About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

77 Fordham L. Rev. 2893 (2008-2009)
The Right Remedy for the Wrongly Convicted: Judicial Sanctions for Destruction of DNA Evidence

handle is hein.journals/flr77 and id is 2907 raw text is: THE RIGHT REMEDY FOR THE WRONGLY CONVICTED: JUDICIAL SANCTIONS FOR DESTRUCTION OF DNA EVIDENCE Cynthia E. Jones* Many state innocence protection statutes give courts the power to impose appropriate sanctions when biological evidence needed for postconviction DNA testing is wrongly destroyed by the government. Constitutional claims based on wrongful evidence destruction are governed by the virtually insurmountable bad faith standard articulated in Arizona v. Youngblood. The wrongful destruction of DNA evidence in contravention of state innocence protection laws, however, should be governed by the standards used to adjudicate other access to evidence violations in criminal cases, including disclosures mandated by the rules of criminal procedure, the Jencks Act, and Brady v. Maryland. Under the access to evidence sanctions analysis, courts must balance the degree of government culpability in the destruction, the degree of prejudice to the defense, and the strength of the government's case. In applying this analysis to the wrongful destruction of evidence needed for postconviction DNA testing, courts should give due weight to the exclusive power of DNA evidence to discredit other forms of evidence and prove identity to a scientific certainty. Further, in evaluating the strength of the government's evidence at trial, courts must carefully scrutinize guilt determinations based largely or exclusively on evidence that has been the predominate cause of wrongful convictions, including stranger eyewitness identifications, non- DNA forensic evidence, uncorroborated confessions, and jailhouse informant testimony. Applying these critical lessons learned from over 200 exonerations to the sanctions determination, appropriate sanctions for the * Associate Professor of Law, American University, Washington College of Law; former Executive Director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia; Vice President of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project Board of Directors; and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. I wish to thank my very dear friend and mentor, Professor Angela J. Davis, for her tremendous support and guidance. I also want to thank Associate Dean Mark Niles, Professor Adam Thurschwell, Professor Ira P. Robbins, and Professor Andy Taslitz for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank my wonderful and resourceful research assistants for their work: Frank Piggott, Daniele Shiffman, Jackie Bliss, Laurita Denny, Alex Perlin, B. Cory Schwartz, Rebecca Walters, and Molly Bruder. I am indebted to Ashley C. Parrish for his contribution of materials on the Lovitt case, and both Judge Frank E. Schwelb and Judge Gerald Bruce Lee for their thoughts on judicial sanctions. Most importantly, I owe a great debt of gratitude to Dean Claudio Grossman for his ongoing support and assistance in advancing my scholarship. 2893

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most