In the past 20 years 2,000 people have been convicted for something they had nothing to do with because of dna data. That may seem like a small number compared to how many people there are in the US but 2,000 innocent people have to walk around with people still thinking maybe they actually are guilty. Nobody deserves the false accusations others may have received.

DNA testing is a very controversial issue in our world today because: on one hand, it catches criminals; but on the other hand, it doesn't always work the way one would hope. There have been many cases where dna has been mixed up in a case and an innocent human being is convicted wrongfully. The criminal justice system should not be allowed to use DNA testing as evidence because it is inaccurate and has many limitations.

DNA has been misinterpreted more times than one would think, which could cost someone their life if the conviction is strong enough. If something isn’t being routinely done correctly it should not be used in something as important as the criminal justice system.

The Houston Police Department Crime Laboratory is one of the largest public forensic centers in Texas, they handle at least 500 cases a year. KHOU 11 sent many of the samples in from this center to experts who could analyze it with little to no mistakes. William Thompson, an attorney and a criminology professor at the University of California at Irvine told KHOU 11 that “Houston police technicians were routinely misinterpreting even the most basic samples.”

In fact, According to Matthew Shaer, David Butler experienced this first hand. One day the police came to his door and arrested him for the murder of Anne Marie Foy. Butler spent 8 months in jail wondering if they would ever realize he was innocent in this case. David was quoted saying, "It was hard. The loneliness was the worst, not speaking to your family. I've led a good life, I've been a good man, and this to me was an absolute horror story.”

Butler was an innocent bystander who had nothing to do with the case he was convicted for, he suffered for 8 months because the dna data could not provide accurate information. If dna data is going to be used as evidence in court we should be able to rely on it almost 100% of the time, otherwise it should not be used at all.

Another issue is DNA fraud, which is a bigger problem than most people think. DNA fraud causes false accusations to lock up an innocent person. It also allows the real criminal to escape and cause more trouble because they know they can get away with it. There have been many cases where criminals place fake DNA samples at a crime scene to avoid getting caught.

For instance William Harris gives the example of John Schneeberger (a family physician who was loved by many patients) who planted fake DNA evidence in his body to avoid being a suspect in a rape case. It took over 10 years for his victims to finally get the justice they deserved, some people may never get their justice. Schneeberger got away with it the first time so he kept breaking the law because the method of dna testing was to weak to punish him. Instead of catching the criminal, dna testing incentified him to commit more crimes.

Lastly, DNA testing is a violation of our citizens privacy which we need to respect. Additionally, it could lead to other things besides just solely finding a criminal, “Catching criminals is great,” Ram, a privacy and civil rights expert says. “But privacy is also important. Police could solve more crime if they, for instance, could go rifle through anybody’s home at any time for no reason.”

But those kind of searches are illegal because they violate people’s privacy rights and security against any unreasonable search. DNA data could also reveal family history or relative information you may not have wanted to know, or weren’t ready to hear.

DNA testing may seem okay at the surface but once you dig deeper it’s easy to see that it violates the constitution and has to many flaws for us to depend on it as a method of catching a criminal or even proving a suspect to be guilty or innocent. Dna testing cannot be relied on in the criminal justice system.