And more specifically in the case of  DNA retention, experts are discussing the lack of written policies that dictate how long DNA samples should be kept for cases involving the most violent crimes. "Many states haven't passed clear laws on the issue, and no national standard or set of guidelines regarding DNA storage has been developed for evidence rooms at accreditation or training associations." 

Following these stories we are including a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence.  

Experts call for change

Start with strong preservation laws, then revamp the way authorities manage tiny samples of human biology. Justice rides on it, experts say.

Given the truth-bearing power of DNA and other forensic advances, how can biological evidence from major criminal cases still go missing or be destroyed?

That is the question posed by scientists and legal experts who are calling for uniform oversight to protect the rights of victims and the wrongfully convicted.

They want a common definition for biological evidence and a more informed, deliberate approach to saving DNA and cataloguing it.

Some suggest storing evidence in warehouses run independently of police and prosecutors who often are pressed politically to solve crimes and uphold convictions.

Most believe the same computerized bar-coding used to track breath mints at drugstores should be used to log valuable crime-scene items in evidence rooms.

And they want strong laws - with teeth - that take discretion to trash DNA out of the hands of district attorneys and other authorities.

"It ought to be pursued - to get a statute that will actually facilitate and preserve harvested DNA evidence," said former FBI Director William Sessions, who witnessed the power of DNA to clear a third of suspects nationwide during a pilot program early on in his tenure.

Added Chris Mumma, a member of the North Carolina Chief Justice's Criminal Justice Study Commission: "People are recognizing that evidence preservation is becoming more of an issue. Here in North Carolina, there's been a lot of talk about how we don't know how to fix the problem, how we can't keep anything, how we don't have the money. But we're out of time with that type of approach. Now it's time for everyone to put their heads together for solutions."

Twenty years after DNA analysis first was used in a U.S. courtroom, most states still don't have laws requiring preservation of evidence from the outset of major crime investigations until a suspect completes his sentence.

The contrasts can be stark. While Illinois requires police to save biological material from major crimes, Colorado goes to the opposite extreme, saying authorities have "no duty" to preserve it.

About 24 states require biological evidence to be saved, embedding the mandates in statutes addressing post-conviction DNA testing, according to an analysis by the New England Innocence Project and the Goodwin Procter law firm.

But those laws vary widely on when the retention requirement is triggered, and most do not enforce their provisions. Many have loopholes allowing evidence to be discarded early on.

Cynthia Jones, a Georgetown University law professor who has studied the lack of protections for evidence nationwide, said laws are the most basic layer of protection to start with.

"If you start imposing a legal obligation on somebody where they previously didn't, you can start getting some results," she said.

Congress passed its Justice For All Act in 2004, requiring preservation of evidence in federal cases. But efforts to extend a requirement to state cases failed, in part because of arguments that such a law would infringe on states' rights.

Such sovereignty issues would have to be overcome, but advocates argue that a prisoner's constitutional rights to a fair trial and post-conviction appeal trump states' need for autonomy on the issue.

"There are a lot of things states cannot do because of our Constitution," and destroying evidence ought to be one of them, said Mark Agrast, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

Strong laws are only a starting point to broad reform in evidence preservation.

Across the country, some intriguing efforts already are afoot, bringing together experts of various pursuits and political stripes.

The North Carolina-based American Judicature Society - a coalition of lawyers and scientists led by former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, among others - has embarked on a national research project investigating the inner sanctums of evidence rooms to determine what is done right and what should be improved.

The New York-based Innocence Project has created model legislation for states seeking to enforce evidence preservation so inmates who may be wrongfully convicted have a shot at testing evidence to prove their innocence.

In Arizona, defense attorney Larry Hammond tours that state in partnership with state prosecutors lecturing about the failings of Arizona vs. Youngblood. That's the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that predates the widespread use of DNA yet justifies negligence in evidence handling.

In Virginia, Max Houck, a former forensic scientist with the FBI who now heads a forensic research program at West Virginia University, is experimenting with radio- frequency tracking to pinpoint evidence from any location in a room.

Whether it's a tracking system or a preservation policy, it's time for the public to take a stand to protect evidence, Houck said.

