With Charles Chatman in the News, DNA Testing Reveals Flaws in Criminal Justice System
According to a fact sheet prepared by the Innocence Project, an organization founded in 1992 to provide assistance to prisoners who could be exonerated by DNA testing, the first reversal of a conviction based on DNA testing occurred in 1989. More than 200 prisoners in the United States have been freed using DNA technology, including 15 serving time on death row.
The President's DNA Initiative, which provides funding, training, and help to the criminal justice system for the employment of DNA technology, says DNA technology can be effectively used to exonerate individuals accused or convicted of crimes when there is biological evidence available for testing. Biological evidence generally includes hair, bones, teeth, tissue, blood, or other fluids from the human body. President Bush announced the initiative in early 2003 to increase the use of DNA testing in the criminal justice system. Congress provided more than $1 billion in initial funding for the project.
The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project says a 2005 study of both DNA and non-DNA exonerations revealed that more than 350 individuals had been cleared after their convictions over the previous 16 years. Wrongful convictions have come under increased scrutiny since the introduction of DNA system into the criminal justice system.
According to the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics, the number of conviction reversals is not as important as the fact that the U.S. criminal justice system has some systemic problems that must be addressed. Some of the problems exposed by DNA technology include inadequate legal representation, problems with getting truthful confessions, problematic police line-ups, and issues with forensic laboratories, the society says. The society argues that there is a clear requirement for pre-conviction processes that decrease the number of wrongful convictions.
Training provided under the President's DNA Initiative is designed to address some of the problems that exist in the criminal justice system. Training provided by the initiative includes regional cold case training; advanced DNA technologies training; DNA evidence identifications, collection and preservation; DNA training for prosecutors, forensic scientists, officers and investigators, officers of the court, and victim advocates. A series of online training courses is available for criminal justice system personnel in addition to on site training facilitated by the President's Initiative.
Sources: The Innocence Project web site, President's DNA Initiative web site, Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project web site, American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics web site
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