Innocence Project Frees 200th Wrongfully Convicted Person - U.S. Politics Online: A Political Discussion Forum

BlackAsCoal · #1 (**permalink**) 04-26-2007

Usng DNA evidence, which some states object to because it conclusively proves false convicitions, the Innocence Project, directed by Barry Scheck, has exonerated it's 200th wrongfully convicted person.

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CHICAGO, IL; April 23, 2007 – With new DNA tests proving that Jerry Miller did not commit a brutal rape in Chicago for which he was convicted in 1982, the Innocence Project said today that Miller is the 200th person in the nation exonerated through DNA evidence.

In 1981, Miller was arrested and charged with kidnapping, raping and robbing a woman in downtown Chicago. He was convicted in 1982 and served 24 years in prison. Eleven months ago, he was released on parole as a registered sex offender, requiring him to wear an electronic monitoring device at all times and prohibiting him from answering his door on Halloween or leaving his job for lunch. Miller, who served more than three years in the military, was 22 years old when he was arrested and is now 48. DNA testing on semen from the rape proves that Miller did not commit the crime – and instead implicates another man as the actual perpetrator.

“Like many of the 200 people who have been exonerated through DNA, Jerry Miller lost nearly his entire adult life because of a wrongful conviction. It’s impossible to put ourselves in his shoes, but we all have a moral obligation to learn from these exonerations and prevent anyone else from enduring this tragedy,” said Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of the Innocence Project.

Miller, who always maintained his innocence, was convicted based on eyewitness misidentification.

DNA testing has freed 200 innocent people from prison. All of them were swept off the streets, forcibly separated from their families and friends, and wrongfully imprisoned for years or decades. Some narrowly escaped execution. Together, they served a total of 2,475 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit.

And they are just the tip of the iceberg. Nobody truly knows how many innocent people are in prison. Only a small fraction of cases involve evidence that could be tested for DNA — and even among those cases, evidence is often lost or destroyed before it can be tested. The DNA exonerations provide irrefutable proof of the causes of wrongful convictions and they give us a roadmap for fixing the criminal justice system . We must learn the lessons of these exonerations in order to prevent future injustice.

According to the Innocence Project, which analyzes each DNA exoneration in the country to determine what caused the wrongful conviction and then advocates for systemic reforms that can prevent future injustice, the first 200 exonerations have clear patterns – and have led to specific reforms across the country (in addition to the six Innocence Commissions). For example, based on the DNA exonerations and Innocence Project reform tracking:

. Eyewitness misidentification plays a role in 77% of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA (of those, nearly half are cross-racial misidentifications). Several dozen states and cities have reformed their identification procedures (lineups, etc.) to improve accuracy. Legislation was introduced in 13 states this year to improve eyewitness procedures.

. Forensic errors (ranging from simple mistakes or exaggerations to outright fraud) played a role in 63% of the first 86 wrongful convictions overturned by DNA (according to an analysis published in Science magazine). Federal law passed in 2004 requires states to have independent oversight mechanisms in order to receive federal money for crime labs. Legislation was introduced in four states this year to create or improve statewide forensic science commissions.

. Racism continues to be a significant cause of wrongful convictions. While 29% of people in prison for rape are black, 64% of the people who were wrongfully convicted of rape (and then exonerated through DNA) are black. Moreover, most sexual assaults nationwide are among perpetrators and victims of the same race (the federal government says just 12% of sexual assaults are cross racial), but two-thirds of all black men exonerated through DNA evidence were wrongfully convicted of raping white people.

. False confessions play a role in nearly 25% of wrongful convictions overturned with DNA. More than 500 jurisdictions now record interrogations (nine states mandate the recording), and legislation to require such recording was introduced in 20 states this year.

. Evidence is often lost or destroyed after a conviction, making DNA testing impossible. In 22 states, statutes require some type of preservation of evidence in criminal cases. Legislation was introduced in six states this year to improve or enact such laws.

. In 40 states, laws are on the books granting prisoners access to DNA testing to prove their innocence; this year, legislation to enact such a law was introduced in five of the 10 states that currently don’t provide statutory access.

. In 21 states, laws provide some level of compensation to people who were wrongfully convicted; this year, legislation was introduced in 13 states to create or improve compensation laws.

The Innocence Project - News and Information: Press Releases

The injustice of the American Justice System

Fidei Defensor · #2 (**permalink**) 04-26-2007

Kudos!

Hank · #3 (**permalink**) 04-26-2007

That doesn’t mean they were innocent, no test were taken at the crime scenes back then. It should grant them a new trial though…

Doctor Who · #4 (**permalink**) 04-26-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackAsCoal

Usng DNA evidence, which some states object to because it conclusively proves false convicitions, the Innocence Project, directed by Barry Scheck, has exonerated it's 200th wrongfully convicted person.

