New York’s pending bill to expand collection of DNA samples for the database to some misdemeanor and all felony arrestees is causing quite a stir. As previously reported, those supporting innocence reforms have asserted that the collection of DNA should not be expanded without including reforms to protect the innocent, such as eyewitness identification reforms and requirements to record interrogations. But NY Governor Cuomo is fighting back, saying:
“I don’t want to play the normal Albany game with this bill…which is (to say), ‘Well, let’s use this bill to accomplish unrelated things that we want to get done,’ right? This bill is about DNA and the use of DNA, and the use of DNA to prove guilt or prove innocence. And this is the bill that we want to pass. … Let’s not make this bill a vehicle to debate other issues.”
Innocence reforms are “unrelated” to DNA testing? If DNA has taught us anything over the past 20 years, it’s that the system has flaws, and that those flaws can be minimized to some degree through legislation, thus sparing untold numbers of future wrongful convictions. In Ohio, we expanded sample collection for the DNA database in 2010, just like Cuomo is attempting to do now in New York. But the Governor and legislators in Ohio recognized that you can’t separate the lessons of the Innocence Movement–DNA can help apprehend the guilty, but it also exposed glaring flaws in the system that can’t be ignored. Thus, in Ohio, we passed DNA preservation, eyewitness identification reforms, and videotaped interrogations in the same bill that expanded DNA collection for the database. As the president of the NY bar association has argued:
Wrongful convictions undermine our system of justice and burden taxpayers with the cost of trials, appeals, incarceration and resulting lawsuits.
No one can seriously argue with the governor’s objective of exonerating the innocent and convicting the guilty. But expanding the DNA database alone will not accomplish that goal. It will require a more comprehensive approach to eradicating the root causes of wrongful convictions.
For criticism of DNA database expansion from the esteemed Professor Brandon Garrett, go here.
Wrongful Convictions Blog 