USA | The Limitations of DNA Evidence in Innocence Cases

As scientific and technological progress continues, many prisoners may benefit from these advancements. However, many legal procedural barriers continue to block prisoners from accessing DNA evidence that has the potential to exonerate them.

Death-sentenced prisoners with credible evidence of innocence have gained significant attention this month with the execution of Marcellus Williams in Missouri, the near-execution of Robert Roberson in Texas, and the U.S. Supreme Court arguments in Glossip v. Oklahoma. There is a common misconception that DNA evidence is widely available in all cases and central to exonerations, but the reality is that DNA exonerations in death penalty cases are relatively rare.

DPI has identified 34 cases across 15 US states in the modern death penalty era of people who have been exonerated from death row with DNA evidence—with the first case being Kirk Bloodsworth in 1993 (he was convicted in 1985). These numbers represent just 17% of the 200 death row exonerations.

The average time spent on death row by people exonerated thanks to DNA is 18.6 years, for a total across the 24 cases of 631 years spent in prison for crimes they did not commit. Few of these exonerees have been adequately compensated.

"Courts should shift their emphasis from finality to accuracy in the legal system, and allowing for DNA testing in post-conviction proceedings would advance this goal."

The Innocence Project reports  375 DNA exonerations in criminal cases between 1989 and 2020. Before 2000, only a handful of states allowed post-conviction DNA testing. That changed in 2004 with the passage of the Justice for All Act. In her 2020 article, Chi-Hsin Engelhart argues that post-conviction DNA testing is a procedural due process right that should be constitutionally protected. She notes this protection is especially important in the context of death row to explore the potential of wrongful execution, concluding that a denial of access and testing could lead to a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Ms. Engelhart argues that courts should shift their emphasis from finality to accuracy in the legal system, and that allowing for DNA testing in post-conviction proceedings would advance this goal.

During a recent discussion moderated by DPI Executive Director Robin Maher at the French Ambassador’s Residence in Washington, D.C., Vanessa Potkin, Director of Special Litigation at the Innocence Project, noted that DNA evidence is available in less than 10% of crimes. The case of Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, who was executed on September 24, 2024, illustrates that even when DNA evidence can be obtained from the crime scene, forensic materials may degrade or become contaminated, rendering them unusable for proving a defendant’s innocence.

Robert DuBoise was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Florida in 1983 based on faulty forensics, including the since-debunked practice of bite mark matching. DNA testing ultimately exonerated him in 2020 and in February 2024, Mr. DuBoise received $14 million compensation for his wrongful conviction.

Source: Death Penalty Information Center, Staff, October 24, 2024

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

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North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

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Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

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Florida to execute William Silvia for 2006 shooting murder of wife

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Florida executes Dennis Sochor

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Oldest inmate set to be executed in Florida will face strict spending limit for final meal

An entire category of food is also off-limits for final meal requests in Florida Florida is currently preparing to execute its oldest inmate later today (July 14), a 74-year-old convicted murderer who has been on death row since the 1980s—but his final meal will be limited by a strict budget. Dennis Sochor is scheduled to be put to death later today, making history as the oldest inmate to ever be executed in the state. The criminal, who has been on death row for nearly 40 years, will be administered the lethal three-drug injection, with the process due to begin at around 6pm.

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

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