Monday, June 22, 2009

No way out



I can’t imagine anything worse than being held behind bars with no possibility of proving my innocence. Unfortunately people continue to find themselves in this dilemma.

The situation with Guantanamo is unconscionable, with so many people being held for years with no trial and now no clear way to bring this disgrace to closure. I’m sure some of those incarcerated are guilty of crimes. I’m sure they are all guilty of hating the US. But I suspect many are innocent of wrongdoing. In the best of possibilities, they may be offered a chance to be free and move to a place like Palau, where they can live out the rest of their lives separated from their families continuing to hate the bastards who imprisoned them.

My son Dan pointed out a story in last Friday’s Washington Post that sent a similar chill down my spine. Apparently the Supreme Court recently ruled that prisoners do not have a constitutional right to DNA testing after their conviction, even though the technology provides an “unparalleled ability both to exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty.”

The case prompting this ruling comes from Alaska, one of three states without a law allowing post-conviction access to biological evidence. William G. Osborne was convicted of the brutal rape and assault of a prostitute in the Anchorage International Airport in 1993. He wanted to pay for a more discerning test of semen found in a condom at the crime scene, hoping to prove his innocence. But prosecutors refused to allow it. Osborne appealed to the federal courts and the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco recognized a right to such testing under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. (Since I wrote this, my lawyer son pointed out that is really the Fourteenth Amendment, not the Fifth, that prohibits states from depriving people of due process.)

But a divided Supreme Court overruled, leaving the decision on such matters to the individual states. The states vary significantly on this matter. For example, Kentucky only permits post-conviction DNA testing for those on death row, not for those serving a life sentence. And states like Alaska don’t permit it at all.

For people wrongly accused, the bitter reality is the justice system has simply failed them. There is no justice in any of this.

8 Comments:

Blogger Steve Reed said...

You're right -- these are appalling situations, in both cases.

I can't imagine why anyone would object to offering an incarcerated person a DNA test. What could possibly be the downside, besides trouble and expense? (Those being completely inadequate reasons to deny the tests...) I don't buy the argument that it's the states' place to handle this issue, because the states aren't doing so, at least not in every case.

As for Guantanamo, if we can't prove charges against those we've detained in a real court of law, they go back to their home countries and their families. End of story.

4:16 PM  
Blogger Barbara said...

Steve -- The most appalling thing about the Alaska case was that Osborne had offered to pay for the test himself! And it was still denied.

4:27 PM  
Blogger Gary said...

Ihave long had a fear of being sent to jail for a crime I did not commit. I suppose that came from watching too many cop shows as a child. Still I can imagine nothing worse than rotting away in prison for a crime I did not do without hope of ever getting the chance to prove I was wronged. How horribe for anyone in that situation.

4:31 PM  
Blogger Barbara said...

Gary -- It's very scary that we have these fears and we live in what is supposed to be an advanced democratic society.

4:34 PM  
Blogger Kristin said...

Have you ever read "The Exonerated"? The number of people wrongly convicted and even executed definitely sends a chill down my spine.

I know that volunteering with Books to Prisons won't do much to help, but if we make the difference in a few lives, it's got to help.

4:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I can't imagine why anyone would object to offering an incarcerated person a DNA test. What could possibly be the downside, besides trouble and expense?" Steve, I fear that one "reason" may be that the Judicial System (not well-meaning individuals working within it, mind you) may regard the allowance of such tests as a sort of Pandora's Box; that the admission of the mere possibility of error in the system may be too threatening...

F.

7:05 PM  
Blogger Merle Sneed said...

A huge problem in our justice system is that the police and prosecution are unwilling to admit that they might be wrong. They will deny even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

9:25 PM  
Blogger Barbara said...

Kristin -- Very SCARY!

Anon, Merle -- No one likes to admit to being wrong. But unfortunately lives are being wrongfully wasted to hide the truth in some instances.

9:44 AM  

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