Banks’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 district · 9 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “a DNA database ... help[s] exonerate innocent defendants and convicts. While a criminal defendant may submit his or her own DNA sample for comparison with the sample discovered at a crime scene, a negative result would not necessarily exculpate the defendant. If other evidence ties the defendant to a crime, even though the defendant is innocent, the government would be free to argue that two perpetrators committed the crime. The government could easily explain the evidence: the DNA came from the defendant’s accomplice and the other evidence points to the defendant’s participation. Because the negative DNA test does not eliminate this possibility, and because the other evidence will tie the defendant to the crime, a jury might convict the defendant despite his actual innocence and a negative DNA-test result. With a comprehensive database like CODIS, however, the DNA discovered from the crime scene might match with a previously unsuspected individual, whom the innocent defendant might be able to show acted alone. The defendant will at least have a better opportunity to create reasonable doubt about whether the government indicted the guilty person.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Powers v. State

2. “Through the use of short tandem repeat technology ("STR”), the [FBI] analyzes the presence of various alleles located at 13 markers (or loci) on DNA present in the specimen. These STR loci are each found on so-called "junk DNA”—that is, non-genic stretches of DNA not presently recognized as being responsible for trait coding— and were purposely selected because they are not associated with any known physical or medical characteristics. Because there are observed group variances in the representation of various alleles at the STR loci, however, DNA profiles derived by STR may yield probabilistic evidence of the contributor's race or sex. Even so, DNA profiles generated by STR are highly individuated: Due to the substantial number of alleles present at each of the 13 STR loci (between 7 and 20) and wide-spread variances in their representation among human beings, the chance that two randomly selected individuals will share the same profile are infinitesimal—as are the chances that a person randomly selected from the population at large will present the same DNA profile as that drawn from crime-scene evidence.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 844 F. Supp. 2d 1201 - United States v. Fricosu

3. “: • the privacy interest of prisoners in custody is nearly extinguished by the judgments placing them in custody; • persons on conditional release, such as probation, parole, and supervised release, have acquired additional liberty, but they remain subject to substantial controls; • felons whose terms of incarceration have expired have a basis for legal obligations that are different from those of the general population because of their established criminality; • and those who have never been convicted of a felony have the highest privacy expectation because”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. People v. Triplett