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On jailhouse snitches and access to courts for non-DNA innocence claims

A long list of DNA-based exonerations in recent years have overturned the convictions of innocent people locked up in prison, sometimes for decades. The reasons are pretty consistent - mistaken witness identification, faulty forensic evidence, prosecutors withholding exculpatory evidence, false confessions, and lying snitches cause the bulk of cases where innocents are convicted.But DNA evidence exists in just 10% of violent crimes and even more rarely in other cases. And while Texas law allows for post-conviction DNA testing if the evidence exists, there's no mechanism for evaluating innocence in non-DNA cases where these same problems arise.A situation involving a mendacious jailhouse snitch out of Orange, Texas shows how such cases play out when DNA evidence doesn't exist to prove innocence to a certainty...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on September 16, 2008 (boomark / email).