Is Wrongful Conviction a Life Sentence?

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mugaliens
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What "standard" are you referring to?
 
lisab said:
It's heartbreaking. I hope that DNA technology will prevent this from happening so much!

prevent some. maybe cause some others?
 
Proton Soup said:
prevent some. maybe cause some others?

Hmm, perhaps...due to improper sample handling, you mean? But many more wrong convictions will be prevented.
 
lisab said:
Hmm, perhaps...due to improper sample handling, you mean? But many more wrong convictions will be prevented.

i leave bits of my DNA all over the place, but I'm not so much in a position to control what goes on in all those places. prosecutors convict people over even less than physical evidence if you believe the lawyer guy that tells people never to talk to the police.
 
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lisab said:
Hmm, perhaps...due to improper sample handling, you mean? But many more wrong convictions will be prevented.
But isn't DNA evidence mostly in the case of rape? Murder may not be so dependent on it, where life imprisonment and death come into play.

lisab said:
It's heartbreaking. I hope that DNA technology will prevent this from happening so much!
What is?

I don't even know what mugs is referring to, his link doesn't go directly to an article. He posted a generic search. Unless you're going directly to a specific article, can you post the link you're looking at?
 
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Evo said:
But isn't DNA evidence mostly in the case of rape? Murder may not be so dependent on it, where life imprisonment and death come into play.

What is?

I don't even know what mugs is referring to, his link doesn't go directly to an article. He posted a generic search. Unless you're going directly to a specific article, can you post the link you're looking at?

On Mugs' link, if you click "Next search" you get a slide show of people who were wrongly convicted. First one is a guy who was just released after 30 years, http://specials.msn.com/A-List/Life...2&cp-searchtext=Cornelius Dupree&FORM=MSNIIT".
 
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lisab said:
On Mugs' link, if you click "Next search" you get a slide show of people who were wrongly convicted. First one is a guy who was just released after 30 years, http://specials.msn.com/A-List/Life...2&cp-searchtext=Cornelius Dupree&FORM=MSNIIT".
Mugs need to fix that, when you link to specifics, you get more searches.

Dupree was convicted of rape, so he was lucky that they still had DNA evidence.

It would have been better to link directly to the project that's working on DNA evidence in old cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project#Wrongful_convictions
 
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This was, by the way, directed at those few prosecutors who are more desirous of winning a conviction to further their career than they are of doing the right thing.
 
Evo said:
But isn't DNA evidence mostly in the case of rape?

Well, http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm" , but the fact that the rape number is rounded tells me it was grossly underreported. Murders tend to be somewhat less disputable.

Either way we look at it, it's not very pleasant.
 
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