A few weeks later a police officer came across the 18 year old Kirk Odom and, thinking he looked similar to the sketch of the suspect arranged for the victim to be shown a photograph. Some were even at risk of execution for those crimes. For Stephen Cowens of Roxbury, Massachusetts, it was six and a half years too long. Dennis Williams and Willie Rainge were re-tried and found guilty once again and Verneal Jimerson was tried for the crime when Paula Grey reverted to her original testimony to gain release from prison. Hey there, welcome to my channel. In 2004, he moved to BSU, where, in addition to teaching and doing research in genetics, he helped found the Idaho Innocence Project. Studies have confirmed this. While DNA evidence has been a unique tool of justice in uncovering so many wrongful convictions, it can also result in wrongful convictions. There he was arrested for the 1997 murder of a businesswoman/prostitute Yasuko Wantabe who was strangled to death in a brutal attack that attracted prurient headlines across Japan, mostly related to the lifestyle choices of the poor victim. Many others think he’s innocent as well—lawyers, journalists, an organization of former judges; even the victim’s mother. At times, DNA evidence has been misused or misunderstood, leading to miscarriages of justice. One of them, a 26-year-old white female, had three. He had done research on the Y chromosome in Australia and was teaching at Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia, in 1993 when an associate of famed criminologist Henry Lee asked him whether science could determine the sex of a person based on traces of saliva left at a crime scene. In 2008 samples from the case were tested against Timothy Cole and Jerry Johnson and Johnson identified as the perpetrator, he confessed the crime to a judge and Cole was granted a full, if posthumous pardon. DNA evidence on its own may not be sufficient to establish the guilt of the accused, it has to be weighed against all evidence presented before the court. No physical evidence ever linked Rivera to the crime, his DNA was even tested against the fluid found on the body and it was not a match. Analysts focus on 13 or more places in the genome, called loci, where humans are extraordinarily diverse. Civil rights advocates object to this procedure because it means that simply being related to an offender can make you a person of interest; Maryland and the District of Columbia have banned the practice. Kirk Odom claimed to be at home at the time of the attack and his mother corroborated his testimony. A man convicted of murdering Adelaide schoolgirl Louise Bell argues on appeal that his conviction should be overturned because forensic evidence cannot prove how his DNA … White confessed; as part of a plea bargain he implicated Robinson, against whom he had a grudge. Samples were taken and showed the presence of both type A and type B blood. He worries that Tapp won’t go free until his parole in 2026. In order to mount an appeal, Tapp’s lawyers must produce evidence that was not available at the time of the trial. Contributing to 45% of the wrongful convictions that have been overturned by DNA in that country, it is also estimated to have contributed to 31% of wrongful convictions in Australia. All rights Reserved. The evidence against him was overwhelming—palm prints, fingerprints, and his DNA on the victim and throughout her room—and he was eventually found guilty. Police claimed that Cathy Woods had provided them with key information (all of which was available from the public accounts of the murder) and sent her to trial claiming that Cathy Woods had killed Mitchell in a fit of pique over rebuffed sexual advances. Michael Phillips made history as the first US man to be exonerated by a DNA test he did not request. Along the way, he used DNA to help exonerate at least a dozen wrongfully convicted people in the United States, Taiwan, and Italy. Kirk Odom was released on parole in 2003 but was required to sign the register of sex offenders for the District of Columbia. Coworkers at the medical examiner’s office had to work around the clock double-checking the fired technician’s findings. Police had a forensics lab produce a profile of 35 loci on the Y chromosome from semen found at the crime scene; then they obtained a subpoena to have Ancestry.com, the largest genealogy company in the world, compare the profile with a Y chromosome database that the company had bought in 2012 from a Mormon genealogy foundation. He was convicted for a violent kidnapping and rape of a young woman in 1977. A … He has since refused to acknowledge the clear results of the DNA evidence. Further testing, in 2002, of hairs recovered from the victim showed that they were a match for a man convicted for a sex attack shortly after the one by Lake Michigan, the perpetrator bore a striking similarity to Steven Avery who was released in 2005. The man, who had submitted a cheek swab at the urging of his Mormon pastor, was too old to fit the killer’s profile. A DNA test that might usually have been able to link a suspect to the car was of no use. Over the weeks, Tapp gave them several dozen names, but DNA ruled out each new suspect. Michael Phillips maintained his innocence until offered a reduction in sentence to 12 years through a plea bargain (he was potentially looking at a 99 year sentence). The Innocence Project came across Deskovic’s case in 2006, and conducted further testing with newer technology on the semen in the rape kit. Working on the theory that several people must have attacked Angie Dodge, police offered Tapp immunity if he would reveal the name of the other assailant. Even if police can't match DNA from a crime scene to FBI's national DNA database, loosening their search criteria may lead to a so-called partial match—possibly a relative of the perpetrator, which could provide an investigative lead. Gary Dotson requested a retrial but was denied as the judge felt that the victims recantation was not believable, the case was handed over to the State Governor who refused to issue a pardon. In his spare time he enjoys spending time with his wife, mountain biking in Southern California, and running. “How’re you doing, Chris?” Hampikian begins. The chance that two people have the same pairs at all 13 loci is astronomically low. Tapp says: “I appreciate everything you guys are doing, and thank …” but the line cuts off before he can finish his sentence. The stories of these people should serve as a warning to society and to our police and prosecutors to ensure that a single crime does not give rise to two innocent victims. He also failed to point out other evidentiary inconsistencies relating to blood and hair. Kirk Odom was convicted of the 1981 rape and sodomy of a young woman and the armed robbery of her apartment. Each locus contains a “short tandem repeat,” a bit of DNA that is repeated multiple times. Dean Cage: The only evidence against Dean Cage was the erroneous testimony of the victim of a rape. A skilled Fresno criminal defense attorney may be able to point to issues with the DNA testing and have it removed from the prosecutor’s case. Police found plenty of male DNA at the scene, and it did not match Tapp's. An FBI analyst tasked with examining hair samples found on the victim claimed that they were ‘indistinguishable’ from Odom’s hair. As the nation’s only Innocence Project director who’s also a scientist, “he’s absolutely essential to what we do,” said Aimee Maxwell, executive director of the Georgia Innocence Project in Decatur, which Hampikian co-founded. They obtained a court order to sample Usry's DNA in 2014—but the test results excluded him. During the third trial, the defense presented evidence that the initial blood splatter expert had falsified his credentials and had no history of working with blood splatters. The victim gave a description of the attacker to the police but was unable to identify her attacker in photographs shown to her. 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