In Brief
In April 2026 Florida’s Attorney General announced a statewide program to run DNA from unsolved cases through forensic genetic genealogy, in partnership with a private lab called Othram, against a backlog the office puts at 21,000 unsolved murders and nearly 900 sets of unidentified remains. Genetic genealogy does not look for the suspect; it looks for a relative in a consumer DNA database and builds a family tree to a name. That structure is why the search is so hard to challenge: Fourth Amendment rights are personal, and the person who uploaded the DNA is a cousin. The fight in a genealogy case moves to what comes after the name, the direct sample, the decades-old evidence behind it, and the analyst who has to come to court.
The Golden State Killer case made genetic genealogy famous in 2018, and since then the technique has moved from a novelty to a line item. On April 8, 2026, Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that the Office of Statewide Prosecution “is partnering with Othram, a forensic technology company,” to work Florida’s cold cases, starting with three homicides: one from the 1970s tied to Broward and Miami-Dade, a double homicide from the late 2000s around Miami Gardens, and an early-1980s homicide in Central Florida. The release says the program is expected to expand to serial sexual battery cases. The Florida Phoenix reported the Attorney General telling reporters his office had devoted $600,000 so far to “a series of different projects” with the company; the written release gives no dollar figure. I handle DNA cases in Tampa Bay, and what follows is how this technique works, why the usual defense motion mostly does not, and where the real questions are.
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How Genetic Genealogy Actually Works
A conventional DNA search compares a crime scene profile against CODIS, the law enforcement database of people who have been arrested or convicted, and looks for the same person. Genetic genealogy is a different search of a different database. The lab builds a much richer profile from the crime scene sample, the kind consumer ancestry companies use, and uploads it to a genealogy database that permits law enforcement matching. The search is not looking for the suspect. It is looking for anyone who shares enough DNA to be a relative, often a second or third cousin who spat in a tube years ago to learn where their family came from. From that match, investigators build a family tree outward and then narrow it with age, location, and public records until it points to a name. That name is a lead, not evidence. To charge anyone, investigators still need a direct comparison between the crime scene profile and the suspect’s own DNA, which they usually get from something discarded: a cup, a cigarette, a napkin.
What Florida Announced
The Attorney General’s release frames the program around a backlog: “to date, there are 21,000 unsolved murder cases in Florida and nearly 900 cases with unidentified human remains.” Othram, based in Texas, does the laboratory work of building the genealogy-grade profile from old and degraded samples and, in many cases, the tree-building as well. The first three cases are decades old, which is typical; the technique is most useful where a CODIS search has already failed for years. The program is run out of the Office of Statewide Prosecution, which handles multi-circuit cases, and the release anticipates expanding into serial sexual battery. Nothing in the release describes how the office chooses cases, what consent settings it requires of the databases it searches, or whether it follows the federal Department of Justice interim policy on the technique, which limits the practice to violent crimes and requires that traditional methods be tried first. Those are fair questions to ask in discovery, and the answers are not published.
Why the Search Is So Hard to Challenge
The instinct in any DNA case is to move to suppress the search that found the defendant. Genetic genealogy is built in a way that defeats that motion before it starts. The Supreme Court has said for decades that “Fourth Amendment rights are personal rights which, like some other constitutional rights, may not be vicariously asserted,” Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 133 to 134 (1978), quoting Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 174 (1969). The DNA that was searched belonged to a relative, and the relative uploaded it voluntarily to a database that allows police to look. The defendant did not upload anything and, on the usual reasoning, has no privacy interest in a cousin’s genome.
The one published appellate decision to take the question on says exactly that. In State v. Hartman, 534 P.3d 423 (Wash. Ct. App. 2023), the Washington Court of Appeals held that “there is no privacy interest in DNA that a relative voluntarily uploads to a public database that openly allows law enforcement access,” and that there is no privacy interest in DNA abandoned at a crime scene either. “Absent a privacy interest,” the court wrote, “Hartman did not have standing to challenge the comparison of the crime scene DNA with the GEDmatch database.” The direct match in that case came from a napkin the defendant threw away. The court added that the legislature could adopt statutory limits if it chose, and at least one state, Maryland, has enacted a statute regulating forensic genetic genealogy searches. Florida has not, and no Florida appellate court has decided the standing question; a Washington decision does not bind a Florida judge. But a Florida judge asked to suppress a genealogy lead will read Hartman and Rakas together, and the defense should assume that the search of the cousin’s DNA will stand.
