Case and Comment - Pantoja

(1998) 22(1) Criminal Law Journal 39-43

5 Pages Posted: 1 Aug 2014

See all articles by John Anderson

John Anderson

University of Newcastle (Australia) - Newcastle Law School

Date Written: January 15, 1998

Abstract

In the case of Pantoja (1996) 88 A Crim R 554, the appellant was convicted of the murder of his wife. He appealed on a number of grounds with the most important being in relation to the admission of DNA evidence from an alleged sexual assault on his sister-in-law one week before his wife was killed, which was relied on by the prosecution to demonstrate the appellant's passion for his sister-in-law and as a motive for the murder of his wife. The DNA evidence was challenged particularly evidence relating to statistical data. The appeal was allowed as the appellate judges were not satisfied that the databases used in relation to the DNA testing were of sufficient statistical validity to warrant the admission of evidence derived from them. There was conflict between the expert witnesses in this case as to the matching of the appellant's DNA with the semen detected on the vaginal swabs from his sister-in-law but the major point of contention in the case was the use of databases which have been established for use in court cases to demonstrate the probability that another person would share the DNA profile of the suspect. Although race was not considered important in this case as it had been in the earlier case of Green (1993) the database used for comparison had to be shown to be statistically valid. The databases in this case were considered to be 'very small' and the prosecution did not present any evidence to support their statistical validity so the evidence should have been rejected at trial. Although this case makes it clear that evidence as to 'matching' (first stage) and evidence as to the statistical probability of such match occurring by chance or coincidence (second stage) is admissible there are important context considerations such as careful analysis of the size of the database, the characteristics of the persons who make up the database, and the time period over which the database was compiled before such evidence should actually be admitted in a criminal trial.

Keywords: Criminal Law and Procedure, DNA Profiling, Judicial Directions, Statistical validity, Racial characteristics, DNA Database

JEL Classification: K14

Suggested Citation

Anderson, John, Case and Comment - Pantoja (January 15, 1998). (1998) 22(1) Criminal Law Journal 39-43, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2459728

John Anderson (Contact Author)

University of Newcastle (Australia) - Newcastle Law School ( email )

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