As we discussed two weeks ago, one month before a Louisiana death row inmate’s scheduled execution, his attorneys discovered New Orleans prosecutors hid proof the perpetrators’s blood type was different from the defendant’s. After fourteen years on death row, the defendant was ultimately proven not guilty of robbery and murder. The facts of the case are explained at www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-571.pdf.

     Last week, we noted at least three Oklahoma death row inmates have also been exonerated – all through DNA. Two had spent eleven years, and one had spent 19 years on death row. According to The Innocence Project, to date seventeen people, who served an average of thirteen years on death row, have been exonerated through DNA thus far. In all, nationwide, 272 people have now been freed from prison through DNA testing.

     According to The Innocence Project, in more than 75% of the convictions overturned through DNA, eyewitness misidentification also played a role in the conviction. Hundreds of studies have shown eyewitness identification is unreliable because the human mind does not record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. As long ago as 1932, a Yale professor found eyewitness misidentification was the leading cause of 65 wrongful convictions.       

     DNA exonerations have also demonstrated people sometimes confess to crimes – including murder – they didn’t commit. False confessions and admissions contributed to about 25% of wrongful convictions in DNA exoneration cases. According to experts, interrogation is a two-step process. First the suspect is beaten down psychologically and moved to a perception there is no way out. Second, the subject is induced to think he’s better off confessing. Many interrogators are trained to not let the suspect verbalize the words, “I did not do it.” Juveniles and people with low IQs are especially vulnerable to giving false confessions, but false confessors are not limited to these categories.

     Since DNA is estimated to be a factor in only 5 to 10 percent of all convictions, some experts are concerned many others have been wrongly convicted based on eyewitness testimony or confessions, but they have no concrete means like DNA to prove their innocence.

     For more about wrongful convictions and why they occur, go to www.innocenceproject.org.