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). See Innocence and Recent Legislative Activity.

Citation Guide