2nd Legal Standards Workshop Concludes

William M. Narus, Resident Legal Advisor -
U.S. Department of Justice - Nairobi gives his
presentation on Building a Strong Foundation for Cases. 

DNA Evidence has proved a valuable forensic tool in criminal investigations and court cases involving wildlife. Wildlife forensic science applies a range of scientific disciplines to legal cases involving non-human biological evidence. These disciplines include genetics, morphology, chemistry, pathology, and veterinary sciences. Advances in science have made it possible to use DNA analysis for the examination of evidence for a variety of legal issues involving wild animals. The resultant analysis can be used as evidence in the pursuit of criminal prosecution for the case.

Dr. Beatrice Khayota, Principal Research Scientist

 National Museums of Kenya, and Co-Chair of 

Barcode of Wildlife Project Kenya 

gives her remarks.

Due to the fact that wildlife crimes are strict liability crimes, the standard of proof is lowered compared to penal crimes because the prosecution does not have to prove the criminal intent of the accused person. In criminal cases the burden of proof for forensic evidence is the prosecution relying on the evidence meaning that all procedural aspects relating to that evidence must be followed to avoid any doubt being raised as to the credibility of that evidence.

Mr Patrick Omondi KWS Deputy Director for Species 
Conservation and Management, and Co-Chair of 
Barcode of Wildlife Project Kenya gives his remarks.

This second Legal Standards Workshop objectives were to produce revised legal standards and procedures for the collection, processing and analysis of samples for creation of the DNA Library, and come up with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to be used by law enforcement officers in the collection, documentation, management and processing of samples taken from crime scenes. The workshop was planned to design sampling kits for use in collecting biological samples from crime scenes for subsequent DNA analysis, draft a curriculum for the training of Kenya Wildlife Service rangers in the use of the SOPs and sampling kits, as well as drafting a curriculum for the training of prosecutors in the use of DNA barcode evidence in prosecution of wildlife crimes.

During Legal Standards presentation.

Some of the main goals for Barcode of Wildlife Project (BWP) is to generate a reference library with over 50,000 high-quality BARCODE records, demonstrate effectiveness of the library for investigation and prosecution, and adopt and support the system long-term.

Now in Phase 3 of the project, it revolves building and testing the BARCODE Reference Library and training crime investigators, expert witnesses, prosecutors and magistrates before the final and full implementation in Phase 4.

The 1^st Legal Standards Workshop

Participants formulate SOPs to be 

used by law enforcement officers.

Barcode of wildlife Project Kenya National Project Committee held a legal standards workshop on ‘Legal Standards and Admissibility of DNA Barcode Evidence’, at Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute (KWSTI) on Monday 19^th August 2013, with participants been drawn from various agencies.

The intention of the 1^st Workshop were to clarify legal issues when collecting samples, adjustments in sampling analysis and chain of custody, stipulate action items leading to standard operation procedures (SOPs), and form working groups for the just concluding phase 2 of the project.

Ettah Muango  KWS Legal Officer
leads participants on the way forward.

It is this workshop came up with legal standards. During collection of samples, scientific standards would suffice.  The chain of custody adopted should show that the item in question is same one collected and that it should be stored in a secure place.  Chain of custody forms should be developed and used for this purpose. 

1^st Workshop noted that the biology of forensic science involves several disciplines and morphology, hence pathology and genetics can be used to identify species for purposes of creating the library. Last but not least, the forensic laboratory should be recognized under the law and forensic experts gazetted as government experts.