You'll never hear fatherly advice like this from Paul Ferrara--too bad for B&E men (that's breaking and entering, to you). The conviction carried by his warm baritone and clear and sober eyes might make a young punk listen. But instead, the director of forensic science at Virginia's Institute for Forensic Science and Medicine gets a laugh by telling how "honey bun" was nailed by DNA from his own sweet lips. A little humor helps make a serious point: DNA forensics databases have put hundreds of criminals in prison who otherwise would be free to roam the streets.
Joining Ferrara recently at a symposium on DNA and justice sponsored by the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Mass., and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank, Barry Scheck underscored the point from a different perspective. "Each time an innocent person is arrested, indicted, convicted, or God ...
