Fact Check: Are Death Row Inmates Using 23AndMe DNA Tests To Prove Native Ancestry?

Governor Kevin Stitt claims a kit used to learn about ancestry is being used by Oklahoma prisoners attempting to get off death row.

“We have people on death row that are taking 23andMe DNA tests trying to get their convictions overturned,” Stitt said Wednesday night on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” program.

However, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections told News 9, “Only court-ordered, professionally administered DNA tests are allowed inside ODOC facilities. The overwhelming majority of those are done to settle issues of paternity.”  

Spokesman Josh Ward said at-home testing kits could not be mailed to a DOC inmate.

Governor Stitt’s office pointed to the case of Daniel Vasquez.

A jury convicted him in the 2018 murder of a 23-year-old woman and her unborn child.

According to court documents submitted in his trial last year, attorneys for Vasquez submitted a 23andMe DNA test showing "'indigenous American lineage" before Vasquez was convicted and sent to death row.

The state objected to the test results, calling them, “nothing more than a broad conclusion” that fell short of establishing “Indian status.”

The judge agreed and threw out the Vasquez’s McGirt claim.

Vasquez received two death sentences and is currently going through the routine appeals process, while maintaining he is Native American.

“Novel idea just won’t work,” defense attorney Irven Box said.

Without a federal CDIB card showing a degree of Indian Blood as well as membership in a federally recognized tribe, Box said any tribal jurisdiction argument is dead on arrival.

“I don’t think anyone in Oklahoma should worry about somebody taking a DNA test, one of those ancestry.com or whatever it is,” Box said. “Those tests are not gonna (sic) do it.”