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Dna Storage Banks: The Importance Of Preserving Dna Evidence To Allow For Transparency And The Preservation Of Justice, Cristina Martin
Dna Storage Banks: The Importance Of Preserving Dna Evidence To Allow For Transparency And The Preservation Of Justice, Cristina Martin
Chicago-Kent Law Review
What is the duty to preserve information in today’s society? In order for humanity to evolve, change and flourish in the future, society needs to preserve its information from the past. In the criminal justice field, preservation of evidence has special significance. DNA evidence in particular has become a helpful aid for innocent defendants who have been improperly imprisoned. Over the past twenty years, the number of exonerations of imprisoned criminal defendants has increased dramatically. With the advancement of technology, old, previously untestable or improperly tested DNA evidence will need to be retested. However, most states do not have proper …
The Roberts Court's Failed Innocence Project, Janet C. Hoeffel
The Roberts Court's Failed Innocence Project, Janet C. Hoeffel
Chicago-Kent Law Review
In this article, Professor Hoeffel discusses the Roberts Court's obvious struggle with its actual innocence jurisprudence. It is a struggle that was only theoretical in the days before DNA exonerations. While the Court had two opportunities to clarify the role of wrongful convictions in the criminal justice system, it has declined to do so. In House v. Bell, the Court ratcheted up the standard of proof for freestanding constitutional claims of innocence to a level no petitioner could understand, much less meet. Then, in District Attorney's Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne, the Court held that …