A new report from the National Registry of Exonerations puts the total
number of exonerations in the U.S. at 1,300. Read the report here. Some of the report's most surprising findings below.
The trends in 2013 reflect several long-term trends in exonerations in America:
*Twenty-seven (27) of the 87 known exonerations that occurred in
2013 -- almost one-third of the total number for the year -- were in
cases in which no crime in fact occurred, a record number.
*Fifteen (15) known exonerations in 2013 -- 17 percent -- occurred
in cases in which the defendants were convicted after pleading guilty,
also a record number. The rate of exonerations after a guilty plea has
doubled since 2008 and the number continues to grow.
*Thirty-three (33) known exonerations in 2013 -- 38 percent --
were obtained at the initiative or with the cooperation of law
enforcement. This is the second highest annual total of exonerations
with law enforcement cooperation, down slightly from 2012, but
consistent with an upward trend in police and prosecutors taking
increasingly active roles in reinvestigating possible false convictions.
In 2013, Reginald Griffin, who had been sentenced to death in
Missouri, was exonerated, bringing the total number of death row
exonerations to 143 across 26 states since 1973, according to the Death
Penalty Information Center.
Read on...
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Showing posts with label dna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dna. Show all posts
On DNA, Supreme Court goes too far
Monday's 5-4 ruling makes Americans more vulnerable to unreasonable searches.
Taking DNA samples from individuals who have been arrested and running them through a DNA database of unsolved cases can be an effective way of connecting criminals to crimes. That is why the practice is popular with police and the public in states such as California, where voters in 2004 approved the collection of DNA from many criminal suspects. The problem is that it conflicts with the 4th Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. The Supreme Court on Monday tried to wish that problem away when it upheld a Maryland DNA collection law.
The 5-4 decision affirmed the rape conviction of Alonzo King, from whom a DNA sample was drawn in 2009 after he was arrested for menacing a group of people with a shotgun. When his DNA profile was fed into a database of unsolved crimes, it matched DNA taken from the scene of a rape in 2003. He was charged and ultimately convicted of that crime.Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion disingenuously suggested that swabbing King's cheek for DNA was reasonable given "the need for law enforcement officers in a safe and accurate way to process and identify the persons and possessions they must take into custody."
Read on...
This is an LA Times editorial. Tom
Too Much Information
Supreme Court 2013: Why collecting DNA from people who are arrested won’t help solve more crimes.
In April 2009, police easily arrested Alonzo J. King, Jr. in Wicomico
County, Md. After King pointed a shotgun at a group of people, one of
them told the police who did it, and King readily admitted his guilt. He
was originally charged with felony assault and ended up pleading guilty
to a misdemeanor.
This seemingly insignificant criminal case is now before the Supreme Court, with arguments later this month.
That’s because of what the authorities did next. When King was
arrested, police took a cotton swab of skin cells from inside his cheek
for DNA testing. They did not need his DNA to link him to the shotgun
incident. Instead, the police entered King’s DNA profile into both the
Maryland DNA database and the FBI’s national database, CODIS. King’s
profile, like all those in the database, was then automatically compared
every week to evidence from all unsolved crimes. And, in fact, King’s
DNA matched DNA from an unsolved sexual assault case, for which he was
later convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
If Maryland had required King to submit his DNA once he was
convicted, then there would be no Supreme Court challenge. So far courts
have all upheld DNA collection from felons, reasoning that convicts
forfeit some of the rights of ordinary citizens. Maryland v. King
is about something new: More than one-half of the 50 states (including
Maryland) and the federal government authorize compulsory collection of
DNA from people who have been arrested. But the Supreme Court has never
held that if police have probable cause to arrest, they can also search a
suspect for evidence of past or future crimes. Maryland‘s justification
for this unprecedented expansion of police power? Bigger is better. Add
arrestee profiles to the database, and more crimes will be solved.
Read on...
Read on...
300th Person Exonerated By DNA Evidence
DNA evidence exonerated
yet another death row inmate on Friday, after a Louisiana judge
overturned the murder and rape convictions of 38-year-old Damon
Thibodeaux. Thibodeaux had served 16 years in prison — 15 in solitary
confinement – for the alleged rape and murder of his 14-year-old step
cousin.
Thibodeaux was convicted based solely on a confession, recanted later that day, that he says was obtained after nine solid hours of threat-riddled, unrecorded police interrogation. Countering that confession was a dearth of any evidence corroborating that he was the perpetrator. In fact, it was later determined that the victim had not been sexually assaulted at all.
