Seeking Second Chances Without DNA
Seeking Second Chances Without DNA -
DNA testing has overturned many wrongful convictions but the vast majority of criminal cases have no DNA to test. And some of those inmates’ convictions are also flawed.
The most hopeful scenario possible for innocent inmates fighting a wrongful conviction is when DNA testing of existing evidence might be enough to exonerate them. DNA holds out an unparalleled promise of certainty. As far as evidence goes, it’s the gold standard; solid science. Just last month, a Louisiana man became the 300th inmate in the U.S. exonerated by it.
Yet DNA evidence plays no role in 90 to 95 percent of criminal convictions and the inmates in such cases’ subsequent innocence claims. Often biological evidence simply doesn’t exist. Sometimes it has been badly degraded or has simply vanished. Without DNA’s “aha” moment, judges are even more loath than usual to consider setting aside a conviction. So, what of the wrongfully convicted for whom DNA can never offer a glimmer of hope?
Criminal defense attorney Glenn Garber, who founded the non-profit Exoneration Initiative known as EXI in 2003, calls this the forgotten population “because protestations of innocence from prisoners whose cases lack DNA fall on deaf ears.
It is far tougher to right an injustice without science’s darling DNA on board. So, when Garber found himself deluged with letters from inmates with non-DNA cases begging for his help after he helped Barry Scheck with an Innocence Project case that led to a prisoner’s exoneration, he decided to dedicate himself to looking into non-DNA cases. It’s an uphill struggle.