THE INNOCENCE PROJECT I BACK THIS PROJECT 100% ALL PRISONERS SHOULD BE TESTED The Innocence Project supports a moratorium on capital punishment while the causes of wrongful convictions are fully identified and remedied. This has been the Innocence Project’s position since our inception in 1992, and it is the same position the American Bar Association adopted more than a decade ago. For more than 15 years, the Innocence Project has worked to exonerate wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reform the criminal justice system to protect the innocent and enhance law enforcement’s ability to identify the guilty. Our work has proven that innocent people are convicted of crimes they did not commit, and these exonerations illustrate the causes of wrongful convictions that must be remedied. These DNA exonerations are a window into the criminal justice system’s flaws: While DNA testing is an option in just a fraction of all criminal cases, the factors proven to cause wrongful convictions exist regardless of whether the case involves DNA. Specific to the death penalty, our work has shown that innocent people are sentenced to die. Of more than 300 people exonerated through post-conviction DNA testing, more than 25% were convicted of murder. Eighteen were sentenced to die; others were charged with capital murder but narrowly escaped the death penalty, and still others would likely have been charged with capital crimes if the death penalty had been in place at the time of their trials. We have also worked on cases of people who were executed before DNA testing could be conducted to confirm guilt or prove innocence, and we are aware of several non-DNA cases where evidence of innocence surfaced after people were executed.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 12:30:17 +0000
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