We leave DNA behind everything we do

Everything we do today, everything we touch and do leaves our DNA behind. Imagine one day you woke up and cops came to your door and arrested you for a crime that you did not commit. Say this is back in a time with a DNA test. Things were not very good and not used often so it was really only an eyewitness that said it was you. So you got sentenced to 30 years and you’re in jail and since the Vance of technology throughout, your sentence has come up and DNA testing has become more effective. The innocence project offers you to help to see if you can be freed or exonerated, because they believe you did not do it, and they were going to use your DNA to prove that it was not you. This is only possible because of how advanced our technology is becoming in today’s age.

The innocence project is an organization to help free or exoneree wrongfully convicted individuals. How they do this is through the use of DNA evidence and advocating for criminal justice reforms. DNA evidence has recently become a big part of forensic science, and in the criminal justice system. This has also helped reform the legal system and the criminal justice system because it helps find the flaws in them and is also helping them become better and stronger. This has also helped reform the legal system and the criminal justice system because it helps find the flaws in them and is also helping them become better and stronger.

“in every cell of every living organism and contains the “blueprint” for building and maintaining living beings. And even though humans share 99.9% of their DNA with one another, the 0.1% of DNA that varies from person to person can tell us a lot about each individual, and can be used to help identify people who have committed crimes as well as exonerate wrongly convicted people.” Every single human being has DNA and your DNA is a blueprint of who you are and your own identification. Most humans share 99% of their DNA with one another but there is the .1% that varies throughout the people that can individually tell a lot about each person.

Since the advancement of technology, they have to collect and gather this DNA differently than they had to before they have to be more careful and considerate of what they are doing with this evidence. Evidence can easily be tampered with, so they want to make sure that they are using the right procedures when gathering evidence And analyzing it. There have been many cases where mistakes were applied. Forensic science has contributed to people being convicted. Some of the major method hoods that are often misused or bite marks fingerprints blood stain patterns to marks and hair compressions. These methods were often frequently misused in cases, but since the advanced technology, these methods have increasingly become more significant, and more reliable with the advanced technologies.

Because of our technology, and how advanced it has become, the innocence Project has exonerated or freed 575 people just based on DNA testing in the United States alone. The technology for DNA hasn’t always been around because technology hasn’t been around for that long. Either the boom of technology was in the late 1900s and early 2000s for DNA and really exceeded in the 2010. Because of how advanced our technology was becoming around this time, error allowed the innocence project to become more beneficial and more effective in its field of work in freeing wrongfully convicted people. Technology is a major part of what this company is trying to do. DNA testing has not always been around and is a newer thing, but is significant in criminal cases because it is proving to have a big impact on freeing people for things that they did not do. The systems we used to identify the patterns in the DNA are very advanced and very accurate so the results that we get from these systems are on point and can determine if the person was really the one who did it or not and can be the deciding factor on if they are free or not.

“DNA testing and advances in forensic science disciplines have revealed weaknesses in the scientific foundations of several methods that were once widely accepted by the criminal legal system and used to help secure earlier convictions.”The innocent project helps expose flaws in the criminal system that leads to people being wrongfully convicted. They also advocate for changes in police procedures, such as handling evidence, and the use of eyewitness testimonies because they can be false sometimes. Just because someone says they saw something does not mean it really happened so that’s why they are saying eyewitness testimonies need to be Taken more seriously because anyone can say anything. Most of the people that are convicted are because of eyewitness cases. Eyewitness cases over the past few decades, have proven to not be as beneficial as they used to be because of this the innocence project is advocating to stop relying so much on this eyewitness testimony, and start using more hard factual evidence in the trial in court to convict a victim. It also has strengthened the forensic science system by providing misleading evidence and how they can fix it and make sure the evidence is correct, and on point. They can also find where these mistakes were performed in the laboratory, or when gathering the evidence. It also shows flaws in the method hoods they use and also shows flaws and how they use the evidence in court during the case.

References

Selby, Daniele. “DNA and Wrongful Conviction: Five Facts You Should Know.” Innocence Project, 2 May 2023, innocenceproject.org/news/dna-and-wrongful-conviction-five-facts-you-should-know/#:~:text=The%20emergence%20of%20DNA%20technology,exonerate%20hundreds%20of%20innocent%20people. 

The Innocence Project. “Misapplication of Forensic Science.” Innocence Project, 18 Oct. 2023, innocenceproject.org/misapplication-of-forensic-science/.