Guilty as...

Summer Stewart a colleague of mine posted recently an online article Refusing Justice on her blog We The People that discusses the horrible injustices of the United State’s justice system. These injustices coming from the lack of care for due process and cheating cases of a fair trial. It’s an important issue in the United States, because we need a system that’s responsible and accountable; we want criminals in jail not the innocent.

Stewart explains how the Department of Justice and the FBI have forwardly stated that forensic evidence can be faulty. She does a great job exposing this unacceptable truth of our system. What’s worse as she points out is that to prove your innocence becomes almost impossible, “…in Alabama, a defendant has to be able to prove there is no evidence connecting he/she to the crime. Even if the suspect is innocent, but evidence roves some connection, the have no opportunity to even suggest their case to be re-looked at.” Scary to imagine being innocent and accused of something you didn’t and being punished for it for the rest of your life.

Her article reminded of the incident that occurred two years ago that just astonished me. CNN covered the story about how Annie Dookhan an Ex-Massachusetts chemist who tampered over 40,000 cases, and falsified her academic records for the job. How can we have a system that allows something slip like that long enough to ruin over 40,000 lives. It’s atrocious that they let an unqualified person handle sensitive evidence that determined the lives of so many.

Another issue that wasn’t mentioned in Stewart’s article was the forging and or falsifying of forensic evidence from within or outside the system. As the technology has advanced this has become increasingly possible. In the article DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show, by Andrew Pollack, published in the New York Times  covers how scientists were successful in fabricating blood and saliva samples. They discussed how if they had a DNA data base at their disposal they could fabricate blood and saliva without having to obtain tissue or any other source of DNA; so even with the best forensic equipment someone could fake a crime scene and no one would know.

Stewart did a wonderful job covering this topic and I strongly agree with her that the FBI and Department of Justice become more accountable and responsible so the innocent are never “guilty” of something they didn’t do.