Supreme Court rules that there is no constitutional right to a DNA test after conviction of a crime.
Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that an individual whose criminal conviction has become final does not have a constitutional right to gain access to evidence so that it can be subjected to DNA testing to try to prove innocence. This was one of four final rulings the Court issued Thursday, leaving ten remaining. The next release of opinions is expected on Monday.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., writing for the majority in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne (08-6), noted that DNA testing provides “an unparalleled ability” to prove innocence or guilt, but its availability “cannot mean that every criminal conviction, or even every criminal conviction involving biological evidence, is suddenly in doubt.” The opinion is available here.
Ed Whelan at NRO
Okay, can some legal genius explain to me, using small words and maybe some charts, why denying convicted felons the right to DNA tests that might prove their innocence is not a gross miscarriage of justice? It’s not that I think that every good thing is therefore a constitutional right. But the basic outline of the rules for determining guilt and innocence is right there in the constitution.
What exactly is a “reasonable possibility” and how do you square it with the DNA results? If in the above case the DNA test comes back and points towards exoneration of Mr. Wright, what then? There is the issue of initial precision and final precision in statistics. Initial precision is where one is concerned mainly with procedures. That is the researcher is confident that following a set of procedures will generally give the right result (hence the term confidence intervals). Final precision is concerned with accuracy of the estimate after the sample information is observed. This strikes me as the problem with the “reasonable possibility” test above. It is focusing on procedure vs. the accuracy of the final result. When we are talking about incarcerating people for a long time and in some cases state sanctioned executions, perhaps we should take a final precision view point. Do the damn test and be double damn sure.
I really don’t see what the problem is at this point with granting access. It is almost as if the prosecution has something to hide and the Supreme Court is going to help them hide it.
UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias
Obviously, the purpose of the established system of criminal justice is to use punishment of the guilty as a means of controlling crime. The general hostility of most people in the law enforcement and prosecutorial universe to exonerating evidence is a little bit hard to understand. The predominant thinking of Alaska in this case seems to be that the punishment of the innocent works as a close substitute for the punishment of the guilty, so that given the heinous nature of the crime the state has a strong interest in convicting someone or other of it irrespective of the facts. This is exactly the sort of madness and injustice we rely on the judicial system to rescue us from. But not the new Roberts Court!
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June 19, 2009 at 8:10 pm
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