Current Events > No Statute of Limitations on Murder in Australia

(+) Yeah! (+)

The murder occurred in 1993. Police searched through the DNA registry and found an entry close enough to be family. From there the police detectives found a man who, in 1993 lived 300 metres away from the murder.

How believable is this?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-20/man-arrested-over-murder-of-suzanne-poll/11534196

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There shouldn't be

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I think it should be a century.

After that it hardly matters, and if you made it... congrats I guess.

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Irony posted...

There shouldn't be

This.

Murder, rape etc. If they can prove you did it, then you pay the time. Just because it happened a few decades ago doesn't change a thing.
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IDK what the standards of reasonable doubt are in Australia but if it's like America's then this would be literally a complete waste of time to even arrest this guy.

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There isn't one in usa either.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

IDK what the standards of reasonable doubt are in Australia but if it's like America's then this would be literally a complete waste of time to even arrest this guy.

Even in 'Murrca!, there wouldn't be a cold-case arrest without enough evidence to go to trial.

If there's irrefutable DNA evidence why is there a statute of limitations?

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There is no statute of limitation on murder in America either, fyi.

Watching Forensic Files, there are plenty of cases where they don't catch the person for 15 years or so.

In Germany, Nazi prison guards and secretaries are STILL going on trial for murder in 2021, for things that happened almost 80 years ago.

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refmon posted...

If there's irrefutable DNA evidence why is there a statute of limitations?

There's not irrefutable DNA evidence.

They determined the killer was family.

They found not a guy with the DNA match but a guy in the extended family who lived 300 miles away who they suspect might be related to the murder and arrested him with no other evidence.

This would be a fucking outrage in normal society.

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I guess it comes down to what they actually did. If they simply brought him in for questioning, then that seems acceptable to me.

Holding him a cell based on such flimsy evidence would definitely be very concerning though.
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In all fairness dude lived 384 yards from the site at the time. On the other hand, my credit record knows where I lived yea many years ago but I have long forgotten and I certainly do not remember what I was doing on a particular day. The guy could have done it but if he is innocent he has no way of proving where he was or who he was with. And I do not like that burden of proof is now on defendant.

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Murder should never have a statue of limitations

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There have to be special rules for procedure of trial and acceptable evidence after a decade has elapsed because the accused does not have the records that people would have for something recent. I repeat, the suspect could be innocent. The only direct tie is that he lived where the crime occurred.

The problem with dna is that all humans are decended from a small pool of hominids from Africa and some couplings with random hominids along the way. Our dna is incredibly homogeneous.


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Tyranthraxus posted...

They found not a guy with the DNA match but a guy in the extended family who lived 300 miles away who they suspect might be related to the murder and arrested him with no other evidence.

He lived 300 metres, not miles. What they do with DNA is routinely test it through the offender database to see if they come with a match. They had a familial match with somebody in their database, which led to them tracking down the source of this DNA, who lived only 300 m from the stabbing at the time.

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https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-08-13/online-genealogy-police-dna-databases-golden-state-killer/10094220

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Tyranthraxus posted...

There's not irrefutable DNA evidence.

They determined the killer was family.

They found not a guy with the DNA match but a guy in the extended family who lived 300 miles away who they suspect might be related to the murder and arrested him with no other evidence.

This would be a fucking outrage in normal society.

This is entirely wrong. You should reread the article.

Alucard188 posted...

He lived 300 metres, not miles. What they do with DNA is routinely test it through the offender database to see if they come with a match. They had a familial match with somebody in their database, which led to them tracking down the source of this DNA, who lived only 300 m from the stabbing at the time.

Yes sorry meters not miles.

His DNA wasn't the killers though. Just a family member of the killer. While the chance isn't zero that he knows something. It's unlikely that they will be able to pin any real crime on him. He's just going to answer "It was 30 years ago I can't recall" and that might even be the truth.

He's effectively being arrested because his DNA was in the police database not because any evidence implicates him.

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CobraGT posted...

