Attorney General Eric Holder, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) came out against the Supreme Court’s ruling today that DNA testing is not a constitutional right for people who try to prove their innocence after they were convicted.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that Alaska was not obligated to make DNA testing available to William G. Osborne, who was convicted of rape. Alaska, Alabama, Massachusetts and Oklahoma are the only states that do not have laws that clearly allow convicts some access to DNA testing, according to the New York Times. The newspaper’s story is here.
Holder said the Supreme Court did not rule in support of “good policy” and the decision wasn’t necessarily a “wise” one.
“DNA testing helps ensure that justice is done,” Holder said in a statement. “For that reason, this administration believes that defendants should be permitted access to DNA evidence in a range of circumstances … Today’s decision reaffirmed the power of such practices, and I hope that in light of today’s decision all levels of government will follow the federal government’s lead by working to expand access to DNA evidence.”
Leahy also expressed his disappointment in the Supreme Court decision. He said the high court’s move causes “unnecessary hurdles” for convicts trying to prove their innocence.
“We should make every effort to promote DNA testing in our criminal justice system — whether before or after trial — in order to help ensure that only the guilty are convicted, never the innocent, and that the guilty do not walk free to commit more crimes,” Leahy said in a statement.
The House passed an amendment to the fiscal 2010 Commerce, Justice and science subcommittee spending bill today that added $5 million to the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, which would now have a $151 budget to solve backlogged rape cases. Nadler, who offered the amendment, said Congress recognized the need for DNA testing by approving the measure.
“DNA evidence in particular has already become widely accepted in law enforcement as a reliable method of extracting unambiguous information,” Nadler said in a statement.
