DNA Testing Can Give Us Answers:
Every DA’s Office Should Want Them
Today is National DNA Day, a day where we celebrate the power of DNA to help us find answers. DNA can help us get information about our ancestors or develop responses to medical conditions. It can also uncover terrible miscarriages of justice: it can demonstrate that someone was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for a crime they did not commit.
At the New England Innocence Project, wrongful convictions are far from theoretical. We receive hundreds of letters from innocent people in prison throughout New England each year asking for our help. In some of these cases, if physical evidence was collected and still exists, we can test it for DNA to show the person convicted was not the person who committed the crime.
To date, there have been 552 exonerations in which DNA testing played a role. So far, DNA evidence has been critical to proving the innocence of two of our own clients in Massachusetts, Dennis Maher and Gary Cifizzari. Both Dennis and Gary were given life sentences. The evidence against them appeared indisputably strong to the juries, judges, appellate courts, and prosecutors who presided over their cases. In Dennis’s case, five eyewitnesses identified him. In Gary’s case, 3 bitemark experts claimed his mouth made the marks on the victim’s body. In both cases, this evidence was wrong, and the DNA evidence definitively proved what they had been saying all along: They were innocent. Together, Dennis and Gary spent 54 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. And they are not alone. DNA testing has been shown to be a reliable and accurate way to find answers. So, why would any DA’s office deny or delay our requests to conduct this kind of scientific testing?
For the people we represent throughout New England, some of whom have been incarcerated in harsh conditions for 10, 20, or even 30 years, awaiting a chance to prove their innocence, the additional obstacles created by prosecutors simply to get DNA testing can be excruciating and are entirely unwarranted. While there is no denying the accuracy of DNA testing, a request for testing, and even a result that affirms our client’s innocence, does not actually overturn a defendant’s conviction. A court still has to review the evidence and decide how to proceed. In some cases, prosecutors had originally sought scientific testing before conviction, but the technology was not advanced enough to get results. Incredibly, even in those cases, some prosecutors will still oppose post-conviction DNA testing. That’s true even though payment for testing does not come out of a prosecutor’s budget. The New England Innocence Project has paid for testing through donations we receive and through federal grants from the Department of Justice. In one case, our incarcerated client even paid for part of the testing in his own case. Finally, DNA testing is conducted by a private lab and the results are shared simultaneously with the prosecution and the defense.
In some Massachusetts counties – including Middlesex, Suffolk, and Hampden – we have been able to get agreements to testing very quickly, allowing us to get answers without extensive legal filings, hearings, and burdens placed on experts and witnesses. When we have to fight for DNA testing through litigation, it can add months and sometimes years to the process, while our clients languish in prison.
Many District Attorneys have received federal grants to test evidence in old sexual assault cases and have used DNA evidence to pursue leads in unsolved “cold” cases. This April 25, we call on District Attorney’s offices throughout the region to extend their reliance on DNA testing to cases where people assert their innocence, including our current and future clients, and where there is evidence that could provide long-awaited answers.
It is clear to all willing to look that wrongful convictions are not unicorns. In fact, they happen regularly. Where prosecutors are willing to examine old convictions, where they are willing to value justice over finality, we can truly find answers. That’s all we want. That’s what any of us should want. And, at minimum, that’s what we should expect from every District Attorney.