The Right and Privilege of Post-Conviction DNA Testing
The Right and Privilege of Post-Conviction DNA Testing « Sigmund, Carl and Alfred
Almost half the DNA tests conducted at prisoners’ request confirm guilt. Yet many believe that the exceptions more than justify making post-conviction testing widely accessible. And what is often fair or prudent is for Death Row inmates essential.
Rather than risk executing an innocent, why not permit Death Row inmates to have DNA testing on available biological evidence in their cases? Why not offer access to testing to others convicted of serious non-capital crimes? It’s quicker and cheaper to test than to hold a court hearing to block it. Besides, testing is no “get out of jail free card”—DNA may also corroborate guilt, and may not go far enough to completely establish innocence.
Lindsay Herf, DNA Project manager and executive co-director of the Arizona Justice Project, says arguments that expanding access to testing would open floodgates to frivolous stalling have no evidence.
“Our canvassing of 5,000 inmates led to just over 300 people applying for help,” she says. “Prior to that, we have found that in 12 years of Arizona having a post-conviction DNA testing statute, there have been approximately 45 defendants - that’s about four a year! - who have applied in all of the Arizona counties. And not all of them were granted DNA testing.”
Innocence Project experts say prosecutors in more than 80 percent of the cases they handle are open to giving inmates access, although others “employ every legal avenue to block testing and exoneration.