exoneration, memory, process
In my forensics class at PSU last term, we spent a lot of time discussing the use of DNA evidence to exonerate people serving harsh sentences for violent crimes. Something my professor said haunts me: "Just because the DNA wasn't there (or the DNA belonged to someone else), doesn't mean the guy locked in the cell didn't do it."
'Think about it," he said. He detailed a scenario in which a man brutally beats a woman to death and dumps her body by a highway. He's convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. Later, his lawyers push for a DNA test, and someone else's DNA is discovered from the vaginal swabs taken by the medical examiner and sealed in the case file. The priosoner is set free.
But let's say the woman had consensual sex before she was raped, and this accounts for the DNA discovered in her vagina. And for some reason, the real killer - the man originally convicted - left none behind on her body at all.
"Remember," my professor said, "This guy was convicted on all sorts of evidence, and the DNA had nothing to do with it." Maybe the state had toolmarks from the murder weapon; glass fragments from a broken window; tire tracks; or a mountain of circumstantial evidence.
My professor went on to concede that, of course, many innocent people are freed with DNA. But many guilty ones are freed as well. Chilling.
A million such scenarios can be imagined.
Maybe the evidence we have come to know intimately - through memories and stories, all of it circumstantial, I suppose - can stand as strong as anything else. Maybe we are quick to exonerate, when we should instead remember to weigh the scales of evidence against one another. What is a metaphorical DNA match against the toolmarks left on your heart?