In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Washington Post called atten­tion to the case of Earl Washington, who was wrong­ly con­vict­ed and almost exe­cut­ed in Virginia before being freed fol­low­ing DNA tests. The edi­to­r­i­al notes that even a con­fes­sion is far from defin­i­tive proof that the right per­son has been con­vict­ed. Washington was spared through the clemen­cy process after courts denied his claims. Now a new defen­dant, whose DNA matched evi­dence from the crime scene, has been charged.

A Prosecution in Virginia
After two decades and one giant mis­car­riage of jus­tice, Virginia pros­e­cu­tors start over.
Saturday, August 26, 2006; Page A20; Washington Post Editorial

VIRGINIA pros­e­cu­tors this week brought belat­ed charges against a man named Kenneth Maurice Tinsley in the 1982 rape and mur­der of a Culpeper woman named Rebecca Williams. Mr. Tinsley, a ser­i­al rapist already serv­ing life in prison, was con­nect­ed to the Williams killing by DNA test­ing. And his pros­e­cu­tion would be sim­ply a hap­py res­o­lu­tion of a long-cold case, except for one thing: A man named Earl Washington Jr. served more than 17 years in prison and came with­in nine days of being exe­cut­ed for this crime.

Mr. Washington’s case is a tragedy in a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that at every stage refused to admit the mag­ni­tude of its error. Mildly retard­ed, Mr. Washington was con­vict­ed almost entire­ly on the basis of a dis­turbing­ly weak con­fes­sion — one that a civ­il jury lat­er found had been fed to him by inves­ti­ga­tors. He sat on death row until DNA tests in 1993 cast seri­ous doubt on his con­vic­tion by show­ing that some­one oth­er than he or the vic­tim’s hus­band had had inter­course with Williams before she was killed. Then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder respond­ed by com­mut­ing his sen­tence to life in prison, but did not par­don him, argu­ing that the evi­dence of his inno­cence remained incon­clu­sive. Only in 2000, after a sec­ond round of DNA test­ing, did then-Gov. James S. Gilmore III final­ly par­don him. Yet even then, he acknowl­edged mere­ly that a jury would have act­ed dif­fer­ent­ly had it seen these test results, not that Mr. Washington was inno­cent.

What’s more, while some of the state crime lab’s tests that year iden­ti­fied DNA from Mr. Tinsley on the vic­tim’s blan­ket, the lab erro­neous­ly exclud­ed him as a DNA con­trib­u­tor in the sam­ples tak­en from her body. Not until still anoth­er round of test­ing, this one in con­nec­tion with Mr. Washington’s civ­il law­suit, was Mr. Tinsley’s DNA found in sam­ples tak­en from the vic­tim’s body.

The lessons of the Washington case will be famil­iar to any­one who has watched the flood of wrong­ful con­vic­tions come to light in recent years. Not all con­fes­sions are real; DNA test­ing should be lib­er­al­ly and swift­ly avail­able when­ev­er doubts arise. Most impor­tant, there is no place for arro­gance in a state’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. In any num­ber of cas­es pend­ing now, includ­ing some that seem all too weak, Virginia author­i­ties are cer­tain they have the right man locked up. They were once that cer­tain about Earl Washington, too.

(Washington Post, Aug. 26, 2006). See Innocence and Editorials.

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