"You've got three clashing cultures at work - the attorneys, law enforcement and the forensic agencies - so you've got at least three handoffs where something can go wrong with the evidence," Houck said. "Then there's the culture of agency politics that overlaps all of these, and it can trump the best of intentions."

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref01.html 

DNA retention policies unclear, unwritten 

Sixteen years after DNA testing emerged as a major crime-fighting tool, most police department evidence rooms lack written policies that dictate how long DNA samples should be kept for cases involving the most violent crimes, a review of evidence-room manuals suggests.

Even after embarrassing discoveries in Colorado Springs, Houston and Los Angeles that DNA samples and rape kits had been thrown away before they were analyzed -- a mistake detectives blamed on unclear policies -- it is the rare agency that has developed comprehensive guidelines regarding the storage of this critical investigative tool.

Also, many states haven't passed clear laws on the issue, and no national standard or set of guidelines regarding DNA storage has been developed for evidence rooms at accreditation or training associations.

Adding to the problem is the fact that many evidence rooms are overcrowded and often managed by disgruntled, undertrained police, experts say.

"If you look at it, it's a new science and nobody has stepped up to the plate and said, 'This is the way it has to be,'" said Joseph Latta, who directs the International Association for Property and Evidence and trains and consults evidence-room technicians.

The Denver Post reviewed evidence room policies at 30 Colorado jurisdictions picked from five size categories, and reviewed 30 additional policies randomly selected from small, medium and large U.S. cities.

Police were asked to supply the policies their evidence-room technicians keep at their desks that describe how long DNA samples are maintained for the crimes of murder, rape and kidnapping and for missing-persons cases.

Of the Colorado policies, only Denver's specifically addresses DNA storage, saying that DNA samples are to be placed in "long-term" storage. But even Denver's policy doesn't define what it means by "long-term." The department says it means "indefinitely."

Even in California and Texas, where new laws were passed that address DNA disposal after the discoveries of purges in Los Angeles and Houston, jurisdictions surveyed there still didn't specifically address the retention of DNA evidence in their policies.

Most jurisdictions reviewed said they treated DNA evidence the same way they treat other evidence. Generally, that means evidence rooms keep evidence in cases where crimes have been solved until the convicted have exhausted the appeals process.

For unsolved crimes, evidence generally is kept indefinitely in murder cases, indefinitely in missing-persons cases unless the person has been found, and kept until the statute of limitations has passed for rape.

And like in Colorado Springs, where DNA samples were among hundreds of items of evidence purged accidently this year, several evidence-room policies allow evidence to be disposed of simply at the discretion of the detective assigned to the case, regardless of whether a case has reached the end of the time limit the statute of limitations allows for prosecution.

Many detectives question whether DNA should be thrown away in unsolved rapes, because so many rapists are repeat offenders who sometimes become murderers.

And because the policies don't specifically address DNA samples, evidence-room technicians aren't given guidance about whether DNA evidence in rapes is to be thrown out before it has been analyzed and entered into the national database known as CODIS. That's the Combined DNA Index System, which is maintained by the FBI and used by agencies use to tie suspects to crimes.

Some police experts argue that the lack of specific policies isn't a problem.

Sylvester Daughtry Jr., the executive director of the Commission on the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies, says evidence-room managers and technicians know they aren't authorized to destroy or dispose of evidence unless authorized by a range of people, from investigators to prosecutors to the courts.

"Most agencies have a very comprehensive or closely scrutinized disposal process," Daughtry said.

But victim advocates who have seen firsthand the devastation of more than 1,100 rape kits destroyed in Los Angeles say guidance is a must.

"The bureaucracy of the police department is challenging at times," said Patti Giggans, who directs Peace Over Violence, formerly known as the Los Angeles Commission on Violence Against Women. "You assume they are organized and disciplined in a way, that everyone is paying attention. But that is not always the case."

In fact, assuming that evidence rooms are organized and disciplined runs counter even to the expectations of evidence-room employees.

At a regional conference of evidence-room technicians held in Glenwood Springs last fall, evidence-room manager and speaker Dennis Davenport bemoaned the fact that many agencies place problem officers at the helm of evidence rooms.

