CREATORS
February 11, 2025
The Innocence Project used to track all DNA exonerations
throughout the country. An exoneration clears a convicted person of
blameworthiness. Now they track all "Innocence Project successes,"
which includes all exonerations generated through DNA or other evidence.
There were 375 DNA exonerations between 1989 and 2020. For
those 375 men and women and their families, DNA saved them from the anguish and
pain of being locked up for a crime they did not commit. For the rest of us,
DNA revealed the many flaws in the criminal justice system.
The "other successes" are even more impressive
than the DNA exonerations. In "Bringing Ben Home: A Murder, a Conviction,
and the Fight to Redeem American Justice," Barbara Bradley Hagerty
declared, "The double helix has sparked a revolution." DNA has
exposed the errors of our way.
The Innocence Project is right to celebrate those non-DNA
exonerations. "[O]verturning a wrongful conviction, even with DNA
evidence, is extremely difficult. ... [Without it] it's so much harder,"
Rebecca Brown of the Innocence Project told Bradley. She goes on to say,
"It comes down to, really, serendipity. ... We should not be having to
depend on luck."
DNA is not present in every case. However, there are still
mistaken identifications, police misconduct and bad forensics throughout the
system. The Innocence Project lists six "contributing causes" for
wrongful convictions: eyewitness misidentification; false confessions or
admissions; government misconduct; inadequate defense; informants; and
unvalidated or improper forensic science.
More specifically, in 63% of wrongful convictions there was
eyewitness identification; 52% had inaccurate or unscientific forensic
analysis; 19% had untrustworthy informants: and 28% had confessions.
Imagine that nearly 3 in 10 people exonerated pleaded guilty
to a crime they did not commit. How does that happen?
In 2010, 17-year-old India Spellman was arrested by
Philadelphia police for the robbery of a woman with a gun and as the shooter in
the robbery and murder of a second person. India and her co-defendant were
taken to the police department for interrogation. Although she was a juvenile,
her parents were kept from the interrogation room.
As the 17-year-old was alone with the police, a detective
hit her in the face and screamed at her. He left the interrogation room and
returned with a statement that Spellman signed after detectives refused to read
her the content of the statement. The statement was a confession to being
involved in both robberies.
Thirteen years later, a judge vacated Spellman's conviction.
The trial — which featured a misidentification, a coerced confession and
prosecutors withholding exculpatory evidence — had been unconstitutional.
As science evolves, so does the reliability of forensic
evidence. The gold standard pre-DNA was the human fingerprint. You may be
surprised to learn that the uniqueness of a fingerprint is an assumption, not a
well-studied idea.
According to Discover magazine, the "lack of a
fundamental scientific basis for the supposed uniqueness of fingerprints — and
the inability for apparent experts to reliably match them or even agree on
what's required for a match — has seen some federal courts reject fingerprints
entirely as evidence."
Even DNA has come under scrutiny. As collection of DNA at
crime scenes has become more sophisticated, gathering minute biological samples
has emerged as potential for folly. Finding someone's DNA at a crime scene
doesn't necessarily mean they were ever at that location. Transfer DNA can
spread to objects and places by way of other human carriers.
In one case, according to Discover magazine, a man's DNA was
found on a murder victim who was killed in their home. The man whose DNA was
found at the crime scene was in the hospital during the murder. The DNA had been
transferred by a paramedic who brought the man to the hospital and who later
responded to the 911 call made regarding the homicide.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. His book "The Executioner's Toll, 2010" was
released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and
follow him on Bluesky @matthewmangino.bsky.social.
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