Another day, another wrongful conviction headline

Raymond Towler left an Ohio prison this week, free for the first time since a 1981 rape conviction. Some of the news accounts mentioned that Towler is defendant number 254 to be exonerated because of DNA testing since such testing became reliable during the late 1980s. A key statistic within that statistic: It took 13 years for the 100th DNA exoneration to occur; the next 100 took just five years. Another 54 DNA exonerations have occurred during the past two years, and the count will surely increase at an accelerated pace–maybe we will learn about number 255 today, or tomorrow.

Those who live in the wrongful conviction realm cannot forget, every day, that the DNA exonerations are only a tiny percentage of cases in which wrongful convictions quite likely have occurred. Most crimes do not yield testable DNA evidence.

The Midwestern Innocence Project, which I helped organize, does not specialize in DNA cases. In fact, Tiffany Murphy, our chief lawyer, often gives extra attention to non-DNA cases because that’s where the need for investigation is greatest.

I wish I could say that every exoneration headline surprises me. Unfortunately, I feel no surprise. Truth is, I’m surprised each day that I do NOT learn about a new exoneration.

So, the “good news” (written ironically) is that hard-working, public-minded investigators are freeing innocent inmates at a respectable pace. But the bad news is obvious–way too many innocent inmates will never go free because every investigator willing to enter this realm is overwhelmed with seemingly legitimate requests, funding is close to non-existent, and those in authority (prosecutors, police detectives, judges) are too often resistant to seeking the truth.