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Evidence retention failures thwart pursuit of innocence claims

On Tuesday, Texas witnessed its 34th DNA-based exoneration since 2001, this time again from Dallas County which is one of the only jurisdictions in Texas that saved old biological evidence. Such evidence only exists in about 10% of violent crime cases anyway, so DNA alone won't help most innocent offenders. But what about cases where DNA evidence existed but wasn't preserved?USA Today this week published a pair of interesting stories focused on an issue made more immediate by the large number of recent DNA-based exonerations around the country - the failure of many jurisdictions to preserve DNA evidence ("DNA not saved in half of states," Aug. 6):Evidence preservation has been the key to freeing more than 200 wrongfully convicted prisoners, says the Innocence Project, a group that works to free the innocent based on DNA testing...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on August 10, 2008 (boomark / email).