| The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that convicted criminals don't have a "constitutional right to demand DNA testing of evidence that remains in police files."
Fortunately, relatively few people will be negatively impacted by the decision - 47 states and federal government already have laws "providing access to post-conviction DNA testing" - but it seems like an odd stance to take. Justice Stevens, in his dissent:
The State of Alaska possesses physical evidence that, if tested, will conclusively establish whether respondent William Osborne committed rape and attempted murder. If he did, justice has been served by his conviction and sentence. If not, Osborne has needlessly spent decades behind bars while the true culprit has not been brought to justice. The DNA test Osborne seeks is a simple one, its cost modest, and its results uniquely precise. Yet for reasons the State has been unable or unwilling to articulate, it refuses to allow Osborne to test the evidence at his own expense and to thereby ascertain the truth once and for all.
Doesn't the Supreme Court think it has an obligation to ensure that justice is carried in the country's court system? And frankly, there's a pervasive problem surrounding prosecutors fighting DNA analysis in these cases. The New York Times:
A recent analysis of 225 DNA exonerations by Brandon L. Garrett, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, found that prosecutors opposed DNA testing in almost one out of five cases. In many of the others, they initially opposed testing but ultimately agreed to it. In 98 of those 225 cases, the DNA test identified the real culprit.
The mind reels. Blocking DNA testing is not about the money; in the SCOTUS case in question, Osborne offered to pay for the test himself. And it's certainly not about justice. Innocent convicts can be freed, and the real culprit can still be convicted for the crimes.
And DNA testing is the only sure method of forensic science. That is, convictions based on other forensic methods - fingerprints, ballistics, handwriting analyses, etc - aren't based on scientific fact. At least, that's what a recent National Academy of Sciences study reported:
For decades, forensic scientists have made sweeping claims in court about fingerprints, ballistics, handwriting, bite marks, shoe prints and blood splatters that lack empirical grounding and have never been verified by science.
This is just one conclusion of a two-year study by the National Academy of Sciences, which on Wednesday called for a wholesale overhaul of the crime lab system that has become increasingly critical to American jurisprudence.
The academy, the preeminent science advisor to the federal government, found a system in disarray: labs that are underfunded and beholden to law enforcement, lacking independent oversight and without consistent standards.
The report concludes that the deficiencies pose "a continuing and serious threat to the quality and credibility of forensic science practice," imperiling efforts to protect society from criminals and shield innocent people from wrongful convictions.
It would seem, then, that the SCOTUS would have a vested interest that all defendants - including those already convicted - should have full access to the DNA evidence in their case for testing. The court, after all, has the obligation to ensure that all citizens have a right to due process in the law.
On a slightly different note, while many prosecutors are (apparently) attempting to save their professional reputations by preventing citizens from using a valid scientific method to challenge their convictions, it would behoove current state attorney generals - especially Montana's Steve Bullock - to ensure that their crime labs are fully cognizant of the problems of forensic sciences. Montana should be especially sensitive, of course, because we've already been burnt by an overzealous (incompetent? corrupt?) crime lab director, Arnold Melnikoff, who used fantastic and invented statistics based on inexact hair analysis to ramrod innocent men into jail.
A solid Crime Lab based on hard science not only ensures that the right people go to jail, it'll both salvage the reputation of Montana's judicial reputation and ensure that convictions in the state won't be as subject to costly challenges. While Steve Bullock's nomination to head the state's Crime Lab, Dave McAlpin, is a smart political appointment - the Crime Lab director, after all, needs to navigate both the state bureaucracy and the legislature - McAlpin lacks any forensics experience. It's a fair question to ask, then, what Bullock and McAlpin plan to do in reaction to the National of Academy of Sciences report, to ensure that only the best scientific work is performed at the crime lab and used in prosecuting Montana's legal cases... |
