How DNA Can Lead to Exonerations in California Criminal Cases

California leads the nation in exonerations.

How DNA Can Lead to Exonerations in California Criminal Cases

For many fans of television crime shows, DNA is critical to solving criminal cases and for prosecutors getting convictions. In reality, DNA is not always used in court cases — and it is not always the piece of evidence that can lead to a person’s conviction — or their exoneration. Yet in some situations, DNA can be the key that helps a person be exonerated after a wrongful conviction.

According to a murder defense lawyer Los Angeles, CA, since 1989, more than 200 people have had their convictions overturned in California. These wrongful convictions cost these individuals over 1,300 years of freedom — and taxpayers more than $129 million. The UC Berkeley School of Law recently released the results of a study, which found that California leads the nation in exonerations as defined by the National Registry of Exonerations. Under these standards, a post-conviction showing of new evidence must be made to be considered an exoneration. California had 120 exonerations, while Illinois came in second at 110 and Texas and New York each had 100 exonerations.

There are a number of reasons why California courts have overturned convictions or dismissed the charges against 214 Californians. These include official misconduct, insufficient evidence, findings of actual innocence — which is often proven through DNA evidence — and legal error. The majority of those convicted spent a significant amount of time in state or federal prison before their convictions were thrown out, according to the UC Berkeley study. 40% of these individuals were initially sentenced to 20 years or more in prison. Many received sentences of life in prison, life without the possibility of parole, or the death sentence. As a murder defense lawyer Los Angeles, CA can explain, without an aggressive criminal defense attorney, these individuals may have spent their lives in jail — or be put to death — if their convictions had not been overturned.

In Los Angeles, police corruption in the late 1990s led to a significant number of wrongful convictions. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was involved in a widespread police corruption scandal during this time through its anti-gang unit. Ultimately, more than 70 police officers were charged with misconduct, including unprovoked shootings and beatings, planting false evidence, stealing and dealing drugs, perjury and obstruction of justice. As a result, 25% of the wrongful convictions (53 people to date) are related to the LAPD Rampart scandal.

Outside of the Rampart cases, the majority of wrongful convictions were due to either perjury or false accusations (42%) or official misconduct by police or prosecutors (39%). The other convictions were thrown out due to mistaken eyewitness identification (26%) or inadequate or ineffective defense counsel (19%). Under 6% of all California exonerations were overturned due to DNA evidence.

So what does this study tell us about how DNA evidence can be used to overturn a conviction in a California murder case? While it can be important, it will not necessarily be the factor that leads to an exoneration. Most cases are thrown out due to some other reason — and not because newly-discovered DNA evidence proves that the defendant did not really commit the crime.

These numbers do tell us something important — that wrongful convictions are far too common in California and elsewhere. If you have been charged with murder, you will need a highly skilled murder defense lawyer Los Angeles, CA to represent you. With the stakes so high, the best course of action is to aggressively defend yourself against the charges from the start. An experienced murder defense lawyer Los Angeles, CA can help you do just that.

At the Chambers Law Firm, our team includes a former prosecutor and police professionals. We use our knowledge to help our clients achieve the best possible outcome. Contact us today at 714-760-4088 or dchambers@clfca.com to schedule a free initial consultation with a murder defense lawyer Los Angeles, CA.

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