DNA has the power to cut short nightmares -- the horror of an innocent man behind bars for a crime someone else committed, the fear of a murderer walking free and looking to kill again.
In the past 16 years, DNA testing has freed scores of prisoners found to be wrongfully convicted, resolved old mysteries including murders and rapes and transformed the debate over the death penalty. It has shaken the foundations of the criminal justice system itself.
DNA proved pivotal again on Thursday, when an analysis confirmed that Roger Keith Coleman was indeed the man who raped, stabbed and nearly beheaded his sister-in-law, as a jury concluded.
Coleman was executed in 1992, proclaiming his innocence as he went to the electric chair.
The case was closely watched by both death penalty advocates and protesters because no executed convict in the US has ever been exonerated by scientific testing.
Despite the lack of an explosive result in the Coleman case, the power of DNA is unquestioned and is sure to come into play again.
Advocates for reform remain convinced that there are other executions that need to be retested, sure that an innocent person somewhere along the way has been executed -- even as prosecutors and courts have been hesitant to go back and revisit cases that juries and courts have deemed closed.
"There are many more like the Coleman case," said defense attorney Barry Scheck, co-founder of the New York-based Innocence Project, a legal clinic that seeks to exonerathe inmates through DNA testing.
"DNA has shown, whether it's the death penalty or not, there are flaws with eyewitness testimony, false confessions and crime labs. We know many more people have been wrongfully convicted than anyone thought." Scheck said.
It took years of effort to get DNA evidence accepted by the courts, with the first exoneration -- of David Vasquez, convicted of second degree murder in Virginia -- coming in 1989. It began with a trickle, and then became a flood. The 100th exoneration came in late 2001.
"There are all these cases. There's a crescendo of cases, of innocence," Scheck said.
And the impact has hit everyone from police officers to judges.
"It was a world-shattering event," said Geoff Alpert, a criminal justice professor at the University of South Carolina. "It's kind of like computers. That's how my kids think of it. The before and after differences are enormous."
Scheck and others such as Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey organization that investigated Coleman's case and became convinced of his innocence, argue that with DNA tests exonerating 172 wrongfully convicted prisoners over the years, the technology raises bigger questions about the justice system itself.
By proving flaws, DNA raises doubts about other cases in which genetic testing doesn't play a part. DNA only can help in cases where biological evidence ties the victim to the criminal, such as rape cases or murder cases where the criminal's blood or skin -- or maybe even a chewed-up piece of gum -- is left behind.
But DNA evidence cuts both ways -- as in the Coleman case.
Death-penalty supporters say DNA can help strengthen the case for capital punishment by determining with scientific certainty that those convicted are guilty.
Such supporters say they're willing to support ways to curb flaws that lead to wrongful convictions -- from presenting photo lineups of suspects to victims to videotaping police interrogations that can lead to false confessions. But they dismiss allegations that DNA evidence proves the justice system is deeply flawed.
"That's absolute hogwash," said Joshua Marquis, district attorney of Clatsop County, Oregon. "Wrongful convictions are episodic, not epidemic. They're highly isolated, individual cases."
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS