Professor Deborah Denno of Fordham University Law School has pub­lished an arti­cle in the Michigan State Law Review con­cern­ing her research into the use of genet­ic evi­dence pos­si­bly relat­ed to behav­ior char­ac­ter­is­tics in crim­i­nal cas­es. Denno found that the pri­ma­ry use of this evi­dence was in death penal­ty cas­es at the penal­ty phase, and that it is almost always used as mit­i­ga­tion evi­dence. The arti­cle notes some of the dan­gers in this kind of evi­dence based on past use. Nevertheless, the author con­cludes that courts are accept­ing of this evi­dence, even though it does not deter­mine the out­come of the case.

(D. Denno, ​“Courts’ Increasing Consideration of Behavioral Genetics Evidence in Criminal Cases: Results of a Longitudinal Study,” 2011 Michigan State Law Review 967; post­ed Aug. 22, 2012). See Law Reviews and Studies.

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