The Innocence Project - News and Information: Press Releases

The injustice of the American Justice System

No system is going to be perfect and this project is a good thing. However, the number of convictions that occured during that time period was over 1,000,000. 200 as a ratio to that won't even show up on my calculator it is so minuscule. Even if it turned out to be ten times as many, it would still be only 2 tenths of 1 percent of convictions. No one should spend any time in jail for something they didn't do and our system, while not perfect, does what it can to try to prevent that from happening. But to show that 200 out of a million convictions has been overturned and call that an injustice of the system is a stretch. In addition, today, we have DNA evidence technology so the likelyhood of a false conviction is significantly diminished when that evidence is available.

Fidei Defensor · #5 (**permalink**) 04-26-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doctor Who

But to show that 200 out of a million convictions has been overturned and call that an injustice of the system is a stretch.

Oh, I agree. Rather, this news story is a testament to the justice of the system.

ViolaLee · #6 (**permalink**) 04-26-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank

That doesn’t mean they were innocent, no test were taken at the crime scenes back then. It should grant them a new trial though…

I don't think you understand. There was DNA at the crime scene. The DNA was saved. Now there are tests to find out if it matches. The tests are done. There is no match. The convicted person is not the killer. Get it?

This is why I am so against the death penalty. If we had killed these 200 people, it would have been a horrible mistake.

Three cheers for the Innocence Project!

Birdzeye · #7 (**permalink**) 04-26-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samantha

I don't think you understand. There was DNA at the crime scene. The DNA was saved. Now there are tests to find out if it matches. The tests are done. There is no match. The convicted person is not the killer. Get it?

This is why I am so against the death penalty. If we had killed these 200 people, it would have been a horrible mistake.

Three cheers for the Innocence Project!

I'm with you! It's great that the Innocence Project has righted a wrong 200 times with DNA evidence.

BlackAsCoal · #8 (**permalink**) 04-27-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank

That doesn’t mean they were innocent, no test were taken at the crime scenes back then. It should grant them a new trial though…

What?

Do you understand DNA evidence?

BlackAsCoal · #9 (**permalink**) 04-27-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doctor Who

No system is going to be perfect and this project is a good thing. However, the number of convictions that occured during that time period was over 1,000,000. 200 as a ratio to that won't even show up on my calculator it is so minuscule. Even if it turned out to be ten times as many, it would still be only 2 tenths of 1 percent of convictions. No one should spend any time in jail for something they didn't do and our system, while not perfect, does what it can to try to prevent that from happening. But to show that 200 out of a million convictions has been overturned and call that an injustice of the system is a stretch. In addition, today, we have DNA evidence technology so the likelyhood of a false conviction is significantly diminished when that evidence is available.

Some narrowly escaped execution. Together, they served a total of 2,475 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit.

And they are just the tip of the iceberg. Nobody truly knows how many innocent people are in prison. Only a small fraction of cases involve evidence that could be tested for DNA — and even among those cases, evidence is often lost or destroyed before it can be tested. The DNA exonerations provide irrefutable proof of the causes of wrongful convictions and they give us a roadmap for fixing the criminal justice system . We must learn the lessons of these exonerations in order to prevent future injustice.

I think that pretty much says it all.

It means our justice system needs seriously flawed and prosecutions should be forced to use DNA evidence. Curently, there is resistence to using DNA evidence, not because its not conclusive, but because it is. Prosecutors would rather send an innocent person to jail, or have them face the death penalty than tarnish their records.

Prosecutorial Resistance to Exculpatory DNA Evidence
Why We Must Overcome It, And What Institutional Safeguards Will Help Us Do So
By EDWARD LAZARUS
FindLaw's Writ - Lazarus: Prosecutorial Resistance to Exculpatory DNA Evidence

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By far the most important development in the field of criminal justice over the last generation has been the advent of DNA analysis. The most dramatic result of DNA testing has been the exoneration of literally hundreds of inmates who were wrongly convicted of serious crimes and sentenced to lengthy prison terms and even death.

Meanwhile, and equally importantly, DNA testing has, for the first time ever, given us a tool for assessing the accuracy of our adversarial system for determining guilt or innocence. We now know to a scientific certainty that police, prosecutors, and juries make catastrophic mistakes – especially when they overly rely on such inherently problematic evidence as jailhouse informants, hair samples, and even eyewitness testimony, which turns out to be surprisingly unreliable.

The legal system is still adjusting to the truth-revealing power of DNA analysis. Of course, prosecutors have sought to use DNA evidence to prove their cases (often successfully – though not, most famously, in the O.J. Simpson case). And of course, defense attorneys turned the tables by using DNA evidence to prove innocence, sometimes many years after a defendant’s conviction. But the ramifications of DNA evidence go far beyond its use at current and future trials. DNA also sheds light on the past.

