NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesdav. June 29.1994
7
Town dismayed at court ruling on religion, schools
The Associated Press
KIRYAS JOEL, N.Y. — In this ultra-Orthodox Jewish village of about 12,000, Yiddish is the first language.
Men wear black coats, black hats and long beards. Women wear ankle-length skirts and wives cover their heads, indoors and out. Most people marry by age 19 in weddings arranged by parents or matchmakers. Families average about 10 children and contraception is forbidden.
But a secular voice penetrated this Satmar Hasidic community on Monday, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a public school district for the village's disabled children violates the Constitution's ban on government establishment of religion.
DNA tests ordered for Simpson
This reclusive village about 50 miles north of New York City maintains its traditions by educating its 5,300 children at private, single-sex Jewish schools.
Defense disputes accuracy of results
That means a big change for children like 8-year-old Shaloimy Reisman, who has Down syndrome.
"I feel as if my child's second home is being taken away," Judith Gluck said of her 6-year-old son Yitzchok, who has Down syndrome and has attended the school since he was a toddler. "I can't imagine what happens next."
"I don't see him going to school with English people. He doesn't speak the language," said his mother, Chaya. "These surroundings is what he needs the most — his type of people."
LOS ANGELES — The double-murder case against OJ. Simpson could turn on DNA tests on blood and hair in a state where some judges have shied away from allowing such evidence in court.
The Associated Press
At prosecutors' request yesterday, a judge ordered Simpson's lawyers to turn over some of his hair for genetic comparison with hairs in a ski cap found where his ex-wife and her friend were stain. The prosecution also is conducting DNA tests on blood.
During the 1980s, California judges welcomed genetics tests. But at least two appeals courts ruled recently that DNA evidence shouldn't have been allowed in criminal trials because scientists can't agree on its reliability.
"This is a piece of scientific evidence which lawyers and experts are probably going to dispute they come back and exclude O.J. Simpson," said F. Lee Baley, one of Simpson's attorneys.
Bailey has called DNA test results questionable and inconclusive. "Some experts would say it shows one thing, some experts could say, 'No it doesn't show that,' and away we go,' he said.
The defense has said it wants to do its own genetic testing of the blood and hair.
So-called DNA fingerprinting looks for unique characteristics that constitute each person's genetic makeup. Laboratories extract DNA from such things as blood or hair found at a crime scene and compare it with samples from suspects and victims.
Defense lawyers are aware they must overcome a public perception that DNA testing is definitive, especially when scientists say there's a one-in-a-million chance more than one person might have a particular DNA profile.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that obvious differences in portions of DNA can easily eliminate a suspect. However, the testing provides less certainty with positive identification. Human error in conducting the tests is possible, and the image made of the DNA is open to interpretation.
California requires that scientific methods be accepted in the scientific community before they are admissible in court. Judges have found no problems with the test process but have found disagreement among experts on how to read the results.
In a 1991 murder case in Ventura County, an appeals court ruled that DNA evidence was properly admitted because of consensus about creating DNA images, comparing them and providing a statistical explanation of the chances two people could share a pattern.
Then in 1992, an appeals court combined decisions in a kidnap-rape case and a murder case in Alameda County and ruled that DNA results were inadmissible because experts disagreed on interpretation.
None of the rulings reversed verdicts, but they injected a new level of uncertainty into using DNA fingerprinting in California trials.
"The California courts stand virtually alone in holding that it is not admissible" because judges can't find scientific consensus on how to analyze the evidence, said John Dwyer, professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley.
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ates that have examined the issue accept DNA evidence, as do federal courts, he said. Trial judges in California have seldom denied the admissibility of DNA evidence. If Simpson's judge does, prosecutors can try to take the issue all the way to the state Supreme Court before going to trial.
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