Apr 22 2008
Crime and Exoneration - The DNA Age
Last week’s Economist features an article regarding Crime and Exoneration in the DNA age, and it highlights the advancements in DNA technology which are leading to the release of more and more innocent inmates suffering at the hands of wrongful convictions. In doing so, the article takes a deliberate glance at the innocence movement in Texas, and it states:
Consider Texas. In 2001 Governor Rick Perry declared a legislative emergency. He had just pardoned a man who had served 15 years after being wrongfully convicted of rape. So he fast-tracked a bill that allowed convicts to get state-funded DNA tests, if biological evidence was available and if they could show that there was a reasonable chance of exoneration.
Prosecutors agreed with the idea in principle. But dredging up old cases was not a priority in most of their offices. In Dallas county, for example, 350 convicts requested DNA testing between 2001 and 2007. They were lucky that the county had held on to most of the old evidence. That is in contrast to Harris county, which encompasses Houston and hands down more death sentences than any other place in America. There boxes of evidence have been destroyed by leaky roofs and rats.
Bill Hill, who was district attorney of Dallas county until 2006, granted DNA tests to only 32 convicts. Twelve were exonerated. Then the county elected a new district attorney, Craig Watkins, who had promised to be “smart on crime”. Mr Watkins wanted prevention and rehabilitation, but exonerations came first. “Any injustice of this nature,” he says, “creates a sickening of a person’s stomach.”
Within weeks of taking office, Mr Watkins announced that he would allow the Innocence Project of Texas, an organisation of law students, to review all 350 claims. On April 15th Dallas county announced its 16th exoneration. No other county has cleared so many. Examination of the claims is still under way, and Mr Watkins admits it will be tedious and expensive. But he sees it as an important step in restoring the credibility of the office.
Dallas county’s new approach has changed opinions in Texas. A year ago the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News, a supporter of the death penalty for a century, declared that it now doubted that Texas could guarantee “that every inmate it executes is truly guilty of murder.” Prosecutors in Arkansas say they still believe the West Memphis Three are guilty. But if they want to keep Mr Echols on death row and his friends in prison, they will have to make a better case for it.
To read the rest of the article, click here.
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