US Supreme Court gets it Wrong: No Right to DNA tests after conviction -Videos

update July 29, 2009 Cops frame girl
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I'm confused - my first exposure to DNA testing was a few years ago while listening to C-SPAN radio near Washington, D.C. with my friend Thom heading to work . We tuned in just as testimony was beginning of a man who had been imprisoned for almost his entire life. The speaker who had recently been exonerated for a crime he'd never commited was not bitter, angry or looking for revenge. He was simply thankful to get out of prison so he could enjoy what few years of his life remained. Many years have passed so I don't have particulars of that exact case - but I remember Thom and I were dumbfounded and shocked that our legal system was capable of such injustice. Fast forward to today - it's fixed right? NO - in fact we just took a step in the wrong direction.

I came across THIS STORY today regarding a recent decision by the Supreme Court ruling that:

"The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday ruled that a defendant does not have the constitutional right to demand DNA tests to prove his innocence after his case has already been tried.

In a split decision of five to four in a country which still carries out the death penalty, the nation's highest court said a federal Alaska tribunal was wrong to allow a man jailed for rape to have retroactive DNA tests.

"DNA testing has an unparalleled ability both to exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty," the court wrote in its opinion of the case of William Osborne, serving 26 years in prison for the 1994 rape.

At the same time, DNA testing alone does not always resolve a case. Where there is enough other incriminating evidence and an explanation for the DNA result, science alone cannot prove a prisoner innocent, it added."

Have we learned nothing? Why NOT allow testing? Cui bono? It seems to me that the DNA testing, in the case of a guilty person, would help remove any lingering doubt as to innocence, while in the case of a wrongly convicted person the DNA testing would be a valuable check on our legal system to do what we are supposed to aim for - protect the innocent. Instead we have a ruling from the Supreme Court that defies common sense by taking away one of our best scientific tools for finding the truth.

Take a look HERE where you can read about Curtis McCarty who was exonerated based on DNA evidence:

"OKLAHOMA CITY, OK; May 11, 2007) – Curtis Edward McCarty, who was convicted twice and sentenced to death for the same murder in verdicts that were both thrown out based on evidence of his innocence and an extraordinary pattern of government misconduct, was released from prison this morning after a judge dismissed the indictment against him that would have led to a third trial. The prosecution said today that it will not appeal the decision – finally clearing McCarty after 21 years of wrongful incarceration, more than 16 of them on death row."

Am I correct in my understanding that this recent ruling could have prevented justice in the McCarty case? Is the goal really justice? Consider this logic from article:

"Robert H. Macy, who was the Oklahoma County District Attorney for 21 years, prosecuted McCarty in both of his trials. Macy sent 73 people to death row – more than any other prosecutor in the nation – and 20 of them have been executed. Macy has said publicly that he believes executing an innocent person is a sacrifice worth making in order to keep the death penalty in the United States. "

Am I naive in my old-fashioned way of thinking that our justice system is based on the protection of the innocent - that it is better to let the guilty free than to punish an innocent person? What happened? Why do I continue with this belief while events demonstrate over and over again that convictions regardless of guilt are more important to our legal practitioners than protecting the wrongly accused?

Please watch John Grisham, a fellow Charlottesvillian, continuing his heroic fight for justice:



I'm not a lawyer - but do I have to be a lawyer to know this ruling is simply crazy?