And Latta says he knows of no police academy that offers even one course in evidence-room management. Technicians learn on the job, he said, and turnover of management is often high.

Running the rooms is considered a poor assignment among officers, Latta said, leading him and others to suggest that experienced civilians be hired to run the rooms.

Evidence rooms generally are "kind of broken," Latta said. "They really are."

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref02.html 

New and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence include:

Ohio - A man has been arrested after DNA evidence pointed to him as the suspect in several home invasions, assaults, and rapes that occurred in Findlay and Upper Sandusky, starting 12 years ago, police said this morning. 
 
Charles H. Artressia, 48, of Findlay, was arrested late yesterday afternoon and charged with aggravated burglary and rape for a December, 2004 home invasion and rape on North Cory Street in Findlay, officers said. 
 
The man was also linked through DNA to three other crimes -- a rape during a home invasion in August, 1995 on Spring Street in Upper Sandusky, a home invasion and assault on Park Street in Findlay in April, 2005, and a home invasion and assault in June, 2005 also on North Cory in Findlay. 
 
Officers said that a pair of bi-focal Medicare prescription glasses recovered from the scene of the latest incident helped them identify the suspect. The Findlay police had received a court order for information on males fitting the general description of the suspect who received Medicare benefits at the time of the incidents. Media coverage of that court order led to several tips on potential suspects.  

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref03.html 

New Jersey - A DNA sample led police to the burglar who robbed a deli six months ago, authorities said.

Thomas Hurban, 55, who police say is a career criminal from Freehold, is being charged with theft and burglary of the Wilkes Deli on Hillsdale Avenue, said Detective Robert Francaviglia.

Hurban had pried open a metal door with a tire iron and cut himself, police said. The Bergen County Sheriff's Office removed the blood for DNA processing.

Hurban stole 22 cartons of cigarettes and sold them, police said.  

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref04.html 

New York - The man convicted of murder last year in the notorious Long Island drunken-driving accident that killed a wedding limousine driver and 7-year-old flower girl was indicted yesterday on new charges that he tried to corrupt a DNA test.

Martin Heidgen, 26, was indicted on one count of tampering with evidence. Prosecutors said a DNA sample ordered during the trial revealed the presence of not only Heidgen's genetic profile, but that of another inmate. If convicted, Heidgen could see four years added to an 18-year sentence he is already serving.

Heidgen, of Valley Stream, was convicted last November of murder after he drove the wrong way down the Meadowbrook Parkway following a night of heavy drinking, slamming head-on into a wedding limousine.

Prosecutors believe saliva from another inmate was inside Heidgen's mouth when the DNA swab of his inner cheek was taken.  

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref05.html 

Louisiana - DNA evidence seized from a man convicted of a sex crime in 2000 has linked him to the rape and robbery of a woman in 1998, a Baton Rouge prosecutor said.

An East Baton Rouge Parish grand jury on Thursday indicted Marice Nalls, 31, 5459 Prescott Road No. 165, on one count each of aggravated rape and armed robbery.

Aggravated rape carries a mandatory life sentence; armed robbery is punishable by 10 years to 99 years in prison.

Prosecutor Will Morris said Nalls was armed with a gun when he broke into a woman's apartment in a complex in the 7000 block of Airline Highway at 5 a.m. Sept. 24, 1998.

“He raped her and then demanded that she give him money,” Morris said. “When she didn't have enough money to satisfy him, he raped her again.”

Morris said the 1998 case “went cold.”

In an unrelated crime, Nalls was convicted in 2000 of carnal knowledge of a juvenile. Because he was convicted of a sex crime, Nalls was ordered to give a DNA sample. His DNA profile was placed in a police database.

The arrest warrant says that on Feb. 7, 2005, State Police notified the Baton Rouge Police Department's Sex Crimes Division that DNA recovered from the 1998 rape matched Nalls' DNA profile.

Parish Prison records indicate Nalls was booked on June 19. Police spokesman Cpl. L'Jean McKneely said Thursday he needs to check into the case to see why it took nearly two-and-a-half years to arrest Nalls.

Morris said Nalls does not yet have an attorney. Nalls remains in Parish Prison on a $500,000 bond.

The case has been assigned to state District Judge Todd Hernandez. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref06.html 

Maryland - A Florida trucker who was sentenced this week to 30 years in prison for abducting and sexually assaulting a Connecticut woman is the suspect in a 2005 rape near Arundel Mills mall, Anne Arundel County police said yesterday. 
 
DNA collected from Thomas Hooks, 51, of Pensacola, matches evidence collected from the cold case in Hanover, when a 24-year-old woman said she was attacked by a man who hid in the back of her van while she used a gas station restroom, said Cpl. Sara Schriver, a police spokeswoman. 
 
"We have started a thorough investigation," Schriver said, "and once we're through with that, depending on what is revealed, charges will be applied." 
 
On Tuesday, Gov. Martin O'Malley said he wants police departments to collect genetic samples from anyone arrested in a violent crime, the same day that Baltimore County police announced they had used DNA evidence to make a second arrest in a 30-year-old rape case. It was among the department's 19 arrests since 2004, when officers began using a DNA database to solve cold cases. Anne Arundel authorities have solved five such cases, Schriver said. 
 
Through the use of DNA databases, Connecticut officials are working with authorities along the East Coast to determine whether Hooks is connected to other unsolved crimes. 
 
He pleaded no contest in April to charges of first-degree kidnapping and aggravated first-degree sexual assault in the February 2006 Connecticut incident. He was accused of waving the victim down on a highway exit ramp in Ashford, then blindfolding and raping her in the truck's sleeper cab. He was sentenced Tuesday in Connecticut Superior Court. 
 
Three months before that crime, according to Anne Arundel County police, Hooks emerged from the back seat of his victim's van, took control of the vehicle and drove into a nearby wooded area, where he forced her to have sex with him. 
 
Hooks previously served less than half of a 27-year sentence for an attack in which he rammed a woman's vehicle off the road with his 18-wheeler, forced her into the truck at gunpoint and raped her twice. He was released in 2000. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref07.html 

New York - A convict - just seven months away from freedom - faced a Queens Supreme Court judge yesterday on rape charges after a DNA match connected the career criminal to two sexual assaults, including a vicious attack on a 12-year-old girl.

Richard Thomas, 42, now is facing up to 50 years behind bars. He's charged with rape, robbery, unlawful imprisonment, criminal use of a firearm and endangering the welfare of a child.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref08.html 

New York - DNA evidence has connected a man dubbed the "Bike Path Rapist" to at least eight more rapes in the Buffalo area between 1981 and 1994, prosecutors said Tuesday.  
 
Altemio Sanchez, 49, pleaded guilty May 16 to murdering three women since 1990, including two whose bodies were found on bike paths.  
 
Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark said a laboratory analyzed 15 slides that the Erie County Medical Center provided to the Bike Path Rape Task Force.  
 
Of those, the hospital confirmed eight were connected to Sanchez by DNA. Three others may be linked to Sanchez, pending further lab work, Clark said.  
 
Sanchez can't be prosecuted for any of the unsolved cases.  
 
"They're all time barred (by the statute of limitations), so there's no way we could prosecute them," Clark said. "But, I feel we have some moral obligation to bring closure to the victims."  
 
Another man served 22 years in prison for two rapes that are now tied through DNA to Sanchez. Anthony Capozzi's convictions were erased earlier this year.  
 
Sanchez was arrested after investigators reviewed a 1981 victim's report that included her attacker's license plate number. The car belonged to Sanchez's uncle, who had said at the time that the car had not been driven.  
 
Twenty-six years later, the uncle said his nephew had borrowed the car. Investigators then followed Sanchez and secretly collected his DNA from drinking glasses at a restaurant in January. He was arrested two days later.  
 
Sanchez faces 75 years to life in prison at sentencing Aug. 2.  

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref09.html 

Michigan - Nearly a decade after the 1997 rape and slaying of a 14-year-old girl, DNA evidence was found to match that of a man in prison on unrelated charges.

Based on that finding and testimony, a judge last week ordered James E. Carrodine, 35, of Eastlake to stand trial on charges of murder, felony murder and first-degree criminal sexual conduct in the case.

