DNA Does not always Catch the Guilty
DNA is just as useful as a fishing hook - it can point to a guilty person so that law enforcement can catch him. But just because hooks catch fish, does not mean they always catch fish.
Reader frank believes that now that DNA testing has arrived on the forensic scene, no innocent person can ever again be convicted of a crime. That DNA will always catch the guilty and exonerate the innocent. Frank has deluded himself into believing that this is so in order to be able to live with a clear conscience that from this time forward no innocent party can be executed for a murder.
Here is frank'd flawless (by flawless I mean fallacious) logic in response to my article How to Get Rid of the Death Penalty where I mention that 74 men were exonerated and freed from death row over the past 25 years:
Comment
Phoney statistic! Obviously, none of those 74 released from death row were executed, now were they? With the new technology, especially re DNA, and the multiple appeals process, the unacceptable error rate OF THE PAST is now irrelevant. The error rate today is as close as possible to, and is effectively, nil.
Two things, frank: first, the point is not that we released 74 men and we should be happy; the point is we should be sad that we only found 74 men innocent, we missed many others. The truth is that the link I gave was to a decade old article and the number on death row who have been exonerated is more than 130 of which only 17 cases were due to DNA testing. Sadly, as Barry Scheck, a co-founder of the Innocence Project observes, eighty per cent of felonies do not involve biological evidence and so DNA testing cannot be used to exonerate those accused.
Second, dear callous frank, you state that the error rate is as close as possible to nil. In 200 cases, as close as possible to nil is one case. Is that acceptable? Practically nil might be comforting unless you are an innocent person lying on a gurney waiting for a lethal injection.
The 74 men were found innocent (with very few using DNA) much later after years on death row because the justice system itself is flawed. In the link I gave in my article, a Florida University study showed that one third of wrongful capital convictions involve perjured testimony (1). In these cases, if there is no biological evidence at the crime scene, there is no chance for exoneration by DNA testing.
One in seven cases involves false confessions, most often by "people with mild mental retardation, who often try to hide limitations by guessing 'right' answers to police questions." How does DNA help here?
DNA can point to another person, but unless the crime could only have been committed by one person, it does not exonerate in every case, even if the person is indeed innocent. Prosecutors always argue that although perpetrator X's DNA is not found at the scene of the crime, and that the DNA points to a perpetrator Y, this does not mean that two people could not have murdered victim Z.
Here is how it works, my dear misinformed reader frank: unless the DNA points to and leads to the capture, arrest, conviction and confession by perpetrator Y, and further, that Y not only confesses but gives exculpating testimony that X could not have committed the crime, and further, a prosecutor is willing to admit a mistake, and further, that a judge is willing to overturn the conviction, unless all these things happen, X will still be executed for a crime he did not commit.
Snitches lie, police fabricate evidence, prosecutors ignore exculpatory evidence, DNA is not always available at the crime scene, and when DNA is available it must be exclusionary, that is to say, it must show that only one person could have committed the crime and not the defendant - a very heavy burden for innocent men to prove.
Sadly, the majority of convictions occur where there is no DNA evidence at all at the crime scene, so DNA cannot exonerate the innocent. In January 2009, David Moran and Professor Bridget McCormack launched the Michigan Innocence Clinic to litigate claims of actual innocence by prisoners in cases where DNA evidence is not available. In its first seven months, the clinic's work resulted in the release of two men and one woman after a total of more than 25 years of wrongful incarceration.
Professor Moran said it was scary that compelling evidence of innocence was sometimes not enough to persuade judges or prosecutors to overturn convictions.
Because informants lie to get reduced sentences, because cops fabricate evidence, because prosecutors ignore exculpatory evidence, because witnesses imagine things, because judges do not want to appear as soft on crime, because DNA cannot be used in 80% of crimes to point to the true criminal, because of all these things only a moron would conclude that we do not execute innocent people.
We can excuse Iran hanging homosexuals, Pakistan executing rape victims, and Saudi Arabia beheading armed robbers because, after all, they are backward, barbaric, uncivilized, and savage. What exactly is our excuse?
ENDNOTES
(1):
US News, The wrong men on Death Row
Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez spent 10 years each on death row in Illinois for the rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico. Shortly after their convictions, police arrested a repeat sex offender and murderer named Brian Dugan who confessed to the crime, providing minute details unknown to the public.
Prosecutors still insisted Cruz and Hernandez were the killers–even after DNA testing linked Dugan to the crime. At Cruz's third trial, a police officer admitted that he'd lied when he testified Cruz had confessed in a "vision" about the girl's murder. The judge then declared Cruz not guilty. In January, seven police officers and prosecutors go on trial charged with conspiracy to conceal and fabricate evidence against Cruz and Hernandez.
