It is true that there are many enlightened employers, education establishments and credit organisations which look past someone’s criminal past and try to look at the attributes the person now has, rather than judge them for past indiscretions. It is to their credit than many of these organisations actually see someone going through a drug rehab program as a positive and proof that they can show commitment to achieving a goal.

It has to  be said that achieving the goal of giving up drugs, as you may well know, is one which requires a lot more grit and determination than many goals we could mention. Ultimately, it proves that you can focus on something that is difficult to achieve and stay the course until you succeed. To many employers and others deciding upon your value as a person that shows admirable courage and puts your drug rehab in the plus column, rather than the minus column.

However, and as you may have experienced, not all potential employers or others who might have make decisions regarding your future take the same view. At the first sight of any kind of criminality, it sees your application sent directly to the ‘Declined’ pile. The question you may now have is, ‘Can I Fix This?’

First the bad news, and that is you simply cannot wipe clean your conviction from the record as soon as you pay a fine or are released from prison. The simple fact is this is a process for which you are going to have to be patient. However, given that it can have an impact on your life for many years to come, it is worth it.

What you need to request is that your conviction regarded as spent. What this does is remove from the publicly accessible records that you were convicted of a crime. More importantly it removes any obligation on you to disclose that you have been convicted of a crime in your past when applying for jobs, credit, and the like. However, you must understand that it will remain on your court and police files and may be considered if you are convicted of any crimes in the future.

The procedures and the specific authority you contact to have your conviction spent will depend on whether your crime is regarded as a serious conviction or a lesser conviction. Serious is a crime with more than one year imprisonment or a fine greater than $15,000. a lesser conviction is one where the term of imprisonment was less than one year, or the fine was less than $15,000.

Regardless of which authority you need apply to, the usual waiting time before you request that your conviction is spent will be between 5 and 10 years. It might seem a long wait, but it will be worth pursuing if means that the opportunities which are opened up to you increase and improve for you as time passes.

Most of us tend to associate criminal charges with crime that occurs on the street, homes and alleyways of Australia. White collar crime refers to other forms of law violations that occur in a corporate environment. Expert criminal lawyers are happy to offer legal advice to those who require legal assistance in white collar crime cases.  White collar crime can occur in a variety of scenarios and include different types of law violations. According to recent news reports, white collar crime is on the rise in Australia and usually includes any type of activity that involves obtaining funds or property etc through fraudulent means.

Although white collared crime usually receives less than its fair share of attention compared to violent crimes, it has resulted in losses amounting to million dollars. White collared crime acts are usually committed by individuals who belong to a higher economic or social status and may be performed against the company (where the individual is employed), investors, creditors, the government or the environment etc.

The following list describes some of the most common forms of white collared crime:

• Tax fraud: Tax fraud can be committed by an individual or by a company or its agents. Tax fraud refers to evasion of tax by providing false information to the government or tax authorities. Tax fraud includes hiding income, indulging in fraudulent, complex (and often illegal) offshore tax havens as well as claiming refunds or tax benefits that you are not entitled to claim. Tax fraud attracts a variety of punitive action measures including penalties, fines, convictions and imprisonment.

• Leaking of sensitive information: This refers to leaking of sensitive information regarding confidential company data to external or competing entities. In many companies, employees often leak information due to ignorance regarding company policies regarding leakage of information. Leakage of sensitive information happens by accident as well as by malicious intent. Study reports indicate that information is leaked most commonly through emails and personal technology devices, text messages and so on. Leakage of sensitive information impacts large organisations as well as small businesses in Australia.
• Consumer fraud: This form of crime relates to selling of defective or hazardous substances to customers, unfair business practices, unlawful debt recovery schemes, scams, discrimination against consumers and so on. Consumer frauds may be committed by employees as well as by companies or their agents.

The world of business and corporate management can be a harsh and stressful one. Many employees may commit offences due to ignorance, accident or confusion regarding policies and regulations. If you find yourself faced with criminal charges or accused of white collared crime, the best way forward is to seek reliable legal counsel in your area.

While it doesn’t stop them from harming the person if they really want to, there are penalties for breaking the VRO. This can be enough to stop them from frightening or threatening someone where their action is not enough to bring a legal punishment against them. Sometimes people get so bitter and angry they act in ways that are stupid and not really what they are usually like.

