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"Links to Sex Crimes to Follow Texas Suspects"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal.  Here is how it begins: Desirée Wood gave up hope that the man who raped her 20 years ago in Dallas would ever be caught and sentenced for the crime. Now, she says, she has reason to believe her attacker might see some form of justice, after all. On Tuesday, a law takes effect in Texas that lets prosecutors and parole boards for the first time see DNA evidence that links a suspect to an old sexual assault, even though the statute of limitations has expired on the case and the suspect was never tried. Previously, there would be no record linking the suspect to the old crime. Supporters of the law, the first of its kind in the country, hope it means that suspects in those old cases will face more-vigorous prosecutions and sterner parole boards should they find themselves in trouble with the law again...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 31, 2009 (boomark / email).