Word: dna
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
DIED. WALDO COHN, 89, Manhattan Project biochemist who helped develop plutonium for the atom bomb; in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Cohn's methods were later used in RNA and DNA research...
...addition to taking individual cases, Scheck and Neufeld are lobbying for more systemic change. They want other states to adopt laws like New York's, creating a right to post-conviction DNA testing and requiring the state to pay if the inmate can't afford the $3,000 to $5,000 cost. They also want laws requiring prosecutors to keep DNA evidence at least as long as a defendant remains in jail. Now prosecutors are generally free to throw away biological evidence when they want...
...Innocence Project is operating in a shrinking field. The vast majority of its docket consists of old cases, prosecuted when DNA testing was still rare. Now that law enforcement is integrating DNA into its investigative procedures (see box), there should be fewer people convicted despite exonerating biological evidence. But the broader problem addressed by the project--that innocent people are going to jail--shows no sign of ending. Why is the criminal-justice system making so many mistakes...
...victim and no credible evidence linking him to the crime scene--was painfully weak. So was the case in Tulsa, Okla., against Tim Durham, who spent six years in prison (of a 3,220-year sentence) for the rape of an 11-year-old girl, until DNA cleared him. The jury ignored 11 alibi witnesses who swore Durham was at a skeet-shooting contest when the crime occurred...
...DNA is also confirming a point legal scholars have long made: that eyewitnesses are often wrong. "There's a myth that the image is burned in a witness's mind and never forgotten," says Yale Law School lecturer Stephen Bright. "In fact, science says just the opposite." And eyewitness testimony is only as reliable as the eyewitness. Two men sentenced to death for a Chicago murder and then freed by DNA evidence in 1996 were convicted largely on the testimony of a woman with a sub-75 IQ, who later said prosecutors promised to release her from jail...