On March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argu­ments in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne con­cern­ing a defen­dan­t’s right to post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing. In this non-cap­i­tal rape case, Alaska has repeat­ed­ly refused William Osborne’s request for DNA test­ing of evi­dence from the crime scene despite the fact that it would be at no cost to the State, and the fact the evi­dence could demon­strate Osborne’s inno­cence of the 1993 rape and attempt­ed mur­der for which he was con­vict­ed. A dis­cus­sion of the issues in the case by foren­sic experts and for­mer inmates who were exon­er­at­ed through DNA test­ing will be held at Georgetown University’s Law Center on February 26 at 12:30 pm.

The dis­cus­sion is spon­sored by the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, the Innocence Project in New York, and the Georgetown University Law Center’s Office of Public Interest and Community Service. Speakers include:

Marvin Anderson, who served 15 years in prison for crimes he didn’t com­mit. He was exon­er­at­ed with DNA test­ing in 2002 – becom­ing the first per­son in Virginia exon­er­at­ed through post-con­vic­tion DNA testing.

Bruce Godschalk, who served 14 years in prison for a 1986 rape in Pennsylvania before DNA exon­er­at­ed him. Godschalk was the first per­son in the U.S. grant­ed post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing under fed­er­al law (his appeals for DNA test­ing in state court were denied; his exon­er­a­tion led Pennsylvania to enact a statute grant­i­ng post-con­vic­tion DNA testing).

Rickie Johnson, who served 25 years at Louisiana’s noto­ri­ous Angola Farm Penitentiary for a 1982 rape he didn’t com­mit. Johnson was exon­er­at­ed in 2008 after the Sabine Parish District Attorney quick­ly agreed to DNA test­ing in his case.

Dennis Fritz, who was con­vict­ed of mur­der in Oklahoma and served 11 years in prison before DNA test­ing exon­er­at­ed him in 1999. The wrong­ful con­vic­tions of Fritz and his co-defen­dant, Ron Williamson, are the sub­ject of John Grisham’s best-sell­ing non­fic­tion book, ​“The Innocent Man.”

Michele Mallin, who was bru­tal­ly raped in 1985 when she was a 20-year-old sopho­more at Texas Tech. She was the fifth vic­tim of a ser­i­al rapist on cam­pus, and she iden­ti­fied Timothy Cole as her assailant. Cole was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to 25 years in prison. In 1999, Cole died in prison at the age of 39. Last year, Mallin learned about evi­dence of Cole’s inno­cence and joined his fam­i­ly in an effort to exon­er­ate him posthu­mous­ly. Mallin tes­ti­fied at an unprece­dent­ed hear­ing in Austin ear­li­er this month, where a judge rec­om­mend­ed throw­ing out Cole’s conviction.

David Rudovsky, one of the nation’s lead­ing author­i­ties on post-con­vic­tion reme­dies under fed­er­al law. Rudovsky is a Senior Fellow at University of Pennsylvania Law School and has writ­ten schol­ar­ly arti­cles and lit­i­ga­tion-relat­ed books on crim­i­nal law, con­sti­tu­tion­al crim­i­nal pro­ce­dure and evi­dence. He recent­ly pre­sent­ed about the Osborne case to a National Institute of Justice conference.

See details on ​“The Exonerated and the U.S. Supreme Court: What’s at Stake in Osborne,” The Innocence Project, February 26, 2009. See Innocence.

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