Think Progress reports:
"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:
When DNA testing was first introduced in the late 1980s, the revolutionary new techniques shattered a widely held view in law enforcement and the public that American courts rarely convicted the innocent. Since then, high-profile exonerations and the increasingly common reliance on such testing have led many to believe that DNA can resolve doubts about almost any questionable conviction.
It’s now clear, however, that there is no DNA evidence in the vast majority of cases. In the first 15 years of DNA testing, almost all exonerations fit a basic pattern in which the defendant was accused of rape, or both rape and murder — because sexual assaults are the crimes in which DNA is most likely to be recovered. Between 1989 and the end of 2007, a total of 214 people were cleared using DNA evidence. In all but 14 cases — more than 93 percent — the alleged crime involved a sexual assault of some kind, according to a review by The Washington Post."
Maybe US society needs to put greater emphasis on DNA testing before convictions saving the cost of prison both for the inmate and for society.
"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:
When DNA testing was first introduced in the late 1980s, the revolutionary new techniques shattered a widely held view in law enforcement and the public that American courts rarely convicted the innocent. Since then, high-profile exonerations and the increasingly common reliance on such testing have led many to believe that DNA can resolve doubts about almost any questionable conviction.
It’s now clear, however, that there is no DNA evidence in the vast majority of cases. In the first 15 years of DNA testing, almost all exonerations fit a basic pattern in which the defendant was accused of rape, or both rape and murder — because sexual assaults are the crimes in which DNA is most likely to be recovered. Between 1989 and the end of 2007, a total of 214 people were cleared using DNA evidence. In all but 14 cases — more than 93 percent — the alleged crime involved a sexual assault of some kind, according to a review by The Washington Post."
Maybe US society needs to put greater emphasis on DNA testing before convictions saving the cost of prison both for the inmate and for society.