members who did nothing wrong.

[lolinder]

The worst part for the family is that the media can label their father a rapist and murderer without him actually having been convicted. The police have strong evidence, from the sound of it, but with a living person the news media wouldn't be allowed to go around saying unequivocally "he's the guy" without a guilty verdict.

The upshot is that even if there's been a mistake, this man's name will never be cleared, and his family will just have to live with this.

[jiqiren]

The family agreed to help the police figure it out.

Maybe their reaction to learning the news was more like "yeah this makes sense - dad was an abusive asshole my whole life. At least I wasn't killed".

[BugsJustFindMe]

The police going to ask them in the first place was a wrong decision. A family minding their own business doing nothing wrong should not be burdened with someone showing up at their door saying "we think that you're the children of a murder rapist. If you don't help us that's definitely what we're going to conclude. If you do help us there's a chance that we'll conclude it anyway, but you never know. He's dead now so we have no requirement to overcome a legal defense. What say you?"

That's known as a devil's bargain.

> Maybe their reaction to learning

A more likely outcome is irreparable trauma.

[gverrilla]

Are you saying you wouldn't like to know if your father were a rapist-murderer? I don't get it, really. And I'm pretty sure it can help those people learn better about themselves and their past. This is why they accepted.

[geoduck14]

> The family agreed to help the police figure it out.

No. A couple of children, grand children, or cousins agreed to share their DNA (or it was legally removed without consent). The rest could have told the cops "NO", and they still would have gotten enough DNA evidence.

[sebastien_b]

This. Detectives’ thirst for solving (or just finding someone to blame/force a confession out of) crimes will often override their duty for true justice, by whatever means they want.

[BugsJustFindMe]

> the murders family

It's rather important that we say "accused's family". It's irresponsible to label someone a murderer without giving them an honest opportunity for defense.

[geoduck14]

In so many instances where you will never know the name of the person who wrongs you. If you are waiting to "know who did you wrong" before you "move on", you will wallow in misery.

Please, for the sake of your own mental health, try to separate "closure" from "legal justice".

[bsder]

In addition, why is it that these people were missed on the initial investigations?

For example, the Golden State Killer had a whole set of characteristics that should have narrowed it down to him.

I suspect this case is similar.

[TheJoeMan]

I agree. I believe this article is to be a “tug your heartstrings” to be against the very logical restriction on forensic DNA analysis by “reconstructing a reverse family tree” which is quite often wrong.

[version_five]

Yeah, what caught my attention was the casual

> although new state legislation restricting forensic genealogy could complicate matters

as if affording important privacy protections is a "complication" that interferes with their goal of a safer world. Much of the article reads like a thinly veiled lobbying piece for why police should be less restricted in how they use this technique.

[LorenPechtel]

While it can be wrong the cost of a wrong is minor--they test the DNA, it doesn't match, they continue their search, now perhaps with better information as to how the tree fits together.

[geoduck14]

> While it can be wrong the cost of a wrong is minor

NO. NO NO NO. The cost is VERY much NOT MINOR. In the 80s and 90s, DNA was over used and it was incorrectly used to put the wrong people in prison for a very long time. The cost of mistakes is NOT trivial.