The Granade Law Firm, LLC

I’ve wondered/worried for some time when law enforcement would use (or admit to using) genetic information (think Ancestry.com) without an individual’s permission (or a search warrant) to locate and/or identify individuals believed to have been involved in one or more criminal activities. I wasn’t surprised to find out it has been occurring, but I was a bit stunned law enforcement would admit to using it the way they did in the Golden State Killer case. Shockingly (to me, a...nyway), the search for the rapist and killer involved the collection and use of a DNA sample from an unconscious and presumably incompetent elderly man in a nursing home. Per several news articles, the man’s family claims the physical collection and use of his DNA took place before authorization was granted by the family. Prior to that collection, the family trees/DNA links on a website (I presume Ancestry.com) were used to pinpoint the person of interest in the nursing home. I am not a trial lawyer nor have I performed any research on this matter yet, but I wonder whether any federal laws (maybe the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act?) or any state laws regarding genetic information were violated, and if so, might it adversely impact law enforcement’s ability to put an allegedly vile man in jail? Similarly, there are Constitutional search and seizure concerns. Here’s hoping the media is as poorly informed in this case as it typically is early in criminal cases. (Apologies if you’ve seen this twice! I originally published these comments as my own post, rather than on behalf of my firm.) Copyright 2018, Phyllis F. Granade. News cited: CNN article published 4/28/18. See more