Word: dna
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...priest corroborating Coakley's alibi, his South Bronx community believed in his innocence. Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who had once worked together as public defenders in the Bronx, thought they could help him. The attorneys had just learned about a new technology being tested in England: DNA typing, which compared DNA sequences from crime scene evidence to sequences in the suspect's DNA. With this intriguing defense mechanism potentially available to them, Scheck and Neufeld took on Coakley's appeal...
...exonerate him, but we couldn't do the testing," Neufeld says. The sample from the crime scene was too small, so the attorneys had to use conventional defense methods. The investigation, however, helped Scheck and Neufeld realize the importance that DNA forensic testing could have in exonerating those who had been wrongly convicted. In 1989, the first DNA exoneration in the U.S. took place, and Scheck and Neufeld followed the case closely. By the spring of 1992, the team had founded the New York-based Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people...
...where identity is an issue? Is it a case where biological evidence was collected during the initial investigation?" Inmates must complete a detailed questionnaire and provide the Innocence Project with backup material, like police files. "About half the time, we go to the lab, and it turns out the DNA testing confirms guilt," he says. "But that means in 50% of the cases we take on, it turns out they're innocent...
...students worked closely with attorneys on a case involving Byron Halsey, a man from Plainfield, N.J., who was exonerated on May 15. He served more than two decades in prison after being convicted of sexually assaulting, mutilating and murdering two of his girlfriend's children, ages 7 and 8. DNA testing was not available during Halsey's trial, but after obtaining all the necessary evidence - a process that took the Innocence Project three years - a DNA profile from the crime scene showed a direct link to the children's next-door neighbor, who is currently in prison for sexually assaulting...
...Exoneration: DNA testing in another murder case proved to be the key to Matthews' and Hayes' freedom. Rondell Love, who committed a murder just days after the killing for which Matthews and Hayes were convicted, boasted in jail about committing both murders. And DNA on the mask from the first murder matched Love's - and not Matthews' or Hayes'. Matthews was exonerated in June 2004, but it took lawyers at the Innocence Project more than two years to bring Hayes back to court. In December 2006, after Hayes served eight years in prison, he was released. "I always knew...