Flint District Judge Herman Marable Jr. scheduled a circuit court arraignment for Carrodine. He will face Genesee Circuit Judge Geoffrey L. Neithercut on Aug. 13,

Carrodine is charged in the Nov. 11, 1997, rape and murder of Shayla Rose, 14, a Northern High School student found strangled in an abandoned apartment house at 808 Oak St.

The case went unsolved for years, but advances in DNA technology and the dogged pursuit by detectives of the Flint Violent Crimes Task Force, the local cold case unit, brought about an arrest.  

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref10.html 

Maryland - A Baltimore County woman tells investigators that a man broke into her apartment in the middle of the night, covered her head with a T-shirt and raped her. 
 
Nearly three decades later, Baltimore County police say they have the man who did it. 
 
With the arrest of a convicted rapist, the 1978 case becomes the oldest in which charges have been filed as part of the county Police Department's review of past sex crimes. 
 
Edward Dennis Wood, 59, is the 18th person linked through DNA evidence to long-unsolved sex crimes since county police began their review in 2004. 
 
"I think it's wonderful for the victims to be able to put a face and name to the person who assaulted them," said Susan Hazlett, a county prosecutor who has worked on the DNA cases. 
 
The arrest comes at a time when the state continues to dig out from a backlog of thousands of DNA samples to be collected and processed. The backlog, which once numbered 26,000, stood at about 4,000 earlier this summer. 
 
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref11.html 

Florida - After more than two years in jail facing a charge of murder, Henry Reginald Stewart was released from the Nassau County Jail on July 11, his 45th birthday. 
 
Assistant State Attorney Stephen Bledsoe dropped a murder charge against Stewart, making him a free man. 
 
Had he been convicted of the charge, Stewart would have faced life in prison or death by lethal injection. 
 
Bledsoe said DNA testing re-vealed a bloody palm print found in the home of Georgette Stewart, a 44-year-old woman found dead in 2003, did not belong to the victim or to Henry Stewart. 
 
"(The print) had never been specifically compared to Henry Stewart's palm print," Bledsoe said. "... I submitted (the print for testing) and the result was that the palm print was not that of Henry Stewart - it is compelling exonerating evidence."

A fingerprint belonging to Henry Stewart was found in the victim's home, but because Stewart was a neighbor and former brother-in-law to the victim and was known to visit her home, Bledsoe said the fingerprint was "not of a very significant, compelling nature ... and that was the only other forensic evidence that was specifically identifiable that we had." 
 
Georgette Stewart was found dead in her singlewide trailer home at 1522 Stewart Ave. on Amelia Island on Sept. 11, 2003. 
 
Her stepfather, Ernest Coes, found her body after he went to her home to check on her after she failed to show up for work at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Jacksonville. 
 
Police said she had been beaten and stabbed to death. 
 
On Jan. 26, 2005, Stewart was arrested for murder after an investigation by the Nassau County Sheriff's Office.

Henry Stewart's attorney, Gary Baker, said Stewart had maintained his innocence all along. 
 
Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref12.html 

California - A 26-year-old Seaside man was convicted of rape after investigators linked him to an assault with DNA testing.

A jury on Wednesday found Jose Manuel Ybanez guilty of one count of forcible rape and one count of assault. Judge Lydia Villarreal is scheduled to sentence Ybanez on Aug. 2. He faces a minimum sentence of 15 years to life.

Prosecutors said Ybanez followed a 16-year-old girl to her sister's apartment on Sept. 10, 2005, and asked if she wanted to party. When she neared the apartment, Ybanez grabbed her and punched her in the face, fracturing her jaw. He then raped her.

A sexual assalt exam performed at a hospital yielded a semen specimen and, in Nov. 2006, the state Department of Justice notified the Marina Department of Public Safety that they had discovered a match with the DNA in the semen to the DNA that Ybanez had been required to provide in a previous felony case.  

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref13.html 

Florida - A convicted sex offender has been charged in the slaying of an 85-year-old woman in a case that remained unsolved for nearly 31 years before DNA linked him to the crime, authorities said Tuesday.

