When the Public Took an Interest in Forensic Tests
Forensic tests do not represent the only place where scientists make use of DNA analyses. Such analyses can also be done on a sample of amniotic fluid. In that case, any analysis would provide doctors with information about a child who would soon enter the world. Unlike forensic tests, tests on amniotic fluid offer information about the future and not the past. Moreover, few movie cameras have focused on the procedure for analysis of amniotic fluid. Still, one camera did catch this writer late one afternoon, during the time when she was working in an amniocentesis lab.In the mid-1990s, the molecular biologists of the world were intrigued by something that also interested the readers of Vogue Magazine. They wanted to read about the forensic tests that would be used as evidence at the trial of O.J. Simpson. Those forensic tests helped to introduce the public to the role of DNA in the evaluation of evidence. Yet those particular tests represented little more than “the tip of the iceberg.”
The forensic tests used at the trial of O.J. Simpson did not include all of the tests that would later become a part of a few of TV’s nighttime shows. The tests at the O.J. Simpson trial did not include any forensic serology semen tests. Had such tests been part of that trial, it might have received an even larger viewing audience. After all, everybody likes to view something related to sex
Script writers watching that trial must have wondered how they could add drama to a fairly dry subject. After all, few members of the public really cared about the molecular biology tests used in the analysis of forensic tests. The public watched the presentations about the DNA evidence in order to assess the degree to which either side was winning the court battle. Yet script writers could not recreate the great drama of the O.J. Simpson trial during every TV episode. So script writers knew that an episode that included mention of forensic tests would be difficult to write.
Now, more than 11 years later, many TV viewers tune-in to programs such as “CSI” and “Cold Case,” programs that almost always include some type of forensic testing. Those viewers might get a glimpse of someone in a lab placing a sample in a tiny centrifuge tube, the sort of tube that is used for a DNA analysis. Yet those programs always have other plot lines that add to the story’s suspense.
Such a story might include an allusion to Nazi death camps. Such a story might include a romance between one of the investigators and one of the people who has requested an investigation. Such a story might include images of spirits, spirits that try to depict a moment from the past. All of those elements could surround a story that focused on some thin lines on a piece of paper, a DNA analysis.
Those stories seldom show the drama that might develop in the courtroom upon presentation of the DNA evidence. Those stories do not depict the effort that the jury members might need to exert in order to understand the nature of that evidence. Moreover, no dramatization has ever shown the intensity of the research efforts that led to the development of the forensic tests. No doubt some TV viewers think that the first forensic tests were done during the O.J. Simpson trial.