The Washington Post recently reported on the progress of the Innocence Protection Act — a bill slowly winding its way through the Congress that would help convicts gain access to DNA evidence that might exonerate them.
The bill would offer federal funds to states to reform the way they collect, preserve and offer access to DNA evidence.
Since 1973, over 100 death row inmates have been released, many based on DNA evidence. But prisoners can find it difficult to obtain DNA evidence. In many cases, the DNA evidence simply hasn’t been preserved. In other cases, prisoners have already exhausted all appeals and find it difficult to convince courts to let them test DNA evidence.
This is good as far as it goes, but it ignores the fact that in some cases people have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death where DNA evidence was not the determining factor in overturning a conviction. DNA testing will reduce certain types of wrongful convictions, but the entire system will still be fundamentally prone to error as the last half century of overturned convictions has proven.
A better option would be to simply eliminate the death penalty. Libertarians should be at the forefront of the effort — the state should not be in the business of killing its own citizens.
Source:
Death row legislation gains support on Hill. Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, July 22, 2002.