Editorial: Testing for truth

It's difficult to follow the logic behind the Supreme Court's recent ruling that prisoners do not have a right to DNA testing that could prove their innocence.

Isn't the main goal of the justice system to reach the correct verdict?

Instead, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who wrote the majority opinion, seems more concerned with not burdening the legal system with any extra steps once a person has been convicted. Even if that means letting an innocent person rot in prison.

Roberts acknowledges the "unparalleled ability" of DNA testing to both "exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty," but then shrugs off efforts to get the right verdict in favor of moving along court dockets.

"The dilemma is how to harness DNA's power to prove innocence without unnecessarily overthrowing the established system of criminal justice," said Roberts.

Never mind that 240 wrongly convicted prisoners have been exonerated through the use of DNA testing.

In a 5-4 vote on June 18, the court said it would let the individual states decide when prisoners get access to DNA testing. The majority opinion said the court didn't want to second-guess states, or force them to routinely look again at criminal convictions.

In a dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the Constitution's due-process clause allowed prisoners access to DNA testing that could prove their innocence - especially when a state lacks a law granting such testing.

The ruling stems from the case of William Osborne, who was convicted of raping, beating, and shooting a prostitute in Alaska 16 years ago. The victim, who survived, identified Osborne. But many exoneration cases involved eyewitnesses who had picked out the wrong person.

Osborne confessed under oath to the parole board in 2004 that he was guilty, but later said he did so in an attempt to win early release.

After his conviction, Osborne sued for the right to test the contents of a blue condom the victim says was used by her attacker. A federal appeals court said he had a right to conduct the test. But not the Supreme Court.

Alaska is one of only three states without a law that gives convicts access to genetic evidence. The others are Massachusetts and Oklahoma.

Peter Neufeld, a co-founder of the Innocence Project, which represented Osborne before the Supreme Court, said the ruling wouldn't affect the vast majority of inmates seeking DNA testing, since they involve state courts.

But Justice Stevens and others rightly noted that the ruling could impact a number of inmates denied access to a simple test that would conclusively show their innocence - or reaffirm their guilt.

"The fact that nearly all the states have now recognized some post-conviction right to DNA evidence makes it more, not less, appropriate to recognize a limited federal right to such evidence in cases where litigants are unfairly barred from obtaining relief in state court," said Stevens.

He's right. The goal should be to get the correct verdict, and avoid sending innocent people to prison.