This paper examines the role of DNA technology in the United States criminal justice system, focusing on both its power to convict the guilty and exonerate the wrongfully imprisoned. Drawing on peer-reviewed sources, congressional records, and documented case studies, the paper surveys post-conviction DNA legislation across U.S. states, reviews exoneration statistics from 1989 to 2003, and analyzes specific cases involving serial murder in Los Angeles and wrongful rape convictions in Illinois. It also addresses the privacy concerns raised by familial DNA investigations and calls for expanded DNA testing infrastructure nationwide.
"Unfortunately, the current Federal and State DNA collection and analysis system suffers from a variety of problems. In many cases public crime laboratories are overwhelmed by backlogs of unanalyzed DNA samples, samples that could be used to solve violent crimes if the States had the funds to eliminate this backlog…" (U.S. Representative Sue Myrick, arguing that federal funds should be appropriated to states to assist DNA cases; Congressional Record, 2004).
The technology that has led to the use of DNA in criminal cases has opened up a new field for investigators in the United States. Some scholars have explained that DNA technology has produced nothing short of a revolutionary breakthrough in the criminal justice system. DNA technology has led to the prosecution of guilty suspects and has also led to the exoneration of those wrongfully convicted of felonies. This paper reviews cases where DNA was used to convict a rapist and murderer, and cases where a previously convicted rapist was exonerated.
According to the Columbia Law Review (Garrett, 2008, p. 58), as of 2008, forty-three states and the District of Columbia had put legislation on the books offering access to post-conviction DNA testing. Six states have founded "innocence commissions" whose task is to investigate cases in which a person may have been wrongfully convicted. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress passed the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act in 2000, providing funds to help states advance their DNA technologies. In 2004, Congress also passed the Innocence Protection Act, which encourages DNA testing of those convicted of capital crimes (Garrett, 58).
An article in The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology reports that in the fifteen years between 1989 and 2003, there were a total of 340 exonerations in the United States criminal justice system. Of those — 327 men and 13 women — 144 were cleared of wrongdoing through the application of DNA technologies, and 196 were exonerated through other means (Gross, et al., 2005, p. 524).
More than half of those exonerated had served at least ten years in prison, Gross continues, and prosecutors do not always admit they were wrong in convicting a person later proven innocent through DNA analysis. For example, Gross notes that Charles Fain was exonerated thanks to DNA research in 2001 in the state of Idaho. He had spent eighteen years on death row, wrongly accused of a rape-murder. The prosecutor uttered this statement after Fain was released from prison: "It doesn't really change my opinion that much that Fain's guilty" (Gross, 526).
Another example of a prosecutor refusing to admit a mistake occurred in DuPage County, Illinois, in 1995. Alejandro Hernandez had been convicted for an abduction, a rape, and a murder that he had nothing to do with. All charges were dismissed against Hernandez — who had been in prison for eleven and a half years — when DNA tests and a confession by the real killer, an imprisoned serial rapist and murderer named Brian Dugan, were brought forward. The police officer who had supplied "crucial evidence" admitted he had lied about Hernandez, and DNA proved Hernandez was not guilty. Still, the prosecutor stated: "The action I have taken today is neither a vindication nor an acquittal of the defendant" — a remarkably arrogant statement in light of the empirical DNA evidence that set Hernandez free after eleven and a half years of wrongful imprisonment (Gross, 527).
As DNA technologies have advanced, the number of exonerations has increased. Between 1989 and 1994, there was an average of 12 exonerations per year due to DNA testing; since 2000, that average has risen to 44 exonerations per year as a result of DNA testing (Gross, 527). Gross provides noteworthy data indicating that ninety-six percent of the exonerations his research uncovered involve defendants wrongfully convicted of murder (60%, or 205 of 345 cases) or of sexual assault or rape (36%, or 121 of 340 cases). The remaining exonerated cases involved robberies, attempted murder, kidnapping, and assault.
"Familial DNA used to identify serial killer Franklin"
"Bullock, Cruz, and Hernandez freed by DNA evidence"
Gross, Samuel R., Jacoby, Kristen, Matheson, Daniel J., Montgomery, Nicholas, and Patil, Sujata. (2005). Exonerations in the United States 1989 Through 2003. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 95(2), 523–560.
Myrick, Sue. (2004). Providing for Consideration of H.R. 6107, Justice For All Act of 2004. The Congressional Record. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
Risinger, Michael D. (2007). Innocents Convicted: An Empirically Justified Factual Wrongful Conviction Rate. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 97(3), 761–806.
Welsh, James. (2000). Death Penalty Suspended in Illinois. The Lancet, Vol. 355, p. 840.
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