SCOTUS: Defendents have no right to DNA Evidence

[Lord Winter]

This angers me. The right to know the evidence against you and to offer your own to prove your innocence is the center of our Justice system. When we deny people this right all that it can lead to is the imprisonment of more innocents.

http://news.findlaw.com/ap/a/w/1154/...073504_12.html

[Xiahou]

This angers me. The right to know the evidence against you and to offer your own to prove your innocence is the center of our Justice system. When we deny people this right all that it can lead to is the imprisonment of more innocents.

http://news.findlaw.com/ap/a/w/1154/...073504_12.html

After conviction would be an important addendum to your topic title. Allowing previously convicted criminals to retest DNA evidence post-trial may be good policy, but I don't see where it would be a Constitutional right.

The defendant in this case was named by an accomplice to a brutal sexual assault and kidnapping of a prostitute. This article has more detail about the case.

Thursday's high court ruling stems from a brutal crime near Anchorage, Alaska in 1993. Dexter Jackson and another man hired a prostitute. They drove her to a remote location where they raped and robbed her at gunpoint. The men beat her with an ax handle, shot at her, and then, assuming she was dead, buried her in the snow. She did not die.

Later, police found ballistics evidence at the scene and a used blue condom that had belonged to the prostitute.

Under police questioning, Mr. Jackson identified William Osborne as the other man involved in the attack. Osborne denies it.

The condom was tested and showed a DNA match to Osborne. But DNA testing technology was not as precise in the 1990s as it is today. The test would have shown a match with approximately 15-16 percent of African-American men, according to experts.

At the time of his trial, Osborne's lawyer decided not to conduct an independent and more precise DNA test. The lawyer made a strategic calculation that such a test might provide stronger evidence of her client's guilt.

Nonetheless, the jury found Osborne guilty of sexual assault and kidnapping. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison. On appeal, Osborne argued that his lawyer should have pushed for independent DNA testing. In addition, he claimed a right to conduct new tests on the biological material using more sophisticated and accurate technology than existed at the time of his trial.

While his appeal was pending, Osborne applied for parole. As part of that process he was required to confess under oath to the rape and other crimes. He was released on parole in 2007.

Osborne wasn't free for long. Within six months he was arrested for a different crime – an armed home invasion in which four victims were bound with duct tape and pistol whipped.

That last part really takes the cake.

[Lord Winter]

The indiviual in the case has no relevence to the broader precedent that it establishes. Do you not think that new eviedence warrents a new appeal? Besides your article also brings up the point that the DNA evidence he was convicted on would match 15% of all males. Modern testing could clarify this.

[Xiahou]

What's the new evidence? The article said 15% of African American males- African Americans only make up 3.5% of the Alaskan population. Add to that being implicated by an accomplice and I'm not losing any sleep worry about his innocence.

Now, as I've already said- it may be good policy to allow convicted criminals the chance to re-examine DNA evidence against more accurate techniques, but is it unconstitutional not to allow it? I don't see how. Remember, the court ruled on constitutionality- not policy.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

African-American
Not African American

I really dislike that term...why is the term "black" so offensive in America anyway?