Evil twin points to brotherIn a Florida case that was solved using DNA, a man convicted yesterday of a murder in 1990 had attempted to put the blame on his twin, who has identical DNA. Thankfully, the twin had a good alibi for the time of the incident. [full story]
It had always been a thought of mine that identical twins might be almost impervious to prosecution for crimes, at least as long as they always backed up each other. As they are genetically identical and share the same DNA, and I assume fingerprints, any evidence that was good against one of them would identically be good against the other. Even eyewitness testimony or being captured on video would not be sufficient to identify one over the other. Presumptively, if only one of them was involved in the activity, then the other must be innocent of any involvement. Without evidence as appeared in this case where one of them was actually known to be in another location at the time of the offense, how could anyone ever be sure, beyond a reasonable doubt, which one was actually the one who committed the crime? How could any conscientious juror not worry about maybe convicting the innocent twin of that offense committed by the guilty twin?
Posted by Tiger at April 27, 2003 03:06 PM