An article titled “Lawyers, Saying DNA Cleared Inmate, Pursue Access to Data” tells the story of the case of Joseph Buffey, a man imprisoned in West Virginia for 70 years for rape. And Buffey’s story tells us something disturbing: control of DNA evidence in most states is in the hands of law enforcement. Unfortunately, this can block defense efforts to get at the truth.
Buffey’s case features something common to more than a quarter of DNA exonerations: he confessed, and later entered a guilty plea and apologized, at the urging of his lawyer. But Buffey then recanted his confession and maintained his innocence. Years later, defense lawyers got the physical evidence tested, and the DNA did not belong to Mr. Buffey.
Defense lawyers then asked the state to run the sample against the state’s DNA database (known as CODIS, which stands for Combined DNA Index System). The idea, of course, was that the DNA might have come from a person whose DNA was already in the database.
The state of West Virginia’s reaction: no thanks. According to the article, the authorities in West Virginia said that “the state does not believe such testing will or can prove the defendant’s innocence after his guilty plea.” West Virginia is one of the other thirty-one that do not give a defendant the right to have the sample run through the DNA database.
After 18 months of legal wrangling, West Virginia agreed to the test. The result: the DNA belongs to a man incarcerated in another state prison with a history of assaulting women.
Naturally, Buffey’s lawyers are now working to get him out of prison. But the more important thing to notice is that in West Virginia, as in most other states, DNA databases, constructed at great public expense, remain in control of one party to criminal cases: the prosecution. They, and they alone, decide whether testing will be done, and under what circumstances. And while we can certainly hope that requests to run DNA through the database will be granted, it can also be withheld when the state simply decides that this is not in its interest.
But the article contains something I had not seen before. Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association is quoted as saying that he sees the failure to run DNA samples through CODIS as a problem that must be solved.
We, as law enforcement and prosecutors, are obligated to seek the truth and follow the evidence, and DNA should be entered into Codis,” said Burns. “It seems like there should be laws for it, and I agree that the defense should be given the information.
Hats off to Mr. Burns and the NDAA if this is their official position. (I say “if” because they have not always been open to such changes.) In the next few days, I will attempt to confirm that the impression given by the story — that the organization would join in an effort to assure that DNA in a case like Buffey’s should be run — is correct.
Failed Evidence 