Entries tagged with “Willie Grimes

Policy Issues

Arbitrariness

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Innocence

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Jul 23, 2007

NEW RESOURCES: Destroyed DNA Evidence Blocks Possible Exonerations

A recent four-part series in the Denver Post about evi­dence in crim­i­nal cas­es detailed how police depart­ments across the U.S. store and dis­pose of cru­cial bio­log­i­cal evi­dence. The Post exam­ined 10 states in which author­i­ties destroyed bio­log­i­cal evi­dence in near­ly 6,000 rape and mur­der cas­es dur­ing the past decade. The inves­ti­ga­tion also revealed that over the past 30 years, destruc­tion of DNA evi­dence in 28 states has under­mined efforts by at least 141 pris­on­ers to prove their…