Support grows for DNA testing in death-row cases
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff, 6/28/2001
Spurred by cases of condemned prisoners winning release after evidence showed
they were not guilty, more than 200 House members and 19 senators have endorsed
a measure that would make DNA testing more readily available to those sentenced
to death.
Another, more controversial element of the Innocence Protection Act would set
minimum national standards for criminal defense lawyers representing indigent
inmates.
''The reality is, our nation's system for trying capital cases is failing,''
said Representative William D. Delahunt, Democrat of Quincy and one of the main
sponsors of the House bill.
The use of DNA testing, which definitively establishes whether certain body
fluids belong to an individual, have helped clear nearly 100 people, several of
whom came within days of being executed for crimes they did not commit, Delahunt
told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.
''Fortunately, their lives were spared,'' said Delahunt, a former prosecutor.
But there is no way of knowing how many more are serving time or facing
execution despite their innocence, he said.
Advocating for people convicted of heinous crimes is not particularly popular
in Washington, where lawmakers have tended toward legislation increasing
penalties for crimes and broadening the type of infraction subject to the US
death penalty.
''It's the third rail of politics,'' said Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of
Vermont, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and cosponsor of the bill.
Public support for the death penalty is still strong, although it is
dropping. The current legislation is opposed by some prosecutors and by those
who fear that it will weaken capital punishment.
But recent disclosures that some people were being wrongly held for crimes
they did not commit have caused worry even among death penalty supporters.
Governor George Ryan of Illinois put a moratorium on all executions after an
investigation by a college journalism class led to the exoneration of death-row
inmate Anthony Porter.
''Thank God they took journalism ... that semester,'' Stephen B. Bright,
director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, told the panel yesterday. ''If
they took chemistry, Mr. Porter would have been executed.''
Michael Graham, a roofer from Virginia, found himself in a similar position
in 1986, when he was erroneously charged with the murders of an elderly couple.
With what he called poor public representation, Graham was sentenced to death.
''I'll never forget my first night on death row,'' Graham told the committee.
''The night before, the state had executed another inmate, and I was given his
cell.
''During the night, I looked down at the floor and completely freaked out,''
he said. ''I thought I saw a pool of blood. It turned out to be rusty water.''
After 14 years in prison and with the help of pro bono lawyers, Graham won a
retrial, exoneration, and release last December.
''Half of my adult life had been taken away from me,'' Graham said.
''Meanwhile, the suffering family of the victims was misled into believing that
the crime was solved, while in fact the real murderer or murderers had not been
brought to justice.''
The Innocence Protection Act would establish a national commission to impose
federal standards for public defenders, a move that supporters say would help
prevent false convictions resulting from incompetent counsel. States would get
$50 million in grants to implement the new standards but would lose federal
prison grant money if they failed to comply.
Some prosecutors oppose the idea, arguing that it usurps state authority and
takes discretion away from judges to appoint public defenders. Prosecutions
could become more drawn out and harm ''the real innocents in the process ... the
families of victims of capital murderers and the future victims of those
murderers,'' said Attorney General Bill Pryor of Alabama.
''If your concern is to protect the innocent from being executed, then you
need not worry,'' he told the committee. ''It is not occurring and is highly
unlikely to occur.''
Pryor and others also said they were concerned that death penalty opponents
would use the rules to prevent executions and eventually eradicate capital
punishment.
But some death penalty foes are also nervous about the bill, Leahy said,
because it could weaken their argument that innocents are at risk of being
executed.
There is broader support for the DNA portion of the bill, which would give
inmates greater access to DNA testing if it could prove their innocence.
''Thank God for DNA,'' said Kirk Bloodsworth, who came up with the idea of
using DNA to exculpate himself while serving nearly nine years in a Maryland
prison on charges that he killed a 9-year-old girl.
''If I'd had this [legislation] in 1994, I'd probably never have been in jail
for any time,'' Bloodsworth said in an interview.
The DNA portion of the bill could pass almost immediately, said Senator Orrin
Hatch, Republican of Utah and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.
The provision requiring standards for public defenders faces a tougher fight,
but aides said it enjoys a better chance because of the Democrats' takeover of
the Senate.