Courts on AI / Algorithms in criminal justice
Figueroa Hernandez v. State
Florida Third District Court of Appeal · State appellate courts · FL · · No. 3D2024-1368 · opinion
The Florida appellate court discusses expert testimony comparing manual DNA interpretation with STRmix probabilistic genotyping. The court affirms after reviewing a Daubert hearing and the defense argument that newer software better suited mixed, low-level DNA profiles.
- Disposition
- The court affirmed the conviction and rejected challenges to DNA evidence and other trial rulings.
What the court wrote
Verbatim from the court's document (public domain). Ellipses mark omitted text; nothing is paraphrased.
Defense DNA expert Tiffany Roy disputed the reliability of the State’s testing procedures. Roy testified that Miami-Dade’s crime lab should have updated to a new genotyping software (for example, STRmix), which is better suited for mixed profiles and profiles with low-grade DNA, both of which occurred here. Roy testified that the crime lab’s manual method relies too much on the analyst’s view of the DNA, yielding uncertainty in the tested locations. With low-grade DNA, the manual method may be inadequate to determine “stochastic” effects (random distortions) in the DNA sample. ... On April 4, 2023, the trial court conducted a Daubert hearing to address two defense motions in limine: (i) to suppress the State’s forensic DNA report; and (ii) to prevent the State from referring to its serology test as a “saliva presumptive test.” The trial court’s May 26, 2023 Daubert order denied both motions.
Authorities cited in the passage: Daubert · Kemp v. State, 280 So. 3d 81 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019)
compiled by the Cognesio LLP editorial teammethodas of 2026-09-07v0.1.1coding CC BY 4.0JSON Hugging Face GitHub
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