In all fairness dude lived 384 yards from the site at the time. On the other hand, my credit record knows where I lived yea many years ago but I have long forgotten and I certainly do not remember what I was doing on a particular day. The guy could have done it but if he is innocent he has no way of proving where he was or who he was with. And I do not like that burden of proof is now on defendant.

...the murderer left a large amount of blood at the crime scene, which can be matched to the suspect. The burden of proof was never on the defendant.

Tyranthraxus posted...

His DNA wasn't the killers though. Just a family member of the killer.

Jfc please read the article.

TheOtherMike posted...

Jfc please read the article.

Oh wait mb they didn't arrest the guy in the database they just checked his entire family for someone that didn't have a clear alibi and DNA tested him for a match.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

Oh wait mb they didn't arrest the guy in the database they just checked his entire family for someone that didn't have a clear alibi and DNA tested him for a match.

Literally what I said. They found familial DNA in the database, and worked through that to find the exact match.

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cos aussie cops are useless. if there is a time limit nothing will be solved in time

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The DNA evidence is irrefutable only when the entire genome is compared. There was a project to fully analyze human genes and although it is considered a success, we cannot agree on how many genes humans have.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05462-w

It is between 19,000 and 22,000 genes. The FBI looks at 13 + 7 markers.

What you are left with is an estimate of how likely it is that someone else has the same matches (not the same genes, the same matches). Two of my grandparents come from a small village that was depopulated during World War II. If I was the suspect, you could be reasonably certain that you had a real match.

https://cen.acs.org/analytical-chemistry/Thirty-years-DNA-forensics-DNA/95/i37
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DNA contains regions in which short sequences of bases are repeated multiple times. These repeats are found in many spotsor locithroughout the genome. Because the exact number of repeats at any particular locus varies from person to person, forensic scientists can use these markers, called short tandem repeats (STRs), to identify individuals. Whats more, people inherit chromosomes from both of their parents, so individuals have two sets of STRs, each of which can have different numbers of repeats at the same locus. This pair of alleles can therefore provide even more specificity to a persons DNA profile.
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"
In the 1990s, the forensics community switched to STRs, which are a shorter type of repeat unit. The STRs used for forensics range from three to five bases long. Strung together with flanking sequences on either side, these STRs make up overall DNA fragments that are less than 500 bases long. The length of a DNA fragment correlates with the number of repeats it contains.
Rather than use X-ray-based gel electrophoresis, todays forensic scientists measure the size of DNA fragments with a technique called capillary electrophoresis. Small fragments travel more quickly than large fragments through a gel-like material. As the separated DNA bits pass a fluorescence detector, they are registered as a series of peaks in an electropherogram. Capillary electrophoresis instruments are much faster, and they dont require users to cast gels as is done in the X-ray-based gel electrophoresis technique of the past, VCUs Dawson Cruz says. The system is much more automated than before.
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Article goes on to talk about the current method which is even faster, more reliable and more automated.

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Funkydog posted...

This.

Murder, rape etc. If they can prove you did it, then you pay the time. Just because it happened a few decades ago doesn't change a thing.

Oh, totally.

Let's toss 90 year old German receptionists into Prison because they were Nazi's at the age of 18. You're totally right man. Makes total sense to ruin the lives of senior citizens.

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We don't have statutes of limitations, like at all. You shoplift a Snickers when you're 6, and the store owner can come along when you're 50, and have you charged.

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Awesome.

The victim doesn't just come back to life after a certain amount of years.
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I'm not sure how I feel about statutes of limitations. On the one hand, it can seem appalling that criminals can run free once an arbitrary time limit has expired. On the other hand, as more time passes, it is harder and harder to find good evidence, and if you do accuse a suspect, it becomes much more difficult for him or her to mount a defense. There is also the temptation for bad cops to try and increase their "win" rate by behaving unscrupulously. It is in the best interests of society for crimes to be solved by finding and punishing the actual criminal. It's also a matter of resources. The court system is so clogged that hardly anybody gets a trial, and on average less than half of crimes that police know get committed are ever solved.

The justice system needs a serious overhaul, and many of the questions related to that are complex.