DNA exonerations are high-profile again
By Cindy V. Culp Tribune-Herald staff writer
Monday, February 06, 2006
The issue of innocence – who is, who isn't and who should get a chance to prove it – has been in the national conversation a lot lately.
The spate of attention started last month when Virginia's governor ordered DNA testing in the case of a man executed for the rape and murder of his sister-in-law. Although the results ultimately showed Roger Coleman was indeed guilty, some say the case paved the way for post-execution testing.
After that, the issue landed in the U.S. Supreme Court. In mid-January, the justices heard arguments in a Tennessee case that deals with the question of how to handle evidence of innocence raised after the appeals process has been exhausted.
The topic even has mushroomed into a television show, with ABC recently launching a procedural drama called “In Justice.” Similar in style to shows like “Law & Order” or “CSI,” the fictional program breaks new ground in that it focuses on freeing the innocent rather than catching the guilty.
But whether real life will begin to look more like what's on the small screen is a topic of hot debate. People on both sides of the issue are giving the recent developments their own spin.
With the Coleman case, for example, innocence advocates say his guilt isn't nearly as important as the fact that the testing was done. DNA exonerations have made people more aware of the justice system's vulnerabilities, they say, even if the results don't always match up with innocence claims.
“We've been trying now for years to get other governors to open up the vaults,” Peter Neufield, co-director of the New York-based Innocence Project, said in a recent interview with Knight Ridder Newspapers about the Coleman case. “I think it's going to break the logjam.”
But others point to the case as an example of the overhyping of wrongful convictions. Joshua Marquis, an Oregon prosecutor who is vice president of the National District Attorneys Association, noted that the news of Coleman's guilt got much less media coverage than the announcement of the testing.
Such unbalanced coverage gives the public a distorted view of the justice system, Marquis said. While legitimate innocence cases must be taken seriously, he said, the 173 people who have been exonerated so far through DNA represent only a tiny percentage of felony cases.
“My concern is that an urban legend is being created in this country about a mass number of people being wrongfully incarcerated by taking a tiny number of exonerations and blowing them way out of proportion,” Marquis said. “The number that needs to be asked is, in what universe? The universe is 15 million to 20 million felony cases.”
Marquis acknowledges that only a fraction of criminal cases involve DNA evidence, meaning that a very small portion of defendants could be exonerated through testing. But even if the number of exonerations is extrapolated to account for that, statistics make it clear that wrongful convictions are episodic, not epidemic, he said.
“The real number of (wrongfully convicted people) is about the same as the incidence of human rabies,” Marquis said.
Walter M. Reaves Jr., a local defense attorney who is the area's authority on innocence cases, has mixed feelings about the recent developments. Unlike some advocates, he thinks the Coleman case was damaging.
“Unfortunately, it ended up being negative attention,” he said. “(Post-execution DNA testing) is one of those areas where you have to pick your battles carefully, because if you pick one like that, it can set you back.”
Still, Reaves said the Coleman case brought up some important issues. For one thing, it showed how difficult it is for defendants to get DNA testing. Without an order from the governor, the Coleman testing likely would have stalled, he said.
Even in states such as Texas that have post-conviction DNA statutes, procedural hurdles often bring quests for DNA testing to a premature end, Reaves said.
“It's extremely difficult to meet the burden of testing that the courts have applied,” he said.
The case before the Supreme Court is important, Reaves said, because it addresses at least a narrow part of those procedural hurdles. He also is excited about the launch of ABC's new show, he said, if for no other reason than it is further acknowledgement that innocent people do go to prison.
“It kind of blew my mind when I saw that,” Reaves said of the commercials. “I don't know that Hollywood is a predictor of what happens in real life, but obviously some people are interested in it or they wouldn't be producing the show.”
However, Reaves said he hopes people realize that real-life exonerations are not as simple as those on TV. A good example, he said, is his most recent crusade to clear a client's name.
The case involves Cameron Todd Willingham, a Corsicana resident executed in February 2004. Reaves tried to stop the execution based on scientific evidence that the fire which consumed Willingham's house and killed his three daughters was not arson.
Reaves was unsuccessful, in large part, he thinks, because the scientific evidence came in the form of expert opinion, not DNA. Getting an exoneration based on such evidence is nearly impossible, he said.
That is true even when the science behind the testimony changes, Reaves said. In the Willingham case, for example, the methods used in the fire investigation have since been declared “junk science,” he said.
Multiple arson experts who re-examined the case using current techniques concluded that the fire was likely accidental, Reaves said. Yet, the new evidence did not stop Willingham's execution and likely will never clear his name, he said.
“It's based on scientific testimony, but it's based on the type of scientific testimony that people have disagreed about,” Reaves said. “Anybody of any (scientific) significance agrees this wasn't an arson case, but there will always be people who disagree. That even one person can disagree makes it difficult to meet the level you need for absolute exoneration. .<2009>.<2009>. You're just never going to be able to reach that level of certainty with opinions.”
Nonetheless, Reaves plans to continue working with the Innocence Project on the case. Its value now, he said, is to show how things can go wrong.
On a related note, some of Reaves' previous work may draw attention again this year. In 2001, Reaves worked with an author named Fredric Dannen to exonerate a Waco man based on DNA evidence. That man, Calvin Washington, had spent more than 15 years behind bars for the 1986 rape and murder of a local woman.
As the first DNA exoneration in Central Texas, the case would have been big news on its own. But it also generated attention because of its connection to the most infamous murder case in Waco's modern history – the killings of three teenagers in 1982 that are known as the Lake Waco murders.
Superficially, the cases were linked because the victim in Washington's case, Juanita White, was the mother of David Wayne Spence, who was executed for his supposed role in the Lake Waco murders. But the connections went deeper than that.
Both involved the same head investigator and same lead district attorney, both of whose tactics have been questioned. The cases also used types of evidence that many experts say contribute to wrongful convictions. They include bite-mark evidence, which the vast majority of forensic scientists now say is unreliable, and testimony from “jailhouse snitches,” many of whom later recanted their statements.
Spence's supporters say the exoneration of Washington and Williams bolsters his innocence claims. If the same investigator and prosecutor got it wrong in one case using a certain type of evidence, it isn't a stretch to say they got it wrong in another, they argue.
A book being written about capital punishment may soon clear up the controversy. Written by Dannen, the author who worked with Reaves, it will focus on the Lake Waco murders. Although Dannen won't disclose details of the book, he said it should be published by the end of the year.
Regardless of what Dannen's book concludes, however, it is likely only a matter of time before someone who has been executed is exonerated, said Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and chairman of the Innocence Project's board. The United States has the best criminal justice system in the world and most people behind bars are guilty, he said, but the government does make mistakes.
“Most reasonable people now realize that there is a distinct possibility that an innocent person has been executed,” Ellis said. “And since Texas has been involved in over two-thirds of the people who have been executed, it puts a lot of pressure on us.”
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