Op-Ed: Scheck and Neufeld call for NY to enact real reforms

In today’s New York Daily News, Innocence Project Co-Directors Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld write that recent DNA exonerations have demonstrated the urgent need for criminal justice reforms in New York state, including improved access to DNA testing and improved procedures for the preservation of evidence.

Nobody benefits from a wrongful conviction. Not the victim, police, prosecutor, judge, jury, nor the public at large. Well, maybe one person benefits: the real perpetrator, who can relax knowing an innocent person took the rap.

There have been nine DNA exonerations in New York State since 2006, putting our total at

23

. And given that it's harder to find preserved evidence in New York than in most states, and that DNA can prove innocence in so few crimes, the situation is likely far worse than those numbers indicate.

Read the full article

. (New York Daily News, 06/18/07)

 

• Issue in focus:
  
  Evidence Preservation
  
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  Press release
  
  : NY Assembly reforms will address and prevent wrongful convictions
  
• View a list of the
  
  23 people exonerated by DNA testing in New York