Sometimes, though, the light it sheds has proved unwelcome. In the chess game of our adversarial system, prosecutors are now resisting the re-opening of cases based on DNA evidence. And even if cases are re-opened, they are fighting in court to preserve even those convictions on which DNA testing has cast extremely serious doubt.

Prosecutors face institutional pressure to win victories, and then preserve what they have won. And of course, like all of us, they share the human impulse to resist admitting error – especially when the admission could hurt their careers. They also share the need we all have for closure – to believe that, at some point, what’s over is over and done with – and DNA evidence issues are the quintessential example of reopening the past, and sometimes even the distant past. As a result, we cannot trust individual prosecutors always to do the right thing when DNA puts their hard-won convictions in doubt.

Instead, prosecutor’s offices must voluntarily put in place institutional safeguards to ensure that the great advances in criminal justice made possible by DNA evidence are realized to their fullest. And if they refused, legislation should be enacted to force them to do so. A prosecutor’s stake in a particular victory should not be able to blind the eyes of justice, so that an innocent person wrongly remains in jail.

In Recent Cases, Prosecutors Have Refused to Accept DNA-Based Exoneration

In recent days, the New York Times has reported a spate of cases in which new DNA testing refuted the main evidence on which convictions had been based. Yet in each case, prosecutors nevertheless steadfastly refused to accept that they had prosecuted and convicted the wrong person.

In some of these cases, the DNA evidence points powerfully towards the conclusion that the conviction was wrongful. In one rape case, semen recovered from the victim was matched to the blood type of the defendant, Richard McKinley. But DNA tests have now shown that in fact, the semen did not come from McKinley.

In another rape case, the only physical evidence linking the defendant, Wilton Dedge, to the crime was a pair of light brown hairs. Through expert testimony, the prosecutor tied the hairs the defendant. Thanks to DNA testing, we now know the hairs did not belong to Dedge.

Yet prosecutors in both cases refuse to admit that the DNA tests are sufficient to show the defendants’ innocence. As a result, both defendants are still serving life sentences. According to the prosecutors, even assuming the accuracy of the DNA tests, the remaining evidence still supports the defendants’ convictions.

As a factual matter, though, the prosecutors’ claims are suspect. Take the Dedge case. Excluding the hairs, the remaining evidence was the victim’s physical description (which Dedge did not even match); the testimony of a jailhouse informant that Dedge had confessed to him; and the testimony of an expert who claimed Dedge had been picked out by a dog in a “scent line up.”

Surely, this case never would have been prosecuted but for the now-discredited hair match. And with good reason.

Why Prosecutors’ Offices Need to Adopt an Institutional – Not Individual – Solution

Situations like this raise a serious institutional problem for every prosecutor’s office in the country. Trial prosecutors, who have invested themselves in cases, will rarely if ever have the necessary perspective to evaluate convictions being challenged on the basis of new DNA evidence.

Inevitably, too many line prosecutors will view DNA evidence of innocence as an attack on their judgment and abilities, as well as those of their colleagues. When DNA evidence casts doubt on a conviction, it may also be seen as casting doubt on the thoroughness of the police investigation, and on the judgment of the entire prosecution team in evaluating a case. Of course, that doubt may be undeserved: Police and prosecutors can be scrupulous, yet still be wrong. But the doubt is cast, and felt, nonetheless – and police and prosecutors, both good and bad, may resent it.

At a personal level, no prosecutor – good, bad, or indifferent – is going to be naturally inclined to accept the idea of having obtained a wrongful conviction. For the best prosecutors, such a concession means accepting the ultimate professional failure of disserving the paramount mission of protecting the public and achieving justice. And more self-serving prosecutors are likely to be consumed by the career implications of admitting such a giant screw-up.

In many cases, line prosecutors will also face substantial pressures from crime victims and their families not to admit error. The victims and families want closure, too. As a theoretical matter, one might think that victims and their families would want to know the truth, whatever it may be, and that their primary interest would be in finding the real criminal. But in practice, that is not always true.

According to those involved in the process, in many cases, the victims and their families are just too invested in the result obtained at trial to open their minds to the possibility of mistake. After a terrible ordeal, they have obtained a measure of peace and vindication that is simply too valuable for them to easily let go.

As a result, the victims or their representatives – who often have developed deep bonds with the prosecutors – reinforce the reluctance of prosecutors to reopen cases. The prospect that the convicted defendant is innocent, or very likely so, often turns out not to be welcome news to anyone. Only the innocent defendant himself – and possibly his defense counsel, though defense counsel, too, may fear that their skills have been put in doubt – is eager to see DNA evidence reopen the case.

