Word: projectable
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When those letters do get opened, students and staff screen the cases using the Innocence Project's criteria: When the inmate was tried, was identity the key issue? (If he admitted he pulled the trigger but claimed it was self-defense, there's not a lot a DNA test can do to help.) Was biological evidence taken at some point? In rape cases semen is generally recovered, and in murder cases there is often hair or skin evidence. But some samples come from less obvious sources: in the World Trade Center bombing case, DNA was recovered from saliva...
After taking a case, the first hurdle the Innocence Project faces is getting access to biological evidence. New York and Illinois have laws mandating post-conviction DNA testing. But everywhere else, it's up to the prosecutor--the same office that is being accused of sending an innocent person to jail. If the prosecutors cannot be persuaded or cajoled into turning over the evidence, the Innocence Project will go to court to demand...
About 60% of the samples the Innocence Project sends out for testing come back in their clients' favor. At that point, many prosecutors quickly concede and free the inmate. Earlier this year, the Innocence Project produced DNA showing that Calvin Johnson Jr. was innocent of a Clayton County, Ga., rape he had been convicted of in 1983. In June, the same district attorney who originally sent Johnson away persuaded a judge to free...
...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...
...reason, the Innocence Project has shown, is that juries often don't require much evidence to convict people of serious crimes. In hindsight, it seems obvious that the case against Fritz--no eyewitnesses, no evidence linking him to the 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...