Alfonzo Austin, 58, was arrested Monday at his home in the north Florida town of Quincy, near Tallahassee. Authorities said he admitted killing Mary Barth, whose body was found on Sept. 17, 1976, near the entrance to a St. Petersburg cemetery. An autopsy showed she had been stabbed 27 times and raped.

Austin was being held in the Gadsden County jail Tuesday, charged with first-degree murder. It was not clear if he had an attorney yet.

Last year, St. Petersburg police resubmitted evidence from the case to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, whose analysts were able to obtain a DNA profile and compare it to others in a criminal data bank.

The sample matched the DNA of Austin, whose genetic information had been included in the database after a previous conviction. The state's sexual offender registry indicates Austin was convicted in 1990 of lewd and lascivious assault on a child in Gadsden County.

Technology developed in recent years allowed FDLE analysts to extract DNA from semen on an article of Barth's clothing, said Melissa Suddeth, analyst supervisor in the Tampa FDLE lab.

"Any hit is extremely exciting here in the laboratory," Suddeth said. "It's nice to get a hit on a case that's as old as this one. And this particular hit was able to give investigators a lead they wouldn't have had otherwise."

Barth suffered from dementia and wandered away from the house where she lived with her sister, police said. At the time, Austin lived across the street from the cemetery where her body was found, police said.

Sgt. Mike Kovacsev, who heads the St. Petersburg police homicide unit, said Austin at first denied committing the crime, then admitted it after Kovacsev confronted him with the positive DNA match.

"Here you are 30 years later and your demons are coming back to haunt you," Kovacsev said he told Austin. "He was kind of in disbelief."

During the interview, Austin said he was also involved in another slaying of an elderly women in St. Petersburg that occurred four months before Barth was killed, Kovacsev said. Investigators are trying to determine if they can charge him with that crime.

About a year after Barth was killed, Austin was arrested for an attempted sexual battery about a mile from where her body was found, and has been arrested at least twice on sexual battery charges since, police said.

Kovacsev said police are still looking for any of Barth's surviving family members. She was believed to have been from Ohio.

"It would be nice to tell them about it," he said. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref14.html 

Pennsylvania - A West Chester man who was already in prison on drug charges has been arrested in a 2003 rape case.  
 
Police say the victim was sitting in her car at a red light when a man got in the car, threatened her, attacked her and broke her cell phone when she called 9-1-1. He then drove off in her car.  
 
When police recovered the car, they found the attacker's baseball cap. In May, state police said the D-N-A matched that of 35-year-old Alex Villa, a convicted offender.  
 
Villa was taken from the State Correctional Institute at Camp Hill and arraigned on rape, kidnapping and other charges.  

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref15.html 

Did You Know?  

Topic: New study examines false convictions

By Adam Liptak

In April, Jerry Miller, an Illinois man who served 24 years for a rape he did not commit, became the 200th American prisoner cleared by DNA evidence. His case, like the 199 others, represented a catastrophic failure of the criminal justice system.

When an airplane crashes, investigators pore over the wreckage to discover what went wrong and to learn from the experience. The justice system has not done anything similar.

But a new study does. Brandon Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia, has, for the first time, systematically examined the 200 cases, in which innocent people served an average of 12 years in prison. In each case, of course, the evidence used to convict them turned out to be at least flawed and was often false - yet juries, trial judges and appellate courts failed to notice.

"A few types of unreliable trial evidence predictably supported wrongful convictions," Garrett concluded in his study, "Judging Innocence," which will be published in the Columbia Law Review in January.

The leading cause of the wrongful convictions was erroneous identification by eyewitnesses, which occurred 79 percent of the time. In a quarter of the cases, such testimony was the only direct evidence against the defendant.

Faulty forensic evidence was next, present in 55 percent of the cases. In some of those cases, courts put undue weight on evidence with limited value, as when a defendant's blood type matched evidence from the crime scene. In others, prosecution experts exaggerated, made honest mistakes or committed outright fraud.

Most of the forensic evidence involved problems with the analysis of blood or semen. Forty-two cases featured expert testimony about hair, an area that is, Professor Garrett wrote, "notoriously unreliable."

