US News
US Supreme Court denies criminals the right to DNA appeal
Jun 18, 2009, 19:04 GMT
Washington - The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that convicted criminals do not have the constitutional right to demand DNA testing, a relatively new technology that has overturned the convictions of more than 200 people.
In a 5-4 decision, the highest US court said it was up to individual states to decide how they would deal with the new technology. Forty-seven states already have laws that give convicts at least some access to genetic evidence.
DNA testing has exonerated 240 people since the early 1990s, including some who had been sentenced to death, according to the Innocence Project, a US group that lobbies for the use of genetic evidence.
The case before the Supreme Court involved William Osborne, an Alaskan man who was convicted of a brutal rape and attack on a prostitute in 1993. Osborne later sought DNA testing of a condom used in the attack, which he said would prove his innocence or guilty.
Alaska, which has enacted no laws on using DNA evidence, denied his request to have the condom tested. The Supreme Court said Osborne had no constitutional right to get a DNA test, and pointed out that Osborne had admitted to the crime during a parole hearing in 2004.
'DNA testing has an unparalleled ability both to exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty,' Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged in the ruling, which reversed a lower court decision.
'The availability of new DNA testing technologies, however, cannot mean that every criminal conviction, or even every criminal conviction involving biological evidence, is suddenly in doubt,' Roberts wrote.
Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, called it a 'deeply flawed and disappointing decision' but said it would have a limited effect.
'In the vast majority of cases, prisoners are granted DNA testing under state law or because prosecutors consent to testing without a court order. That will continue to happen,' Neufeld said.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
...after all, look at the cocks--ker everyone thinks I am...then again, I suspect you are younger, and they just read the results backwards....after all, I hear those mom's of yours really lay a LOT of pipe!
There SP goes again with his Mom fixation..... I think every prisoner should have access to DNA testing if there are good enough reasons for it.
Except for SP. they should just stick the needle in his arse and be done with him.
..was that at least five of the judges have brains enough to realize it is, properly, the purvue of the state that tried these folks to administer the law. I also suspect a stong predilection for those same judges to foil an attempt to have every scumbag in the system foist every request before them, stacking up the courts for years. The fact is, once you can prove that a test WOULD inroduce NEW evidence the courts are compelled to consider it, and the part I like is that it works BOTH ways.
do f*ck off. You turn is coming as a nice white b*tch for some BIG dark skinned due in Cell Block D
...poor baby above can't contol his libnazi rage...funny eh?.. all I have to do is tickle him a bit and it just FLOWS forth! Fortunately, none of that still makes me wrong.
Now run along and inform yourself. I do think that is a stretch, but my weakness is believing in the Internet generation.
'was that at least five of the judges have brains enough to realize it is, properly, the purvue of the state that tried these folks to administer the law. I also suspect a stong predilection for those same judges to foil an attempt to have every scumbag in the system foist every request before them, stacking up the courts for years. The fact is, once you can prove that a test WOULD inroduce NEW evidence the courts are compelled to consider it, and the part I like is that it works BOTH ways.'
God you are stupid. Please learn how to put paragraph(s) together and learn to spell. Your idiotic statements would be hard enough to take if the were readable, but at least you would be able to try and make a valid point! Why do you have to appear so stupid.
The cry should be for equal justice throughout the land. In this respect, the Supreme Court decision is a flawed decision.
..do you actually have a differnet opinion?
Please opine!
None of my comments make me wrong,(and it seems that five judges agree!) but feel free to point them out. Afterwards, if your prose stands inspection, we might all then agree I'm stupid, or remove any lingering doubts that you are the pointless boob we presently know. Personally, I'm going with the latter, but I still have the weakness in believing in people.
page: 1
I had a nightmare last night...Jun 18th, 2009 - 21:03:54
A letter from the lab came with the mail stating there was a 99,98 percent of probability that I was SP4 's dad .The horror...
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