DNA Merely an "Expert Evidence"?

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

I don't know what kind of lawyer Mr. Kwame Akuffo is, but he eerily appears to be ages behind the times. In the wake of the quite disturbing discovery, via DNA analysis, that the three children that Nii Odartey Lamptey, the former Ghanaian international soccer star, had always believed were his own by his wife Gloria Lamptey, may actually belong to three different men, Mr. Akuffo was reported to have smugly stated that the aggrieved and estranged Mr. Lamptey may well find himself legally charged with "scandalizing his children for the rest of their lives," simply because the latter had decided to go public with this understandably upsetting scientifically acclaimed revelation of the apparent unchastity of his wife (See "Odartey Lamptey Has Scandalized [His] Kids For Life; May Be Liable For Condoning Marital Fraud - Kwame Akuffo" MyJoyOnline.com/ Modernghana.com 11/29/13).

Any lawyer who can so boldly and foolhardily claim DNA evidence to be mere "expert evidence" in any legitimately constituted court of law in any civilized nation, ought to either have his license to practice immediately revoked or be promptly counseled to seek psychiatric examination. Needless to say, DNA evidence is globally admissible in any worthwhile judicial system as a foolproof scientific evidence in paternity cases. It is also routinely used to establish kinship under various circumstances and for various reasons. Even the DNA of deceased persons is routinely used to establish the kinship and identity of the living.

And so it is rather curious that Mr. Akuffo would so cavalierly presume to either controvert or seriously impugn the validity of any forensic evidence so collected. About the only cases in which DNA evidence may not be judicially sustainable is if the circumstances under which such evidence was collected and analyzed could be forensically proven to have been contaminated either before or during the process of the collection of the evidence in question.

And so far, there is no evidence from any legal representatives of Mrs. Gloria Lamptey's vehemently challenging the latest scientific evidence, indicating that, indeed, the DNA evidence upon which Mr. Lamptey based the impugnation of the chastity of his wife was, in fact, too contaminated to be credibly held up as foolproof scientific evidence before a court of law. I write from personal experience, believe me.

But even then, the lawyers of the accused woman may have to conclusively prove that Mr. Lamptey knowingly and maliciously used contaminated DNA evidence to publicly impugn the chastity and/or the conjugal fealty of his wife, perhaps in a curious bid to shirking his parental and conjugal responsibilities. A credible scenario would be for attorneys representing Mrs. Lamptey establishing a pretextually clear case of Mr. Lamptey's having recently struck up an extra-marital affair. So far, Mrs. Gloria Lamptey has only been reported in some media reports to be claiming that her husband is medically infertile, and that it was he who expressly advised her to seek artificial insemination as a viable alternative to his inability to father children. This claim has yet to be either confirmed or denied by the retired soccer great.

At any rate, if, indeed, it turns out that Nii Odartey Lamptey is truthfully accusing his wife of conjugal infidelity, or adultery, in Christo-Biblical parlance, then, of course, the question of him having "scandalized his hitherto presumed children" clearly becomes a non-issue. At best, the only recourse for remediation would be for all the parties involved to promptly seek psychological counseling, with Mrs. Lamptey coming to terms with the imperative need for her to determine the identities of the biological fathers of each of her three children, if it turns out that she had been "inseminated" with the sperm of more than one "donor," assuming her reported media allegation of the preceding contains any iota of validity.

Since we as yet do not know the full details of the reasons and/or causes that might have prompted Mr. Lamptey to subject his hitherto presumed children to a DNA examination and verification of kinship, we can only reasonably conclude, and perhaps even partially concur with Mr. Akuffo, that at the worst, the renowned former soccer star has an obligation to explain to a stunned and bewildered Ghanaian public, precisely why it took him twenty protracted years to realize that his legitimately wedded wife was, after all, "a gold-digging demimonde," in American parlance.

If he can convincingly prove to both the bemused Ghanaian public and a court of law that he had absolutely no way of knowing that Mrs. Gloria Lamptey had been cheating on him and, by logical extension, routinely flouting their conjugal vows for the two decades that they presumably shared one matrimonial bed, then, of course, his now publicly humiliated and estranged wife may be in deep trouble, at least in terms of the divvying up of wealth and property acquired while the marriage lasted.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Nov. 30, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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