Where the Fight Actually Is
If the genealogy search cannot be suppressed, the case is fought on everything that comes after it, and there is more there than the technique’s reputation suggests. The family tree produces a name. The charge rests on the direct comparison, and the direct comparison rests on two samples: the one taken from the suspect, which raises its own questions about how it was obtained, and the crime scene sample, which in a Florida cold case may have been collected forty years ago. Who handled it, where it was stored, at what temperature, and whether the chain of custody has gaps are not academic questions with a sample that has been through several evidence rooms and at least two laboratories. Degraded samples produce partial profiles, and partial profiles produce statistics that are weaker than the word “match” implies; the firm’s page on DNA and serology defense covers contamination, transfer, mixtures, and what a database hit does and does not prove.
Then there is the witness. Othram builds the profile in Texas; a Florida lab or a private lab runs the direct comparison; an analyst somewhere signs the report. Under Smith v. Arizona, 602 U.S. 779 (2024), the State cannot put a stand-in on the stand to relay an absent analyst’s findings: “when an expert conveys an absent analyst’s statements in support of the expert’s opinion, and the statements provide that support only if true, then the statements come into evidence for their truth,” and if they are testimonial, “a defendant has the right to cross-examine the person who made them.” In a genealogy case that can mean two or three analysts in two or three states, and every one of them can be required. The firm’s page on forensic science defense covers the confrontation rule, and the post on the Colorado DNA analyst sentenced to ten years covers why the analyst’s own records, and not the report, are what get demanded.
What This Means If a Genealogy Lead Is in Your Case
Ask for the whole path. The genealogy report and the database consent terms, the tree and the records used to narrow it, the affidavit for whatever direct sample was taken, the chain of custody for the crime scene evidence from the day it was collected, the extraction and quantification data showing how much DNA was left, the comparison statistics, and the identity and location of every analyst who touched it. The lead itself will probably survive. The proof built on top of it has to stand on its own, and in a case that has waited decades, it often cannot. The firm’s pages on DNA defense and homicide defense describe how each of those records is obtained and used.
Common Questions
What is Florida’s genetic genealogy cold case program?
A partnership announced April 8, 2026 between the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution and Othram, a private forensic lab, to build genealogy-grade DNA profiles from unsolved cases and trace them through consumer genealogy databases. The office says Florida has 21,000 unsolved murders and nearly 900 unidentified remains cases. The Attorney General told reporters the office had devoted $600,000 to projects with the company so far.
Can you challenge a genetic genealogy search in court?
Usually not the search itself. Fourth Amendment rights are personal and cannot be asserted on behalf of a relative, and the only published appellate decision on point, from Washington in 2023, held there is no privacy interest in DNA a relative voluntarily uploaded to a database open to police. No Florida appellate court has decided the question. The challenge moves to the direct DNA comparison, the crime scene sample’s chain of custody, and the analysts.
Is a genetic genealogy match enough to convict?
No. The genealogy search produces a lead, a name reached through a relative’s DNA and a family tree. A charge requires a direct comparison between the crime scene profile and the suspect’s own DNA, and that comparison, with its statistics and the condition of a decades-old sample, is the evidence a jury hears and the defense tests.
Does the DNA analyst have to testify in a Florida case?
Yes, if the analyst’s findings are testimonial and offered for their truth. In Smith v. Arizona (2024) the Supreme Court held that a stand-in expert cannot relay an absent analyst’s statements as the basis for an opinion; the defendant has the right to cross-examine the person who made them. In a genealogy case that can reach analysts in more than one lab and more than one state.
Further Reading
- Attorney General James Uthmeier Launches Statewide Partnership to Solve Florida Cold Cases, Office of the Attorney General, April 8, 2026
- Uthmeier deploys genetic genealogy to tackle massive cold case backlog, Liv Caputo, Florida Phoenix, April 8, 2026, with the $600,000 figure
- State v. Hartman, 534 P.3d 423 (Wash. Ct. App. 2023)
- Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 (1978)
- Smith v. Arizona, 602 U.S. 779 (2024), the slip opinion, Supreme Court of the United States
WRITTEN AND REVIEWED BY
Rory Safir, ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist
He is the author of The Florida DUI Trial Manual, an NHTSA-qualified instructor in the standardized field sobriety exercises, faculty of the National College for DUI Defense, and a former Assistant Public Defender in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit.
This post is general information about Florida and federal law, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. The program facts are from the Florida Attorney General’s April 8, 2026 release and the Florida Phoenix’s reporting of the same day. The decisions discussed are Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 (1978), State v. Hartman, 534 P.3d 423 (Wash. Ct. App. 2023), which does not bind Florida courts, and Smith v. Arizona, 602 U.S. 779 (2024). No Florida appellate court has decided whether a defendant may challenge a genetic genealogy search. Every case turns on its own facts, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
