Post by pebbles on Oct 8, 2007 18:50:44 GMT -5
DNA Exonerations Lead to Key Policy Changes Throughout the U.S.
In the wake of more than 200 exonerations based on DNA evidence, including some wrongfully convicted death row prisoners, jurisdictions throughout the U.S. are enacting key policy reforms that add safeguards to protect against wrongful convictions and provide inmates with better access to crucial evidence during appeals. All but eight states now give inmates varying degrees of access to DNA evidence that might not have been available at the time of their convictions, and many states are overhauling the way witnesses identify suspects, crime labs handle evidence, and informants are used. Reform measures to change crime lab oversight policies are pending in 21 states, and more than 500 local and state jurisdictions have adopted policies that require the recording of interrogations. California lawmakers have also passed a bill that requires informant testimony to be corroborated before it can be heard by a jury. “The legislative reform movement as a result of these DNA exonerations is probably the single greatest criminal justice reform effort in the last 40 years,” said Peter J. Neufeld, a co-director of the New York City-based Innocence Project.
Efforts to pass key reforms have been bolstered by recent wrongful conviction research. A 2005 study conducted by University of Michigan Law School Professor Samuel R. Gross found that 340 prisoners sentenced from 1989 to 2003 had been exonerated. Of those, 205 were convicted of murder and 121 of rape. Half of the wrongful murder convictions and 88% of the wrongful rape convictions included false eyewitness identification. DNA evidence was used to exonerate 144 of these inmates. Gross notes that his research indicates a far larger problem, stating, “Of the 340 exonerations I looked at, 96 percent are for rape and murder. Does that mean nobody was wrongfully convicted for drug possession, or drunk driving or burglary? Chances are there are many, many more false convictions for lesser crimes.”
Only eight states do not have laws that give inmates access to DNA evidence, and reform advocates say they intend to lobby for passage of access laws in those states during the next legislative session.
(New York Times, October 1, 2007).
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=2469&scid=64
In the wake of more than 200 exonerations based on DNA evidence, including some wrongfully convicted death row prisoners, jurisdictions throughout the U.S. are enacting key policy reforms that add safeguards to protect against wrongful convictions and provide inmates with better access to crucial evidence during appeals. All but eight states now give inmates varying degrees of access to DNA evidence that might not have been available at the time of their convictions, and many states are overhauling the way witnesses identify suspects, crime labs handle evidence, and informants are used. Reform measures to change crime lab oversight policies are pending in 21 states, and more than 500 local and state jurisdictions have adopted policies that require the recording of interrogations. California lawmakers have also passed a bill that requires informant testimony to be corroborated before it can be heard by a jury. “The legislative reform movement as a result of these DNA exonerations is probably the single greatest criminal justice reform effort in the last 40 years,” said Peter J. Neufeld, a co-director of the New York City-based Innocence Project.
Efforts to pass key reforms have been bolstered by recent wrongful conviction research. A 2005 study conducted by University of Michigan Law School Professor Samuel R. Gross found that 340 prisoners sentenced from 1989 to 2003 had been exonerated. Of those, 205 were convicted of murder and 121 of rape. Half of the wrongful murder convictions and 88% of the wrongful rape convictions included false eyewitness identification. DNA evidence was used to exonerate 144 of these inmates. Gross notes that his research indicates a far larger problem, stating, “Of the 340 exonerations I looked at, 96 percent are for rape and murder. Does that mean nobody was wrongfully convicted for drug possession, or drunk driving or burglary? Chances are there are many, many more false convictions for lesser crimes.”
Only eight states do not have laws that give inmates access to DNA evidence, and reform advocates say they intend to lobby for passage of access laws in those states during the next legislative session.
(New York Times, October 1, 2007).
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=2469&scid=64