Thibodeaux now becomes the 300th person and the 18th death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence – an important marker for the emergence of DNA exonerations. But it would be a mistake to think that DNA is a magic pill to cure the ills of our criminal justice system. If anything, these exonerations say more about the high error rate in convictions than about the power of DNA, given that there is no DNA evidence in the vast majority of cases (even in Thibodeaux’s case, DNA evidence was initially unavailable), and that routine collection of DNA from suspects can have perverse and troubling effects. The Washington Post’s Douglas A. Blackmon explains:
Read on....
I would have thought it would be more by now. Tom
Thibodeaux was convicted based solely on a confession, recanted later that day, that he says was obtained after nine solid hours of threat-riddled, unrecorded police interrogation. Countering that confession was a dearth of any evidence corroborating that he was the perpetrator. In fact, it was later determined that the victim had not been sexually assaulted at all.
Thibodeaux now becomes the 300th person and the 18th death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence – an important marker for the emergence of DNA exonerations. But it would be a mistake to think that DNA is a magic pill to cure the ills of our criminal justice system. If anything, these exonerations say more about the high error rate in convictions than about the power of DNA, given that there is no DNA evidence in the vast majority of cases (even in Thibodeaux’s case, DNA evidence was initially unavailable), and that routine collection of DNA from suspects can have perverse and troubling effects. The Washington Post’s Douglas A. Blackmon explains:
Read on....
I would have thought it would be more by now. Tom
High Court Weighs Death Row Inmate’s DNA Query
By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON — In the course of an hourlong argument at the Supreme Court on Wednesday about a death row inmate’s quest to test DNA evidence, the justices asked neither of the questions that people without legal training might have thought crucial: Why won’t Texas prosecutors consent to the testing? And could the results show that the inmate, Henry W. Skinner, is innocent of the triple murder that sent him to death row?The justices focused instead on whether Mr. Skinner had located a path through a thicket of legal doctrines meant to limit postconviction challenges.
Last year, in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne, No.08-6, the court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that inmates have no freestanding right under the Constitution’s due process clause to test evidence that could prove their innocence in states without laws on DNA testing. The court and Congress have, moreover, severely limited habeas corpus challenges to convictions and sentences.
This is a New York Times editorial. Tom
European court rules DNA database breaches human rights
Peter Walker guardian.co.uk, Thursday December 4 2008 10.55 GMT
Police forces in much of the UK could be forced to destroy the DNA details of hundreds of thousands of people with no criminal convictions, after a court ruled today that keeping them breaches human rights.
The European court of human rights in Strasbourg said that keeping innocent people's DNA records on a criminal register breached article eight of the Human Rights Convention, covering the right to respect for private and family life.
Keeping DNA material from those who were "entitled to the presumption of innocence" as they had never been convicted of an offence carried "the risk of stigmatisation", the ruling said.
Read on...
Police forces in much of the UK could be forced to destroy the DNA details of hundreds of thousands of people with no criminal convictions, after a court ruled today that keeping them breaches human rights.
The European court of human rights in Strasbourg said that keeping innocent people's DNA records on a criminal register breached article eight of the Human Rights Convention, covering the right to respect for private and family life.
Keeping DNA material from those who were "entitled to the presumption of innocence" as they had never been convicted of an offence carried "the risk of stigmatisation", the ruling said.
Read on...
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of the Use of DNA in the Investigation of High-Volume Crimes
Author(s): John Roman, Shannon Reid, Jay Reid, Aaron Chalfin, William Adams, Carly KnightOther Availability: PDF Printer-Friendly PagePosted to Web: June 16, 2008Permanent Link: http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411697
The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the full report (2.40mb) in PDF format.
Abstract
The study compared traditional crime solving to biological evidence techniques in hundreds of cases where biological evidence was available. When conventional investigative techniques were used, a suspect was identified 12 percent of the time, compared to 31 percent of the cases using DNA evidence. In eight percent of cases built on traditional evidence alone a suspect was arrested, compared to the 16 percent arrest rate in DNA cases. The average added cost for processing a single case with DNA evidence was about $1,397. Each additional arrest—an arrest that would not have occurred without DNA processing—cost $14,169.
Read on...
Check out the whole report in the pdf at the above link. Tom
The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the full report (2.40mb) in PDF format.
Abstract
The study compared traditional crime solving to biological evidence techniques in hundreds of cases where biological evidence was available. When conventional investigative techniques were used, a suspect was identified 12 percent of the time, compared to 31 percent of the cases using DNA evidence. In eight percent of cases built on traditional evidence alone a suspect was arrested, compared to the 16 percent arrest rate in DNA cases. The average added cost for processing a single case with DNA evidence was about $1,397. Each additional arrest—an arrest that would not have occurred without DNA processing—cost $14,169.
Read on...
Check out the whole report in the pdf at the above link. Tom
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