The New York Times Calls for State Wrongful Conviction Reform

An editorial in Saturday’s New York Times argues that state DNA databank expansion must be paired with reforms to prevent wrongful convictions. Though significant criminal justice reform initiatives—such as changes to police lineups, videotaping custodial interrogations, improved systems for preserving and maintaining biological evidence for DNA testing—have been before the New York State Legislature for years, the state has neglected these issues. Twenty-seven people have been exonerated through DNA testing in New York, more than any of the other states besides Texas and Illinois.

Mr. Cuomo’s instinct that New York should be increasing the use of DNA evidence to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent is sound but not enough. An expansion of the DNA databank should be accompanied by other reforms to reduce the risk of wrongful convictions.

Read the

full editorial

.

 

Read more about

New York wrongful convictions cases

and the reforms that the Innocence Project advocates.