In the years before DNA induction was introduced to the legal system, little was kn induce about(predicate) the extent of unlawful convictions and the situations in which they occurred. That changed in 1986, when an English scientist used DNA scrutiny to help exonerate a man accused of raping and kill two teenage girls (the evidence also led the police force to the real killer). Since then, DNA testing has helped exonerate 280 convicted felons in the coupled States and has exposed deep flaws in our legal system, including misconduct by the police and prosecutors and egregious mistakes made by witnesses and forensic scientists. In his 2011 book, Convicting the Innocent, Brandon Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia, examined most of the typeface files for the first 250 DNA exonerations. Garrett found that 76 percent of incorrectly convicted prisoners were misidentified by a witness and half the cases involved blemish forensic evidence. The testimony of an informant, often a jailhouse cellmate of the accused, was crucial in 21 percent of the cases. Perhaps most surprising, 16 percent virtually all of whom were subjected to interrogations lasting several hours and, in many cases, days confessed to crimes they didnt commit.
Garrett pointed out another, striking level in the fabricated confessions: in 38 of 40 false confessions, the authorities said defendants provided details that could be k todayn except by the actual criminal or the investigators, thus corroborating their own admissions of guilt by revealing secret information about the crime that could only have been provided by them.
The issues raised by DNA exonerations have led to an overhaul of the criminal-justice system. Some states now require that evidence be preserved; others require authorisation videotaping of interrogations. Several states, including Illinois, New Jersey and New York, abolished the death penalisation largely because of concerns about executing an innocent person. North Carolina,...If you wishing to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay
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