Drilling Down To the DNA (Gwen Moritz Editor’s Note)

I’m a frustrated crime writer at heart — in this job, I have to settle for the white-collar genre — so my television diet is heavy on true crime shows. One of my favorites is “Forensic Files,” a long-running series of short episodes describing the scientific techniques used to solve mysteries (mainly murders) all over the country and even internationally.

More than 400 episodes of “Forensic Files” were made between 1996 and 2011, and the technology available for DNA analysis seemed to improve with every episode. In the early seasons, investigators waited months for the results of DNA tests, provided samples were large enough. One episode describes the 1986 case in England in which DNA was first used as evidence in a trial. In 2002, police in Baton Rouge were looking for a typical white male serial killer until new DNA analysis determined — correctly — that the killer was a black man.

Identical DNA from a rape case in Marianna solved the 2008 rape and murder in Little Rock of Anne Pressly, a KATV news anchor. DNA is being used to exonerate as well as convict. Hardly a week passes that someone isn’t released after decades in an American prison because DNA that didn’t match created more than reasonable doubt.

DNA technology has advanced to the point that testing is a competitive industry marketed on TV to consumers. For $100 or less, you can spit into a little tube and find out whether you should trade in your lederhosen for a kilt. (A friend who was adopted as an infant in the late 1950s used a commercial DNA test to identify her biological father. She was delighted; her younger half brother not so much.)

One thing that Americans still agree on, regardless of political ideology, is that innocent people should not be incarcerated. DNA testing is so cheap these days that it seems like testing any genetic material available in cases prosecuted more than, say, 20 years ago might be cheaper for the taxpayers than continuing to lock up people who are probably innocent.

Every case is unique, of course, and we should not make the mistake of assuming that DNA is the answer to every criminal case. Lab results can be wrong or faked, and there can be innocent explanations for the presence of DNA. It would be a mistake to assume that DNA can’t be questioned the way we mistakenly assumed that eyewitnesses and even confessions were always slam-dunks. But DNA results are powerful evidence, one way or the other.

About the time “Forensic Files” was getting started, I was invited to a demonstration at the Microsoft Corp. headquarters near Seattle. I was producing publications for the Nashville (Tennessee) Bar Association, and Microsoft wanted to prove that its updated version of Word could compete with WordPerfect, Corel’s word processing program that lawyers loved because it could — gasp! — automatically number paragraphs.

I noticed that every Microsoft presenter eventually referred to “drilling down to the DNA” — of Word, of Microsoft, of the law practice, of every problem. This was clearly a phrase in common use in Redmond, Washington, and by the end of my visit I started to think that working it into every conversation might be a Microsoft geek drinking game.

I’m not sure flying me and my boss to the Microsoft Mothership wasn’t a complete waste of Bill Gates’ money, but the idea of figurative DNA took root in my brain. I realized that my biggest professional frustrations had been the failure of my managers to explain to me the organization’s DNA, where I fit into the double helix and what impact I was supposed to have.

This might be a problem for some of your employees as well.

When it became my job to wrangle the team that produces this publication week after week, the DNA of Arkansas Business became clearer and clearer. Finding and reporting news and information of value or interest to business executives in Arkansas is what we are programmed to do.

Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers. While you are enjoying my favorite holiday with people who may or may not share your DNA, please know that one of the things that I am most thankful for is the loyal subscribers who keep our product alive.

Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. Email her at GMoritz@ABPG.com.