Informants testified against the defendants in 18 percent of the cases. (In three cases, it turned out they had an unusually powerful motive for their false testimony, as DNA evidence later proved that the informants were in fact guilty of the crime they had pinned on the defendant.)

There were false confessions in 16 percent of the cases, with two-thirds of those involving defendants who were juveniles, mentally retarded or both.

The 200 cases examined in the study are a distinctive subset of criminal cases. More than 90 percent of those exonerated by DNA were convicted of rape, or of both rape and murder, rape being the classic crime in which DNA can categorically prove innocence. For other crimes, there is often no biological evidence or, if there is, it can give only circumstantial hints about guilt or innocence.

Only 14 of those exonerated had been sentenced to death, 13 in rape-murders. There is a widespread misconception that DNA evidence has freed many inmates from death row. But it is actually a rare murder not involving rape in which biological evidence can provide categorical proof of innocence.

"DNA testing is available in fewer than 10 percent of violent crimes," said Peter Neufeld, a founder of the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School, which was instrumental in securing many of the exonerations. "But the same causes of wrongful convictions exist in cases with DNA evidence as in those cases that don't."

Garrett's study strongly suggests, then, that there are thousands of people serving long sentences for crimes they did not commit but who have no hope that DNA can clear them.

In a second forthcoming study of false convictions, this one focused on capital cases, two law professors - Samuel Gross of the University of Michigan and Barbara O'Brien of Michigan State - cautioned that "exonerations are highly unrepresentative of wrongful convictions in general."

"The main thing we can safely conclude from exonerations is that there are many other false convictions that we have not discovered," the Michigan study said. "In addition, a couple of strong demographic patterns appear to be reliable: Black men accused of raping white women face a greater risk of false conviction than other rape defendants; and young suspects, those under 18, are at greater risk of false confession than other suspects."

Garrett also found that exonerated convicts were more apt to be members of minority groups than the prison population generally. For instance, 73 percent of the convicts cleared of rape charges were black or Hispanic, as compared with 37 percent of all rape convicts.

The courts performed miserably in ferreting out the innocent. The United States Supreme Court, for instance, refused to hear appeals from 30 people who turned out to be innocent. Of course, appeals courts do not typically reconsider a jury's factual findings, focusing instead on asserted procedural errors. Only 20 of the 200 even appealed on the ground that they were innocent; none of those claims were granted.

Perhaps the most troubling finding in Garrett's study was how reluctant the criminal justice system was to allow DNA testing in the first place. Prosecutors often opposed it, and 16 courts initially denied requests for testing.

Yet DNA evidence can do more than free the innocent. In many cases, it also identified the person who actually committed the crime.

"In 40 percent of our cases we not only exonerated but also identified the real perpetrator," Neufeld of the Innocence Project said. "In every single one of those cases that perpetrator had committed violent crimes in the intervening years." 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_49_jul_07/vol49_ref16.html 
 

Events and conferences for 2007 that may of interest to you include: 

AFDAA (Association of DNA Analysts and Administrators) Conference - August 2-3, 2007 - Austin, TX. Contact Joseph Warren 817-735-5107

Web site: www.AFDAA.org 

18th International Symposium on Human Identification - October 1-4, 2007

Renaissance Hollywood Hotel - Hollywood, California

Web site: www.promega.com/geneticsymp18/  

The DNA Informant is a free bi-weekly email newsletter, published by DNA Labs International. 

DNA Labs International is a private, ISO 17025 Accredited, Forensic Serology and DNA Identity Testing Laboratory, founded in 2004 by a Board Certified Fellow in Molecular Biology with over two decades of experience in Forensic Serology and DNA Analysis in United States Crime Labs. Our primary mission is to help our clients identify criminals within their jurisdiction by providing timely, accurate and cost effective DNA testing results. To do this we created an organization based on industry best practices from over 20 State Crime Labs around the United States. We are located in Deerfield Beach, Florida, just minutes from the Fort Lauderdale airport. 

DNA Labs International's services are now available for individual cases and outsourcing contracts. Please keep us in mind as you start to consider your outsourcing needs, regular and rush cases and DNA case review.  
 

Editor: Karen Daurie

Karen.Daurie@DNALabsInternational.com  

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