There is thus a desperate need for District Attorneys and U.S. Attorneys to establish independent, separate units or committees within their offices to evaluate claims of innocence based on DNA evidence. The original prosecutor, while he or she will have input, is far too close to the issue to decide what the office’s position on reopening a case – or even agreeing that a conviction should be vacated – in light of DNA evidence.

There will be cases where DNA evidence should not be deemed sufficient to unsettle a conviction – for the other evidence against the defendant may, standing alone, be overwhelming. But there will also be cases, probably many more, where the wrongly convicted person must be set free as soon as possible, because the DNA evidence either was the linchpin of the case against him, or actually points to another person’s guilt.

Deciding which cases fit in which category is a job for experienced prosecutors with no vested interest in the original prosecution – not for the prosecutor who obtained the conviction (and congratulations in the office for it) in the first place.

Many prosecutors offices use this same system of independent peer review when deciding which potential cases should actually lead to the filing of criminal charges, and which – while perhaps technically violations – are too hard to prove, or too minor to use resources upon. After developing a case, line prosecutors must obtain the approval of an “indictment committee.” This committee is a group of prosecutors with no interest in the case under review, who are called upon to decide whether the evidence developed is sufficient to meet the standard for actually charging a crime.

The “DNA committee” I am proposing would work much the same way. If DNA testing discredits evidence used to obtain a conviction, then the committee would evaluate the quantity and quality of the untainted evidence to determine whether the office should admit error – or at least support a court’s reopening the case, or agree to a re-trial.

In sum, DNA evidence provides a unique window into the truth of guilt or innocence. And every effort must be made to keep that window free from the dust and dirt of conflicts of interest, especially prosecutors’ interests in keeping the convictions they have won pristine.

Says it all.

drgoodtrips · #10 (**permalink**) 04-27-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doctor Who

No system is going to be perfect and this project is a good thing. However, the number of convictions that occured during that time period was over 1,000,000. 200 as a ratio to that won't even show up on my calculator it is so minuscule. Even if it turned out to be ten times as many, it would still be only 2 tenths of 1 percent of convictions. No one should spend any time in jail for something they didn't do and our system, while not perfect, does what it can to try to prevent that from happening. But to show that 200 out of a million convictions has been overturned and call that an injustice of the system is a stretch. In addition, today, we have DNA evidence technology so the likelyhood of a false conviction is significantly diminished when that evidence is available.

So, is it your position that, if 200 innocent people are executed, out of 1 million convictions, this is an acceptable margin of error? You need to break a few eggs to make an omlette?

CDavidNeely · #11 (**permalink**) 04-27-2007

Namaste,

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackAsCoal

Usng DNA evidence, which some states object to because it conclusively proves false convicitions, the Innocence Project, directed by Barry Scheck, has exonerated it's 200th wrongfully convicted person.

The injustice of the American Justice System

Most people don't realize that once you are exonerated all you get is a sorry and freedom. They don't try to make amends or provide you with the means to rebuild your life. If reperations have any validty they have validity in these situations. What is the price of 25 years wasted in prison?

In Peace,
Eglaelin

Evil_inKarlate · #12 (**permalink**) 04-27-2007

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if 200 innocent people are executed, out of 1 million convictions, this is an acceptable margin of error? You need to break a few eggs to make an omlette?

My thought is that no system is perfect, therefore one either accepts that there will be Some level of false convictions or you end up with no system at all. That said, 200 wrongful convictions (and that's just the Known ones) out of a million is Way too many. I usually oppose various prisoner-pampering-plans, but this sounds like a very worthwhile program.

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Most people don't realize that once you are exonerated all you get is a sorry and freedom ... What is the price of 25 years wasted in prison?

You simply cannot put a price on that. But rather than just say 'oh well,' my first thought is retroactive full-time minimum wage. Ideally this could somehow come out of the pensions or paychecks of the prosecuters, police, and/or judges responsible, but I can't think of a good way of assigning blame or collecting the money. Those are off the top of my head - I'm more than willing to hear better ideas.

BlackAsCoal · #13 (**permalink**) 04-27-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eglaelin

Namaste,

Most people don't realize that once you are exonerated all you get is a sorry and freedom. They don't try to make amends or provide you with the means to rebuild your life. If reperations have any validty they have validity in these situations. What is the price of 25 years wasted in prison?

In Peace,
Eglaelin

Well said brother, well said.

iamwhatiseem · #14 (**permalink**) 04-27-2007

The innocence project is a wonderful thing.
Too bad to see it dragged and tainted by playing the race card...again..and again.

BlackAsCoal · #15 (**permalink**) 04-27-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamwhatiseem

The innocence project is a wonderful thing.
Too bad to see it dragged and tainted by playing the race card...again..and again.

The good news is that you don't count.

They have a plethora of statistical information that you can't touch, can't argue with, have no counter evidence whatsoever.

That's the good news.