what if this came up in a criminal case?

[The Eschaton]

all i can say is this is really sad for the little girl.

who is your daddy

Twin brothers Raymon and Richard Miller are the father and uncle to a 3-year-old little girl. The problem is, they don't know which is which. Or who is who.

The identical Missouri twins say they were unknowingly having sex with the same woman. And according to the woman's testimony, she had sex with each man on the same day. Within hours of each other.

When the woman in question, Holly Marie Adams, got pregnant, she named Raymon the father, but he contested and demanded a paternity test, bringing his own brother Richard to court.

But a paternity test in this case could not help. The test showed that both brothers have over a 99.9 percent probability of being the daddy— and neither one wants to pay the child support. The result of the test has not only brought to light the limits of DNA evidence, it has also led to a three-year legal battle, a Miller family feud and a little girl who may never know who her real father is.

"'Did you sleep with him [Richard Miller] while in Sikeston for the rodeo?'," Cameron Parker, Richard's lawyer, said she asked Holly Marie Adams in 2003 court testimony, to which she answered "'Yes ma'am.'" "She then said she went to appellant's [Raymon Miller's]home where they had sex later that night or early the next morning," Parker said.

Asked if it is true that he did at one time formally date Adams, Richard Miller told ABC News, "Well, if you call that dating." Raymon confirms that he never dated Adams in any sense, but that they were "messing around."

"With identical twins, even if you sequenced their whole genome you wouldn't find difference…they're clones," said Dr. Bob Gaensslen, a forensic scientist at Orchid Cellmark labs in Texas. "There are a few things in science that are cut and dried and this is one of them."

Dr. Bob Giles, a paternity testing expert, agrees. "There is simply no test that explains the difference between two identical twins," he said.

[Cloud]

the saddes part is that they seem not to be fighting over the girl, but that the "winner" has to pay child support

[glatt]

This should be on Springer. What a bunch of classy people.

Since there is no test to determine the dad, then they should both pay. That is, unless one of them wore a condom.

[The Eschaton]

the website that came from has their pictures. They look just like you would expect for some hick rednecks. It so to the stereotype.

[lizzymahoney]

If this came up in a criminal case the case would be dismissed. DNA could not prove within reasonable doubt, and the rights of the accused demand sufficient proof.

[xoxoxoBruce]

"the rights of the accused" are routinely trampled in paternity cases, lizzymahoney. Especially when the judge says, "I don't care if she is lying, this child needs financial support and you will provide it.

[lizzymahoney]

Just so! Although this article is not about trampling rights in a paternity case.

The topic question, however, is regarding a criminal case, and how this problem would be treated in that venue. My comments addressed that.

Criminal vs family court: two very different standards apply.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That case could very well become a case of trampled rights.

To address your question of DNA failing to prove or disprove a case, we'd have to fall back on what we've been doing for the last few hundred thousand years.
Seakdivers husband, who is the CSI, the guy that wrote the book and teaches it to future Sherlock Holmes in college, can tell you DNA testing is not fool proof and requires a lot of interpretation. It's just one of the tools.