For those people, having a VRO taken out against them often brings them to their senses and they realise that breaking it could get them gaol time. For others whose normal way of life is aggression or violence it may not help to keep them away from their victim, but the police are more likely to respond quickly to a call for help when they know the person has been served with a VRO.

They can also get extra gaol time; punishment for the violence done and punishment for breaking the terms of the VRO, so the victim will have a longer time of relief if both penalties are gaol time.  Sometimes the behaviour will gradually cease if the problem is caused by anger over a breakup. The VRO protects the victim for a certain the time frame, after which it is expected that the aggressor will have come to accept the break up and not be so angry.

Of course, there are other reasons apart from a relationship break up for a VRO to be instigated.  It may be taken out on behalf of a minor if they fear abuse from anyone from a parent to some other person. It can be taken out by an adult against anyone they fear who has victimised or scared them, intimidated them or hurt them or their possessions, or a pet that belongs to them, in an attempt to intimidate them.  Such a person might even be a stranger who stalks them.

Sometimes the very act of being served with a VRO is enough to shock that person into stopping the threatening behaviour, whatever it was.  No one should have to live in fear of being harmed, so if you have someone like that in your life, consider taking out a VRO on them. You won’t even have to see them for it to be done.

Everyone has certain rights, even if they are a convicted criminal. If you are a minor, you have just as much right as anyone else to be represented in court, not to mention the right to remain silent or only answer police questions with a lawyer present.

If you don’t know who to turn to, these lawyers will help you with

• Bail application
• Guilty or not guilty pleas
• Drug court appearances
• Sentence reviews before the President of the Children’s Court
• Higher court appeals

A free duty lawyer is available on the day of your court appearance, and can advise you before you appear in court. It is wise to always have a lawyer represent you and if your case goes to trial,  to stand up in court for you. That doesn’t mean you won’t have to go to court; just that you will have a professional lawyer to speak for you and support you.

It is important for you to tell your lawyer the truth about everything even if you are guilty, so they know the best way to help you. They can tell you what you should or shouldn’t say and how to act in court to give yourself the best chance of getting off with a lighter sentence. Of course, if you are not guilty, then you certainly need the support and help of a lawyer to ensure you don’t have to suffer any kind of punishment.

If you are granted bail, lawyers will be able to explain the terms of the bail to you so that you know exactly what you have to do in order to stay out of gaol until your trial date. Breaking the conditions of the bail will only land you in more trouble, so it is for your own good to ensure you know exactly what to do and what to avoid doing.

Very often, young people get into trouble when they didn’t mean to because they didn’t think ahead to the probable consequences of their actions. Remember that you can turn your life around if you want to, if you don’t like the way it is heading right now. Not breaking the bail conditions is a good start in doing so. The trouble you are in doesn’t have to happen again once you are determined to make that change. There are many people out there who will help you, once they see you are serious about changing your lifestyle.

In June 2000, appealing a state court’s decision to grant Burdine a retrial, the Texas Solicitor General’s office argued to a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court that Burdine’s Sixth Amendment rights were never in question, since a sleeping lawyer is no different from a lawyer who is intoxicated, under the influence of drugs, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or having a psychotic break. In spite of previous testimony by three jurors and a court reporter stating that Cannon had often slept during the trial, the panel ultimately upheld Burdine’s conviction and sentence because the record did not show that Cannon had slept through “crucial” parts of the trial.

Seventeen years after Burdine’s conviction, and after several appeals processes, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned the panel’s ruling on August 13, 2001 and Burdine finally won the right to a retrial. Afterward his appeals lawyer Robert McGlasson said, “The court’s opinion…establishes the simple truth that the right to counsel surely must mean an attorney who not only stays awake, but indeed provides vigorous advocacy throughout all phases of the criminal proceeding, and especially during the trial.”

Since the decision in Burdine’s case, Congress has passed the Innocence Protection Act, instituting basic and enforceable standards for court-appointed counsel and including reasonable measures encouraging states to provide qualified and experienced lawyers to all defendants facing the death penalty.

Cruz’s case is a chilling example of the need to preserve biological evidence. Cruz was lucky that the DNA evidence from the case had been preserved in order to facilitate the testing that would eventually prove his innocence. Some are not so lucky. For the past 27 years Raymond Grice of New Jersey has been imprisoned for two rapes for which he insists he is innocent. The opportunity to prove such innocence was lost when the evidence in Grice’s case was destroyed.

