DNA Testing

DNA analysis is considered one of the most accurate tools for determining guilt or innocence. Post-conviction DNA testing is unique in that it allows the criminal justice system an opportunity to fix mistakes, particularly wrongful conviction.

To date, post-conviction DNA testing has lead to the exoneration of more than 200 wrongfully convicted individuals in the United States. DNA testing is a powerful means of ensuring that our justice system is more fair and accurate. Every wrongful conviction undermines the justice and fairness that citizens expect from the American criminal justice system.

Improving Access to Post-Conviction DNA TestingIn Improving Access to Post-Conviction DNA Testing: A Policy Review (pdf), The Justice Project offers recommendations and solutions to expand access to post-conviction DNA testing. This policy review provides an overview of problems with current post-conviction DNA testing laws, offers solutions to these problems, profiles cases of injustice, highlights states with good laws and policies for DNA testing, and includes a model policy.

The federal government recognized the need for reform by passing the Innocence Protection Act in 2004. The law includes the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, which provides funding for state grants for testing for prisoners with claims of innocence. The program is named for Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, the first person sentenced to death row to be exonerated by DNA testing. The Justice Project led the campaign to pass the IPA, which also authorizes funding to help states clear their DNA backlogs and improve the practice and use of forensic science.

The Justice Project’s Recommendations for Expanding Post-Conviction DNA Testing

  • States should require the preservation of biological evidence throughout a defendant’s sentence and devise standards regarding custody of evidence.
  • States should ensure that all inmates with a DNA-based innocence claim may petition for DNA testing at any time and without regard to plea, confession, self-implication, the nature of the crime, or previous unfavorable test results.
  • States should require judges to grant post-conviction testing petitions when testing may produce new material evidence that raises a reasonable probability of the petitioner’s innocence or reduced culpability.
  • States should ensure that petitioners have access to objective and reliable forensic analysis at independent and privately funded labs, subject to judicial approval.
  • States should provide counsel and cover the cost of post-conviction DNA testing in cases where a petitioner is indigent.
  • States should standardize post-testing procedures for cases that produce testing results favorable to a petitioner.

Related Studies

Karen Christian, “And the DNA Shall Set You Free”: Issues Surrounding Post-Conviction DNA Evidence and the Pursuit of Innocence, 62 Ohio State Law Journal 1195 (2001)

Brandon Garrett, “Judging Innocence,” 108 Columbia Law Review (2008)

Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment, Report of Former Governor Ryan’s Commission on Capital Punishment

Holly Schaffer, “Post-Conviction DNA Evidence: A 500 Pound Gorilla in State Courts,” 50 Drake Law Review 695 (2002)

Related Cases

Kirk Noble Bloodsworth
Kirk BloodsworthAfter spending nine years, including two on death row, DNA testing proved Bloodsworth’s innocence. Although no physical evidence linked him to the crime, Bloodsworth was convicted of the rape and murder of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton in 1984. He was sentenced to death in Maryland’s gas chamber. A decade after Bloodsworth’s exoneration, the state attorney’s office finally compared DNA from the victim’s clothes to DNA in state and federal databases of convicted felons. They found a match and the real killer confessed. Read about Kirk Bloodsworth

Joseph Amrine
Joseph AmrineInadequately defended and convicted based on weak circumstantial evidence and snitch testimony, Joseph Amrine was sentenced to death in a 1986 Missouri murder trial. He lost four appeals before the Missouri Supreme Court reversed his conviction in 2003 based on recantations of three inmate snitches and the testimony of a prison guard who saw the murder. Three months after the Court’s decision, a local prosecutor announced that he would not seek a new trial against Amrine based on new DNA tests. After spending 17 years on death row for a crime he did not commit, Joseph Amrine was finally freed on July 28, 2003. Read about Joseph Amrine

Earl Washington, Jr.
Earl Washington Jr.Earl Washington Jr. came within nine days of being executed for a murder he did not commit. Washington, a Virginia man with mental retardation, spent nearly 18 years in prison, including nine on death row, before DNA testing led to his exoneration on February 12, 2001. Read about Earl Washington, Jr.

Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez
After spending more than 10 years on Illinois’ death row, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were finally cleared of a crime that another man had confessed to committing a decade earlier. On November 3, 1995, on the basis of DNA evidence, recanted testimony, and lack of any other substantial evidence against him, a circuit judge acquitted Cruz. Hernandez’s case was later dismissed on the same grounds. In his ruling, the judge held that the 10-year legal odyssey of both men defied “common sense.” Read about Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez

 

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