Our Opinions: DNA Tests Deliver Justice for All

By Staff, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 9, 2004

Prison inmates who undergo DNA testing to prove their innocence run the risk that the results will confirm their guilt.

That's what happened to Joe Brown, imprisoned for life after raping a woman at knifepoint during a 1987 burglary in Valdosta. Brown was the first inmate in Georgia to have a DNA test through a new state law allowing for genetic testing in criminal appeals.

Brown was represented by the Georgia Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal clinic whose mission is "to free the wrongly prosecuted through the use of DNA testing."

While it turns out Brown wasn't wrongly convicted, that shouldn't be taken as a mark against the Innocence Project. The project's first commitment is to finding the truth through DNA testing. Over the past decade, 146 convictions have been overturned because of DNA evidence.

In Atlanta last week for the American Bar Association's annual meeting, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno joined the chorus of attorneys calling the wrongful convictions a wake-up call to improve the justice system.

A 2003 Georgia law entitles inmates to DNA testing if the defendant's identity was an issue at trial; the evidence was not tested previously; it is reasonable to believe DNA tests could have affected the outcome of the case; and reliable results can be extracted from the evidence. Brown's victim never saw her assailant, and the conviction rested solely on the testimony of an accomplice.

The Georgia Innocence Project has received letters from 1,200 inmates asking its lawyers to determine whether DNA testing could sustain their claims of innocence. The project has only agreed to represent seven, says Aimee Maxwell, executive director of the Georgia Innocence Project.

The project took on Brown's case after learning that even after 17 years there was semen and blood evidence still available for testing. The Forensic Science Associates in Richmond, Calif., matched the evidence with Brown's DNA.

"The great thing about this is that the victim knows for sure now," says Maxwell. "She does not have to wonder."