The evidence was destroyed because New Jersey law fails to protect DNA and biological evidence in criminal cases. Twenty-five states, including New Jersey, have no laws that mandate the preservation of physical evidence for the entire length of an inmate’s sentence. In New Jersey, each individual jurisdiction determines how long evidence should be kept by police and prosecutors, allowing evidence to be prematurely destroyed, and denying the wrongfully convicted a chance to prove his or her innocence.

The Justice Project’s policy review Improving Access to Post-Conviction DNA Testing argues for the preservation of biological evidence throughout a defendant’s entire sentence. To date, post-conviction DNA testing has lead to the exoneration of more than 200 wrongfully convicted individuals in the United States. But testing cannot take place unless the evidence is preserved.

It is absolutely critical that states like New Jersey enact statutes that require the preservation of biological evidence. Post-conviction DNA testing is a powerful tool that can help correct grave errors in the criminal justice system.

Without such testing, innocent people like Rolando Cruz would still be languishing in prison today and inmates with credible claims of innocence will be forced to suffer through the profound injustice of wrongful incarceration.

Last week the Detroit police crime lab was shut down after an audit in June of the ballistics division revealed a 10% error rate in 200 firearms cases they reviewed. A fear that this error rate pervaded all divisions was the main reason for the closure of this chronically under-funded and over-worked lab.

The discovery in the ballistics divisions has put the integrity of all forensic evidence testing and analysis in Detroit at risk. And the ramifications of the lab closure could be far-reaching. Innocent people may have been wrongfully convicted from flawed forensic evidence leaving dangerous criminals free to commit more crimes.

In Baltimore, the chief of the police crime lab was fired last month after it was revealed that a dozen DNA samples had been contaminated by lab employees. Again the lab’s reliability was called into question last week when The Baltimore Sun reported that in at least nine cases police told crime lab technicians to disregard DNA evidence matching convicted criminals found at crime scenes.

Though the police department’s policy was recently changed so all DNA evidence matching convicted persons found at crime scenes will be turned over to the prosecutor’s office, it raises questions about the number of cases where the DNA evidence was simply ignored.

Forensic evidence, especially DNA evidence, is heavily relied upon as a means to not only convict the guilty but also protect the innocent. When flawed or false forensic evidence makes its way into the courtroom, the integrity of the entire criminal justice system is called into question. Individuals are at risk of being wrongfully convicted and the public’s trust in our system of justice is eroded.

Most troubling about the discoveries in Detroit and Baltimore is that the errors found are not uncommon. In fact, flawed forensic evidence is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions. Faulty forensic evidence or testimony was a contributing factor in nearly sixty percent of the first 200 DNA exonerations.

Solutions to the problem of forensic error can be found in The Justice Project’s publication Improving the Practice and Use of Forensic Science: A Policy Review. Known sources of error in forensic testing and analysis are identified by profiling cases of injustice and researching state’s forensics statutes, as well as a model policy that outlines a structure of forensic laboratories that ensures the objectivity and reliability of forensic evidence are detailed in the policy review.

Though Detroit and Baltimore have taken important steps to rectify the situation in their respective states, it is not enough to prevent future error. Both cities must account for the systemic causes of forensic error in order to fix the flaws. Each jurisdiction should create an independent, transparent oversight commission responsible for conducting audits similar to that of the ballistics division in Detroit. An oversight commission would prevent widespread errors from occurring in the future by enforcing quality standards in the lab. Error rates in any division of a forensic lab should never reach the rate they have in Detroit.

Houston, which has had its own problems with crime lab errors, has been closed three times due to numerous forensic science flaws including loss and contamination of evidence to improper testing procedures and misread test results that have led to three wrongful convictions. But the city is taking an important step toward improving the accuracy of forensic evidence by utilizing independent, outside oversight. Just this week the police department asked the city council for funds to hire independent scientists to review the processes used at Houston’s DNA crime lab.

Another important way to prevent errors is through independence. Forensic laboratories across the country should be independent from law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies. Instead, nearly all state forensic labs are under the jurisdictions of law enforcement or the attorney general. As a result, analysts may come to see their role as part of the “crime-fighting team” rather than as neutral and objective agents of science. Influence from law enforcement is evident in Baltimore, where forensic labs were advised by police to limit the flow of potentially damaging DNA evidence to the prosecutor’s office and defense attorneys. Forensic science laboratories should be impartial agencies dedicated to scientific procedures that ensure accurate and reliable testing, and nothing else.

