Death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis won a temporary reprieve from the Georgia parole board this month as a succession of witnesses who fingered him as a cop killer admitted that they had the wrong man. Their recantations weren't new; they'd been telling courts and others that they were mistaken in their identification of Mr. Davis for some time now and yet it didn't seem to make a difference until Mr. Davis was within 24 hours of execution.
How is that possible in American jurisprudence? Simple: The criminal justice system doesn't easily right its wrongs, and reforms to protect against convicting the wrong person aren't sufficiently in place.
A new study by Brandon L. Garrett, a University of Virginia law school professor, reinforces that unsettling truth. It reviewed the 200 cases in which DNA evidence led to the freeing of imprisoned felons and found that many were wrongly convicted because of unreliable eyewitness testimony, jailhouse informants and faulty evidence. Just as disturbing, Mr. Garrett also suggests that the appeals process discourages challenges based on innocence, as opposed to those that question procedures.
The ability of DNA testing to identify the perpetrator of a crime with near statistical certainty has graphically shown that the criminal justice system is more fallible than anyone wants to admit. Add to that the fact that DNA testing is limited to crimes in which blood, semen or other repositories of a person's genetic makeup are present, and the reliability of the system to identify the wrongfully convicted in the majority of crimes is even less certain.
The study was the first to review all post-conviction releases based on DNA evidence, and it reaffirmed statistically what anecdotal evidence and other studies had previously shown: Eyewitness testimony is unreliable, forced confessions flawed and jailhouse snitches self-serving.
Videotaping confessions would help ensure a defendant's rights, but police don't routinely do that, and only seven states require it. The vast majority of states give defendants access to DNA analysis for post-conviction claims, but many still have to fight prosecutors to obtain it - and that shouldn't be the case. It's one test with the power to exclude the innocent and identify the guilty.
Legal advocates should push for more pro bono attorneys for defendants in post-conviction matters - it's not a constitutional right - and prison snitches should be vetted more rigorously. According to the Garrett study, only Illinois requires testing the reliability of an informant.
At a time when forensic science and technology have advanced the search for the truth in astonishing ways, the powers of the criminal justice system should be used to protect the innocent as well as imprison the guilty.