TheAgitator.com
This Week in Innocence
Thursday, March 12th, 2009Good for Virginia for conducting this review:
DNA tests in two more decades-old cases being reviewed as part of a massive state project to clear the wrongfully convicted do not match the individuals convicted of the crimes.
The Virginia Department of Forensic Science and the Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office confirmed Wednesday that one of the cases was in that city. The department would only say that the other case was in the Tidewater region.
Authorities would not give details of either case.
The tests were part of a review of cases from 1973 to 1988 ordered after five men were exonerated of rape charges from biological evidence preserved long before DNA testing was commonly done.
Last week, authorities confirmed that a 2006 DNA test determined a Richmond man who spent eight years in prison for a 1979 rape was not the source of biological evidence in that case.
“Authorities would not give details of either case.”
Uhm…why?
‘No comment’ seems to be the new mantra for LEOs. Back in the day, they were beholden to the public and needed to support their actions (At least a little)
But now they just clam up to protect the blue line, as if they have miranda rights or something.
This is not going to get better. i predict you’ll start seeing more actions like in Oregon: Cops barge in late at night, blow someone away, then have no comment other than “An investigation is ongoing”. No identification of the officer, nothing.
@Boyd Durkin: “Uhm…why?”
I can think of some reasons the state would decline comment initially:
*If these are cases of rape, which is likely, it would be sensitive to notify the victim of the wrongful conviction before going public.
*You might also want to run the DNA through the federal or state offenders database to see if there is a match before going public, because if the real offender is not currently in prison you wouldn’t want to tip him off.
*The state attorney’s office is probably going to have to go through the case files to determine whether this is a clear case of innocence where they will move for vacating the conviction, or whether there is other evidence that the individual was involved in the crime (if not the rape), in which case they will likely have to litigate further
As long as they don’t sit on the information for an unreasonable length of time, some discretion is probably appropriate. Of course, this is assuming they have notified the individuals in question (and their attorneys).
To be more clear, it would be sensitive to notify the victim of the rape of the wrongful conviction. Ambiguous since the convicted is the “victim of the wrongful conviction” under a different reading of that sentence.
Yea!
“DNA tests in two more decades-old cases being reviewed as part of a massive state project to clear the wrongfully convicted do not match the individuals convicted of the crimes.”
One hopes the next “massive state project” will be aimed at reducing the number of wrongful convictions. It’s always preferrable to do it right the first time:
1 wrongful conviction= 1 life screwed up & 1 criminal on the loose
“1 wrongful conviction= 1 life screwed up & 1 criminal on the loose”
Sorry, that wasn’t quite accurate. Should have said many lives screwed up (including the family/friends of the victim, family and friends of the accused, etc.) and 1 (or more) criminals on the loose.
There, that looks more complete.
I live in Fairfax and it is great that this is going on. Did you know that DNA has also been netting some suspects in old cases too? It works well both ways