The lab closure in Detroit and discoveries in Baltimore show that forensic science is not infallible. However, simple reforms can be implemented to make it a more accurate science that can be trusted in the courtroom. The errors discovered in Detroit and Baltimore were preventable. With meaningful independent oversight and independence from law enforcement, forensic evidence and testimony can be a reliable and powerful tool for justice.

Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson were convicted of a crime they didn’t commit based on microscopic hair comparison – a notoriously unreliable forensic test. Williamson was sent to death row and Fritz spent a decade in prison before DNA testing proved their innocence. Brandon Moon, another innocent man, went to prison for seventeen years after a state forensic crime lab analyst gave erroneous testimony at his trial.

Flawless? According to a recent study, faulty forensic evidence or testimony was a contributing factor in nearly sixty percent of the first 200 DNA exonerations. While a few of those cases involved deliberate misconduct, most problems result from inadvertent errors due to the fact that many areas of forensic analysis involve discretionary interpretations by individual analysts.
Fortunately, there are simple steps that can be taken to ensure the integrity of forensic testing and analysis.

Today, The Justice Project is releasing Improving the Practice and Use of Forensic Science: A Policy Review. The policy review provides an overview of the problems with certain forensic science policies and procedures, offers solutions to these problems, profiles cases of injustice, highlights states with good laws and procedures, and includes a model policy to ensure the objectivity and reliability of forensic evidence.

Substantive, independent oversight is the first step. Forensic crime labs often operate with little or no oversight, and few states have established statutory standards to ensure the objectivity, reliability, and efficiency of forensic testing and analysis. To improve accountability, states should create independent commissions to oversee forensic science laboratories. The commissions would be responsible for implementing standards for laboratory performance, overseeing analyst training and continuing education, and instituting safeguards to ensure accurate testimony.

Often, bias is inadvertent. Information such as details of the crime, names of suspects, and the expected result can impact an analyst’s objectivity. In one study, experienced examiners were given fingerprints they had correctly identified in the past along with made up information, such as that the suspect had confessed. With the additional information, these examiners misidentified seventeen percent of the fingerprints.

Given that, states should require all forensic labs to develop internal structures and policies to prevent unintentional bias in testing and analysis. The use of an evidence control officer, for instance, could manage the flow of information from law enforcement to ensure that analysts receive only the information necessary to test the evidence.

Ideally, all laboratories should be independent from law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies to eliminate bias from the process. Instead nearly all state forensic labs are under the jurisdictions of police departments or the attorneys general. As a result, analysts may come to see their role as part of the “crime fighting team” rather than as neutral and objective agents of science. Independence helps labs become neutral environments dedicated to scientific procedures that ensure accurate and reliable testing.

The demands on forensic laboratories and the high stakes involved demand that analysts receive proper scientific training and are certified before they are allowed to perform forensic analysis or testify in criminal trials. Laboratories should also adopt a strong ethical code to help analysts understand the serious nature of their responsibilities and to guide them through the sometimes challenging ethical waters they face.

Of course none of these reforms can be achieved without sufficient funding. In many states, funding for forensic laboratories has remained constant despite a dramatic increase in workload. And low salaries make it difficult for forensic laboratories to hire and retain highly qualified analysts. Salaries must be competitive with other job opportunities to attract the best and brightest applicants.

While forensic laboratories have yielded critical evidence in countless cases, preventable error has subverted justice, convicted the innocent, and jeopardized public safety. Law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and the public at large all have a vested interest in making sure reforms are implemented to reduce the risk of mistakes and to elevate the quality and objectivity of forensic evidence and testimony.

But what if all the biological evidence is destroyed while you’re still in prison? What if there is evidence but it’s not discovered until after state-imposed deadline for seeking DNA testing? What if the state denies your petition for testing because you accepted a plea bargain to avoid a harsher sentence for a crime you didn’t commit? And what if you’re indigent and can’t afford an attorney to help navigate the complex legal and scientific issues involved in obtaining a DNA test?

The sad truth is that it often takes a series of miracles to gain access to post-conviction DNA testing. That’s because our criminal justice system continues to place significant obstacles in the way of post-conviction DNA testing that could determine whether the wrong people have been convicted and punished for crimes they didn’t commit.

