 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
Better Ways to Find the Guilty - New York Times
Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck
6/5/2000
June 5, 2000
Better Ways to Find the Guilty
By PETER NEUFELD and BARRY SCHECK
hen Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, who had always denied pleas for reprieves
from execution, finally granted one last week, he made the right call,
acknowledging the importance of DNA evidence and the right of a condemned man
to ask for testing. Whether or not political considerations of Mr. Bush's
presidential campaign were at work, the prisoner, Ricky McGinn, now has time
for the tests that might clear him of murder.
Of course, depending on the results of the tests, Mr. McGinn could wind up
eating another last meal in a few months. And the episode throws just a tiny
wedge of light onto a criminal justice system that needs to take an
unflinching look at the growing evidence of error.
Two other cases last week were far more revealing. In Virginia, Gov. James S.
Gilmore III gave permission for advanced DNA testing of Earl Washington, who
had already been moved off death row because earlier tests suggested he was
innocent of rape and murder. And in Texas, A.B. Butler received a pardon from
Governor Bush after spending the last 7 of his 16 years in prison fighting to
get the tests that cleared him of kidnapping and rape.
These cases stand for more than the importance of DNA evidence. They reveal
how the search for the guilty can go wrong. What matters most is not how
these people got out of prison, but how they got in.
We know eyewitnesses sometimes make mistakes. Snitches tell lies. Confessions
are coerced or fabricated. Racism trumps the truth. Defense lawyers sleep
through trials. Prosecutors and police tell fibs.
Never have these flaws been more starkly exposed than in the last decade,
when DNA has freed scores of wrongly convicted people and kept thousands of
the wrongly accused out of jail. For the most part, the lessons have been
ignored. Of all the statistics tallied by the system, not one shows the
number of innocent people sent to prison. Oversight is fundamental for any
system in which life or liberty is at stake. We have mechanisms to
investigate plane crashes, deaths in hospitals and collapses of buildings.
Only the criminal justice system exempts itself from accountability for its
mistakes.
Among the bright exceptions to the indifference to accountability is Gov.
George Ryan of Illinois, who followed his landmark moratorium on executions
with appointment of a commission to find out why 13 men were wrongly sent to
death row. New York's governor, George Pataki, has proposed that a committee
review all convictions overturned on DNA evidence.
Their findings should be used to make it harder for innocent people to wind
up in prison.
And to make it easier for these people to get out, Congress should pass the
Innocence Protection Act, which would give inmates the right to DNA tests to
prove innocence and would require the preservation of evidence after
conviction.
Remember, though, that DNA solves crimes only when there is biological
evidence. The quality of old-fashioned evidence can be improved. Eyewitnesses
will produce fewer false identifications and just as many correct ones,
social scientists say, if police follow a few simple techniques that cut down
guessing by witnesses and hints by detectives. False confessions can be
curbed by requiring that all interrogations be recorded on tape, as is
already done in Minnesota, Alaska, Ireland and Britain.
Convicting an innocent person not only commits a terrible injustice, but
leaves a guilty criminal on the streets. Every state and every American has
an interest in doing all we can to prevent it from happening.
Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck are co-authors of ``Actual Innocence.''
copyright 2000 New York Times
|
|
||
|
The
Moratorium Campaign
P.O. Box 13727 New Orleans, LA 70185-3727 Tel: (504) 864 - 1071 Fax: (504) 864 - 1654 info@moratoriumcampaign.org Copyright 2001 The Moratorium Campaign privacy statement |