Word: raped
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Such stories have become shockingly familiar: a convicted criminal, wasting away in jail with little hope of ever proving his innocence, is set free when a DNA test reveals he couldn't have committed the crime. Vincent Jenkins, who had served 17 years in prison for the rape of a Buffalo, N.Y., woman, was released just last week after DNA evidence showed he was not the culprit. He became the 65th inmate to have a conviction overturned thanks to DNA evidence, including eight released from death row. These numbers are testimony to the fallibility of our criminal-justice system...
...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 on the back of a postage stamp. And does this evidence still exist...
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...
...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 was at a skeet-shooting contest when the crime occurred...
...next big step is linking the states' databases. The FBI has started providing states with free CODIS (combined DNA index system) software, which digitizes and compares DNA profiles. This has already produced some impressive results. After a series of rapes in Sarasota, Florida investigators entered DNA from the crime scene into the national system. The DNA turned out to match that of Mark Daigle, who had served time in Virginia six years earlier for burglary. Florida officials arrested Daigle, and last year he was convicted of rape...