Today, The Justice Project is releasing Increasing Assess to Post-Conviction DNA Testing: A Policy Review. This policy review explains the problems surrounding post-conviction DNA testing policies and procedures and identifies the best practices for states to adopt to ensure that post-conviction DNA testing contributes to a more accurate criminal justice system and restores public confidence in the system’s ability to correct its own errors.

To date, more than 200 people – including 16 who were sentenced to death – have been proven innocent by DNA testing. In many of those cases, the same DNA test helped bring the real perpetrators to justice.

But seven states – Alabama, Alaska, Massachusetts, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota and Oklahoma – don’t even have laws on the books allowing for post-conviction DNA testing. And those that do have laws fall short of what is needed to ensure that DNA testing can be used effectively to correct the injustice of wrongful conviction.

All but 12 states and the District of Columbia lack statutes requiring the preservation of evidence throughout an inmate’s incarceration. An investigative series this year by The Columbus Dispatch found that “evidence had been lost or destroyed nearly two-thirds of the time that prosecutors agreed to search for it because Ohio does not require evidence to be catalogued and saved.” States should require the preservation of biological evidence throughout a defendant’s sentence and devise standards regarding the custody of evidence.

States should also ensure that all inmates with a DNA-based innocence claim may petition for DNA testing at any time without regard to plea, confession, self-implication, the nature of the crime, or previous unfavorable test results. Nearly a dozen of the more than 200 DNA exonerees initially plead guilty, and 50 purportedly confessed to crimes they did not commit. And because DNA testing technology continues to improve, a defendant’s right to request testing must not be subject to time limitations. If new technology develops that might change the outcome of a test, the test should be performed.

The complexity of the petitioning process also creates an unreasonable burden for a wrongfully convicted person who needs DNA testing to prove his or her innocence. The steps involved in obtaining DNA testing are difficult even for experienced advocates. That’s why states should provide counsel and cover the cost of post-conviction DNA testing for indigent petitioners.

These are just a few of the steps that need to be taken. As with any good policy, the benefits of post-conviction DNA testing statutes outweigh the costs. While improving access to post-conviction DNA testing will require states to incur some initial costs, those costs are minimal and could end up saving states money in the long run.

The federal government recognized the importance of post-conviction DNA testing with the passage of the Innocence Protection Act (IPA) in 2004. The IPA includes the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, which authorizes $25 million over five years to help states defray the cost of post-conviction DNA testing. The program is named for Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, the first person sentenced to death to be exonerated by DNA evidence.

In Bloodsworth’s case, the DNA test results not only proved that he did not sexually assault and murder nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton, they also identified the real perpetrator who then confessed to the crime. But it took another series of miracles for that to happen. It was only through a chance encounter that Bloodsworth’s attorney learned that the trial judge had kept some of the evidence in a cardboard box in his chambers. And the attorney paid for the testing out of his own pocket.

Our criminal justice system is too fraught with error to rely on miracles to find the truth. Post-conviction DNA testing serves the interests of fairness, accuracy and public confidence in the criminal justice system, and states should make every effort to facilitate testing for defendants claiming innocence.

Increasing Access to Post-Conviction DNA Testing: A Policy Review is a new publication from The Justice Project designed to foster a dialogue among policy makers and to help states implement better DNA testing procedures and practices. This policy review provides an overview of problems with current post-conviction DNA testing laws, offers solutions to these problems, profiles cases of injustice, highlights states with good laws and policies for DNA testing, and includes a model policy.

As TJP President John Terzano wrote on The Huffington Post, “The sad truth is that it often takes a series of miracles to gain access to post-conviction DNA testing. … Our criminal justice system is too fraught with error to rely on miracles to find the truth. Post-conviction DNA testing serves the interests of fairness, accuracy and public confidence in the criminal justice system, and states should make every effort to facilitate testing for defendants claiming innocence.”

You can read Terzano’s blog post and learn about post-conviction DNA testing here.

Research on the exonerations of innocent people has identified many of the primary causes of wrongful convictions. Based on these findings, The Justice Project has constructed a national agenda for reform designed to eliminate common, preventable errors that undermine the fairness and accuracy of our criminal justice system. Increasing access to post-conviction DNA testing is one of TJP’s eight initiatives for criminal justice reform.

