(MintPress) – A joint review of DNA evidence conducted by the FBI and the Justice Department will likely lead to a number of convict exonerations. Thousands of cases will be reviewed in the largest post-conviction review ever undertaken by authorities. The action has been supported by the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal advocacy group that has worked previously to exonerate individuals based upon DNA evidence. Many who are currently incarcerated are expected to be given new trials or released because of wrongful prosecution.
DNA evidence
The investigation will re-examine thousands of cases, many dating back to as early as 1985. The bulk of the cases up for review are rapes, murders and assaults.
Kirk Odom is one prisoner who was freed because of a similar investigation years earlier. Commenting on his case, Odom said, “I was always wondering, will I be free one day? Will my name be cleared?” Odom was convicted of raping, sodomizing and robbing a 27-year-old woman in 1981.
During his trial, FBI agents testified that Odom’s hair was, “microscopically like the hair follicles recovered from the scene of the crime.” Odom served 20 years for this crime before a closer examination of the evidence using more accurate DNA analysis revealed he could not have committed the crime.
Although Odom was freed in 2003, he has yet to have his name officially cleared from the Washington D.C. criminal records. “I’m hoping that my name be cleared, to be able to hold my head up high and not feel like I am still in a box,” Odom said.
Odom’s case, like many others, has been supported by the Innocence Project, a non-project legal justice organization.
According to the mission statement of the group, the Innocent Project “was founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. To date, 292 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row. These people served an average of 13 years in prison before exoneration and release.”
Similar projects
Speaking about the inaccuracies in previous investigations, Peter J. Neufeld, the co-director of the Innocence Project, commented, saying, “Matching bit marks, or hairs, or tire prints, or even fingerprints and ballistics were developed by law enforcement for law enforcement. Unlike DNA, DNA had a medical application long before it was used for crime scenes.”
Odom’s case, and the cases of others, show the flawed standards and weak forensic research of previous investigations. While DNA technology has been used by investigators for years, an April 2012 Washington Post article reveals that prosecutors knew of the flaws and inaccuracies in the application of this technology.
Spencer S. Hsu, a reporter for the Washington Post, writes, “Justice Department officials have known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people, but prosecutors failed to notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.”
In Hsu’s estimation, the problem is widespread, saying, “Hundreds of defendants nationwide remain in prison or on parole for crimes that might merit exoneration, a retrial or a retesting of evidence using DNA because FBI hair and fiber experts may have misidentified them as suspects.”
While the latest reinvestigation of DNA evidence is the largest to date, previous investigations by the Urban Institute led to 33 exonerations in Virginia. The Urban Institute is a nonpartisan economic and social research center. One of the conclusions of the Virginia Project was that 8-15 percent of sexual assault cases in Virginia led to a wrongful conviction.