Mary Lacy, the next Boulder County District Attorney, took over the investigation from the police on December 26, 2002. In April 2003, she agreed with a federal judge who sat on a 2002 libel case that evidence in the suit is "more consistent with a theory that an intruder murdered JonBenét than it was with a theory that Mrs. Ramsey did". On July 9, 2008, the Boulder District Attorney's office announced that, as a result of newly developed DNA sampling and testing techniques (touch DNA analysis), the Ramsey family members were excluded as suspects in the case. Lacy publicly exonerated the Ramseys.