Thursday, April 17, 2014

Exoneration: The use of DNA to free the innocent

Not only can DNA be used to convict criminals, it has successfully been used to exonerate individuals, some of whom were wrongly imprisoned for more than two decades.

Often, the person who is wrongly convicted of a serious crime such as murder or rape has a criminal record for petty crimes, which means a record already exists. These individuals are frequently convicted on eyewitness testimony, but without any physical evidence tying them to the crime.


The Innocence Project, created in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in New York, works to exonerate people by use of post-conviction DNA, in which DNA from the crime scene is tested against the accused's DNA. Often, physical evidence from a crime is kept for many years. If the evidence includes samples of blood, hair, skin, or other evidence that can include DNA, it can often be used to prove that the person accused could not have committed the crime. Moreover, if it turns out that the DNA matches a profile in a database such as CODIS, the real criminal can be located and tried. From 1992 to April of 2014, the Innocence Project helped exonerate 316 prisoners.


Personally, I feel that the use of DNA to exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals is a necessity in the criminal justice system. I suspect an innumerable amount of wrongfully convicted individuals are still in prison, just waiting for an organization like The Innocence Project to come along. Every human being, regardless of their racial, cultural, or financial backgrounds, deserves a right to live their life to the fullest. Now, how can that happening if they are stuck behind bars?

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