Along with a fresh, new look, this website has been designed to inform, engage and empower citizens and supporters of The Justice Project (TJP) as we work together to increase fairness and accuracy in the criminal justice system.

TJP’s website makes it easier to find important information about the primary causes of wrongful convictions and the reforms needed to prevent them. Through our Profiles of Injustice, you can read the true stories of innocent people convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Each wrongful conviction is a window into our criminal justice system’s failure to find the truth, and a reason to demand change.

The story of Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, the first person sent to death row to be exonerated by DNA testing, is a powerful illustration of the common mistakes that lead to wrongful convictions. As a program officer for The Justice Project, Kirk now travels the country to raise awareness about the need for criminal justice reform. Learn more about Kirk’s story and how you can invite Kirk to speak in your town.

Our website includes a number of useful tools we’ve developed to facilitate a healthy dialogue about the need for reform and to keep you up-to-date with the latest criminal justice reform developments.

Policy Reviews – TJP’s Policy Reviews provide an in-depth look at the primary causes of wrongful convictions and our recommendations to fix them, backed up by the latest scientific research on the best practices and procedures. The first four Policy Reviews are available online. The remaining four will be published this summer, with recommendations currently available online.

State Work – Along with our national work, TJP is engaged in two focused campaigns to reform the criminal justice systems in Tennessee and Texas. We’ve expanded the Texas section of our website and highlighted our work. We’ve also collaborated with The Tennessee Justice Project in Nashville on a new website with unique resources related to our work to improve indigent defense and prevent wrongful convictions in Tennessee.

Justice NewsLadders – TJP helped develop The Justice NewsLadder to provide the most current news in criminal justice reform across the country. The Justice NewsLadder, which is updated daily, can be found on our home page and also here. We’ve also created NewsLadders for Texas and Tennessee news.

TJP Blog – Also new to the website is a TJP Blog, which will highlight breaking developments and keep visitors informed about TJP’s current work. The TJP Blog is also accessible via RSS feed, which can be found at the bottom of our home page.

Of course, our website also has more information about The Justice Project and our mission, our successes, and our staff.

We hope you’ll find the site useful as a place to learn about the issues and how you can take action to help make our criminal justice system fair, accurate and reliable. You can help us achieve these goals by signing up to receive periodic e-mails from The Justice Project and by making a tax-free contribution online that will help support our work.

Sincerely,

John Terzano
President
The Justice Project

Earlier this month, Glen Chapman of North Carolina became the 128th prisoner on death row to be released since 1972. The courts found that detectives committed perjury at Chatman’s trial and withheld potential evidence of his innocence from his defense attorneys. The forensic evidence was so bad that one of the two homicides pinned on Chapman may in fact have been a drug overdose. Chatman, who spent 14 years behind bars, was also a victim of bad defense lawyering.

Chapman’s exoneration doesn’t prove the system works. Just the opposite: It shows how a broken system produces spectacular failures that are bad for defendants and victims alike. That’s why I founded The Justice Project, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing fairness and accuracy in the criminal justice system.

A large part of our work involves educating citizens and criminal justice stakeholders about the serious problems and common-sense solutions in a way that creates an environment for reform. People need to know that these problems are not rare or isolated incidents. Stories like the one mentioned above are reported every day around the country, but all too often they reach a limited audience or wind up lost in the shuffle of other news coverage.

This is why we have helped launch The Justice NewsLadder, a new web site designed to make staying on top of developments in criminal justice reform easier. The Justice Newsladder pulls together daily news articles, blog posts, videos and other media so that real-time information is readily accessible with the click of a mouse. On The Justice NewsLadder, you’ll find information about the problems of unreliable witness identification, false confessions, junk forensic science and more. You’ll also find stories of people taking on the difficult work of making the system better.

In addition, we are launching two state-specific NewsLadders – the Tennessee Justice NewsLadder and the Texas Justice NewsLadder – to provide information about states where we are actively engaged in improving the state justice systems.

You can play an important role in making the Justice NewsLadders an essential tool for criminal justice reform. The format of The Justice NewsLadder allows anyone who signs up to post a link, recommend a link, comment on a story and raise the profile of a story by voting it up the ladder. The more people join and the more information they post to the Justice NewsLadder, the better informed we all will be.

Access to information is essential to understanding the issues and being able to take action to create a more just and humane world. We hope The Justice NewsLadder will help more people understand not only the challenges we face, but also the actions we need to take to achieve a more just and accurate criminal justice system.

