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While still a new technological advancement (introduced in the mid 1980’), DNA “Fingerprinting” has become one of the essential forensic tools in convicting or exonerating individuals from crimes of robbery, to rape, and even murder. This encyclopedia covers the intricacies of how forensic DNA is analyzed through microbiology, population genetics, statistics, and admissibility within the legal evidentiary rules. Each entry contains a summary, followed by full text on Federal/Local statues, abbreviated judicial opinions on specific DNA issues, as well as organizations that use DNA evidence to exonerated the innocent.

DNA Evidence - Volume 3 Sex Offenses | Evidential Issues - V.9 This thirteen volume set provides nearly 5,000 entries to legal concepts, cases and movements that have shaped U.S. law. The entry on “DNA Evidence” covers the legal history of DNA Evidence, DNA process analysis details, and current issues surrounding DNA evidence. The “Sexual Offenses” entries also covers the evidentiary issues of admissibility of DNA evidence in rape offenses and how it has been used to exonerate individuals years after they were found guilty.

This encyclopedia provides information on all aspects of capital punishment in America. Entries include almost every capital punishment decision rendered by the United States Supreme Court. With a wealth of statistic data found throughout, this encyclopedia contains a lot of information of DNA evidence used in capital cases as well as information on individuals who have been exonerated pre and post execution

Although spending most of his career as a prosecutor, author George “Woody” Clarke, has used DNA evidence to convict and exonerated individuals over his legal career. Considered as a DNA evidence expert within legal circles, Clarke details in this book, his special project which proactively examined over six hundred cases of defendants convicted and sentenced to prison before 1993, with the goal of finding instances in which DNA typing might have added new evidence and then offered testing to those inmates. Also included is a database of both convicted offenders and no-suspect cases that demonstrate the power of DNA testing to solve the unsolvable.

Criminologist C. Ronald Huff and Martin Killias have gathered a collection of essays that detail the imperfections in the criminal justice system that have lead to the conviction of innocent people throughout the world. With contributions from across the world (North America, Europe, and Israel), this article gives a multi-national look at an issue that transcends national boundaries. Such issues include discrepancies in court procedures, bias, and denials of DNA evidence that showed post conviction innocence.

This book chronicles over one hundred cases of individuals and organizations armed with DNA evidence, who have helped those wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit. This book also shows how eyewitness error, jailhouse snitch testimony, racism, junk science, prosecutorial misconduct, and incompetent counsel have lead to an overpopulation of the American penal system with innocent individuals. Notable cases of wrongful imprisonment outside of death row are also profiled. Although these stories end with vindication, there are those that have ended with unjustified execution.

This study analyzed the results of new DNA testing of old physical evidence from 634 sexual assault and homicide cases that took place in Virginia between 1973 and 1987 in the first study of the effects of DNA testing on wrongful conviction in a large and approximately random sample of serious crime convictions. The study found that in five percent of homicide and sexual assault cases DNA testing eliminated the convicted offender as the source of incriminating physical evidence. When sexual assault convictions were isolated, DNA testing eliminated between 8 and 15 percent of convicted offenders and supported exoneration. Past estimates generally put the rate of wrongful conviction at or less than three percent.

Exonerations of incarcerated defendants—even defendants on death row—through the use of DNA testing has pushed the issues surrounding postconviction DNA testing to the forefront. During the last ten years, DNA testing has become more sophisticated and accurate so that it has the scientific potential to conclusively prove whether a defendant’s DNA matches DNA evidence found at a crime scene. For this reason, many defendants have requested postconviction testing in order to appeal their criminal convictions. These requests, however, have sometimes been refused by prosecutors and courts who cite the importance of finality in criminal jurisprudence, the burden on the judiciary when reopening cases, and the evidentiary weight of DNA as reasons why the requests should be refused. The resistance of the judiciary and prosecutors is compounded by the fact that only a small minority of states have statutes that permit incarcerated defendants to request and receive access to postconviction DNA testing. The interests of finality, while important, should not be permitted to trump DNA evidence which can conclusively prove identity.

In more than one hundred cases over the past twelve years, DNA evidence has been utilized in the postconviction stage to prove "beyond any doubt" that the convicted individual never committed the crime. Those cases demonstrate that DNA evidence can exonerate a defendant, even when innocence is not expected, who the criminal justice system has erroneously convicted. However, the law makes it difficult for an individual who pled guilty to prove his innocence with DNA evidence because it diminishes the validity of the guilty plea, the finality of the conviction, and the considerations of economy associated with the guilty plea. These same concerns do not prohibit a convicted individual who maintained innocence and used more judicial resources from using the same evidence to prove his innocence. Therefore, in light of the reality of what it means to plead guilty, technological advances, and fundamental fairness, an innocent individual who pled guilty should be allowed to use DNA evidence for postconviction relief.