Fri
Feb
27
“ As I know from experience, law enforcement’s predictions about a defendant’s likely guilt are no substitute for actually performing a DNA test. When I became FBI director in 1987, the bureau established a DNA laboratory we hoped would be used to verify that a suspect had indeed committed a crime. During my years as a U.S. attorney and federal judge in Texas, rapists and murderers sometimes walked free for lack of biological evidence. I had these cases in mind when we established the laboratory in Washington, D.C. The results of the first 100 tests in 1988 astonished me. In three out of 10 cases, not only did we have the wrong person, but the guilty person was still at large. Many of them were unidentified and dangerous. DNA testing overall has produced dramatic results, exonerating a total of 232 people, including 17 on death row.
The Obama administration on DNA evidence. - By William S. Sessions - Slate Magazine