John F. Terzano is President of The Justice Project, a nonpartisan organization that works to increase fairness and accuracy in the criminal justice system, with a focus on the capital punishment system. The blog was originally published on The Huffington Post.

The program provides federal grants to states to conduct DNA testing that can exonerate the innocent and help identify the truly guilty. At the time, the program’s creation seemed a fitting end to a terrible chapter in my life, my 20-year struggle to prove my innocence after being convicted and sentenced to die for the brutal rape and murder of Dawn Hamilton, a 9-year-old girl I had never met.

Given my life experience, however, I should have known that the struggle for justice never ends. Without adequate funding and the proper implementation, a law on the books is just words on paper, even if the words come from Congress. And that’s how this Administration and its Department of Justice are treating the Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA program.

To date, Congress has appropriated nearly $14 million for the Bloodsworth program. Yet DoJ has yet to approve a single grant application or send the first dollar to states requesting the funding.

Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Today I’ll be at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where Justice Department officials will try to explain away their failure to carry out this critical program. Based on the history of the IPA, however, it’s clear that DoJ’s failure is no accident. The department has been against this program from the beginning. They opposed it when the House passed the legislation by the resounding vote of 393 to 14. They opposed it when it passed the Senate. And they opposed it when it was signed into law.

Unable to stop the law from being enacted, DoJ is now holding the program’s funding hostage and denying people with claims of innocence the chance to prove it.

It’s simply inexcusable.

Post-conviction DNA testing is a powerful means for ensuring public safety. It has not only led to the exoneration of over 200 wrongfully convicted individuals, it has also confirmed many a suspect’s guilt. When states are denied funding for post-conviction DNA testing, they are being denied the truth.

My life is proof of the injustice that can happen when our criminal justice system makes mistakes and the power of DNA testing to enable those mistakes to be corrected. After my arrest and conviction in 1984, I waited 8 years, 11 months and 19 days in prison, including two years on Maryland’s death row, before DNA testing proved my innocence. Then I waited another 10 years for the prosecution to run the DNA profile of the perpetrator in state and federal databases to find out that the real rapist and murderer was a man on my cell block who was in prison for another assault.

Quite simply, had it not been for DNA testing, I would have died an innocent man in prison.

Mistakes in the criminal justice system are not new. The organization I work for, The Justice Project, has been studying the leading factors of wrongful convictions and advocating for meaningful reform to prevent further miscarriages of justice. Post-conviction DNA testing offers the unique opportunity to correct the mistakes of our criminal justice system while helping it to become more fair and reliable. With states being denied access to the appropriated millions for DNA testing, errors will likely go uncorrected and further mistakes are certain.

I don’t have all the answers to the problems facing our criminal justice system, but I do know that there are other cases like mine out there. I feel a personal responsibility to each state that has been denied this grant money for post-conviction DNA testing. As this program bears my name, I feel it is my obligation to ensure that it is funded and implemented as it was meant to be. No one should have to wait 20 years for justice.

The Department of Justice has the money and the guidance from Congress needed to make the Bloodsworth DNA testing program work. The time for excuses is over.

Kirk Noble Bloodsworth is the first person sentenced to death row in the United States to be exonerated by DNA evidence. He is the program officer of The Justice Project, a nonpartisan organization that works to address unfairness and inaccuracy in the criminal justice system, with a focus on the capital punishment system.

Writing in the April 2001 issue of The Champion (”Innocence Protection Act: Death Penalty Reform on the Horizon”), I said optimistically: “The criminal justice pendulum may be swinging back in the direction of fairness. The Innocence Protection Act of 2001, introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives earlier this year, promises meaningful reforms in the administration of capital punishment in the United States.” Four years later I’d claim that prediction was fairly accurate. While the reforms in the final bill are not as meaningful as I and others had hoped, the pendulum clearly swung. (Title IV of Public Law 108-405, Justice for All Act.)

The IPA marks a dramatic departure from 25 years of congressional debate on the death penalty. Soon after the Supreme Court revived capital punishment in 1976, proposals emerged to restore the federal death penalty. In 1986, the Reagan Administration unsuccessfully urged the U.S. Sentencing Commission to promulgate guidelines for federal capital punishment. In 1988, as part of an omnibus anti-drug bill, Congress reauthorized the federal death penalty for certain drug-related murders. The 1994 crime bill signed by President Clinton authorized a death sentence for over 50 new and existing federal crimes.

