To Be Equal DNA Testing Should Be a Right


by Marc H. Morial
NNPA Columnist
Originally posted 3/25/2009

(NNPA) - Imagine being convicted of a crime you didn't commit and 
languishing in prison for 11 years until new DNA evidence proved your 
innocence.

That's just what happened to Ronald Cotton whose story was told on 
CBS' 60 Minutes recently. Cotton's accuser, Jennifer Thompson, was 
absolutely certain she correctly identified the man who broke into 
her Burlington , North Carolina apartment and raped her on the night 
of July 28, 1984.

But she was wrong. And her mistake produced more than one other 
victim of that brutal crime – Ronald Cotton, an innocent man who was 
sentenced to life in prison, and several other women who were raped 
by the real criminal who remained free.

What finally turned the tide in Cotton's case was the science of DNA 
testing which Cotton's lawyer was allowed to use to prove his 
client's innocence. The real crime is that hundreds of wrongly 
convicted people are now behind bars, not only because of eyewitness 
flaws, but also because of the refusal by a small number of states to 
allow DNA evidence to be used to prove their innocence. According to 
the 60 Minutes report, there have been 233 people exonerated by DNA 
evidence across the country. More than 75 percent of them were 
convicted because of mistaken identity.

Ronald Cotton was one of the lucky ones. Timothy Cole of Lubbock , 
Texas was not so fortunate. He was sentenced to 25 years in 1985 
after being wrongly identified by a rape victim. In 1999, Cole died 
in prison before DNA testing and the jailhouse confession of another 
inmate later cleared his name. According to the Innocence Project, a 
national non-profit legal clinic dedicated to exonerating innocent 
people through DNA testing, there are thousands of prisoners 
desperate to have their cases evaluated.

Some of them are on death row. Most of them are ''poor, forgotten and 
have used up all legal avenues for relief. The hope they have is that 
biological evidence from their cases still exists and can be 
subjected to DNA testing.''

Dallas County District Attorney, Craig Watson, the first African 
American District Attorney in Texas , has made this issue a 
centerpiece of his work. He believes the DA's job is not only about 
prosecuting the guilty, it is also about protecting the innocent. 
That's why, in 2007 he established the Conviction Integrity Unit, the 
first division of its kind in the country dedicated to overturning 
wrongful convictions and securing the release of men and women who 
have been wrongfully imprisoned in Texas.

His efforts have helped secure the release of more than 19 wrongfully 
convicted prisoners thus far. Unfortunately, six states still deny 
prisoners access to DNA testing: Alaska, Alabama , Massachusetts , 
Oklahoma, Mississippi and South Dakota.

The Supreme Court is now deliberating an Alaska case that could grant 
all prisoners that right. We believe that's what the Court should do.

In a nation that prides itself on the rule of law, there is no good 
reason to deny prisoners the right to DNA testing if it can prove 
their innocence, identify the guilty and prevent a tragic miscarriage 
of justice.

Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League.

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