At the same time that Congress was dusting off the machinery of federal capital punishment, it began to debate measures to limit federal review of state death sentences. Proposals to eviscerate habeas corpus came close to passage in crime bills throughout the early 1990s, but were held at bay by strenuous opposition from senior Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and members of the Emergency Committee to Save Habeas Corpus, co-chaired by former Attorneys General Katzenbach, Richardson, Levi and Civiletti. Pressure to streamline death row appeals finally found an outlet in the 1996 anti-terrorism bill that followed the Oklahoma City bombing. That same Congress cut off funding for the death penalty resource centers that had provided a modicum of procedural protection for death row inmates in a number of active death penalty jurisdictions.

But by 2000, the climate began to change. The advent of DNA technology demonstrated with scientific precision the fallibility of the criminal justice system. Pioneering legal work and public advocacy by Innocence Project founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld exonerated dozens of long-time prisoners based on post-conviction DNA testing. An overlapping list of wrongly convicted death row inmates – some exonerated by DNA testing, some by non-scientific evidence – began to grow, and soon both lists topped 100. Public pressure that only a few years earlier led to an acceleration of capital punishment now shifted in favor of closer scrutiny of death sentences to protect the innocent.
Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman William Delahunt both began their political careers as prosecutors, Leahy in Vermont and Delahunt in Massachusetts. Both Democrats are opponents of the death penalty, but they are also savvy legislators. They built alliances with Republican death penalty supporters – Leahy with Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon and Delahunt with Congressman Ray LaHood of Illinois – to advance a package of new statutory protections for capital defendants. They dubbed their proposal the Innocence Protection Act.

Introduction of the IPA in 2000 coincided with the decision of Governor George Ryan to impose a moratorium on executions in Illinois following the exoneration of 13 death row inmates in that state. Ryan attended an early press conference on the Innocence Protection Act and was the star witness at the first House Judiciary Committee hearing on the bill.
During this time, a non-profit organization called The Justice Project – for which I served as outside counsel – developed a grassroots and media campaign to publicize growing concerns about the administration of capital punishment and build support for the Leahy/Delahunt reforms. Eventually dozens of senators and over half of the House cosponsored the bill.

Still, it would require five years of legislative slogging before the IPA would become law. Proponents of reform faced institutional opposition from federal and state prosecutors as well as skepticism from senior Republican members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees who, only a few years before, had championed the 1996 limits on habeas corpus.

Early versions of the IPA were more wide-ranging than the recently enacted law. From the outset, the two pillars of the bill were expanded access to post-conviction DNA testing and improvements in the systems by which states appoint defense lawyers for indigent capital defendants. But the original IPA also contained other reforms such as limits on the application of the federal death penalty in states that do not authorize capital punishment, improved jury instructions in federal capital cases, and a Sense of Congress that juveniles and the mentally retarded should not be executed. These peripheral proposals dropped out during legislative negotiations over the years.

Moreover, the two central reforms in the bill were significantly altered to obtain the support needed for passage. The original post-conviction DNA testing title invoked section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to create an entitlement to scientific testing – without time limits – for inmates with plausible claims of innocence. Similarly, the competent counsel title of the bill established federal counsel standards with which every state would be required to comply, as a condition of the state’s defenses in habeas proceedings. Neither reform survived intact.

The bill sponsors agreed to make compromises at two critical stages. In 2002, negotiations with Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA), Joe Biden (D-DE) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) – all strong death penalty supporters – resulted in a version of the bill being reported favorably from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Notably that version of the bill abandoned any linkage between counsel reforms and habeas corpus. Each state authorizing capital punishment would receive funds to improve their counsel systems and those improvements would be enforced through a private right of action in federal court. But a state’s failure to live up to the bill’s requirements would not alter the scope of federal review of its death sentences.

Then in late 2003, the sponsors engaged in intense negotiations with House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), eventually winning the support of both key members. The price of their support, however, was steep. Rather than a broadly applicable right to post-conviction DNA testing, the compromise bill established a procedure for federal prisoners to obtain testing and conditioned certain federal funds on states enacting similar procedures. And rather than requiring every state to improve their capital counsel systems with enforcement via a private right of action, the 2003 compromise merely authorized a discretionary grant program to help willing states develop improved systems.

Perhaps the most painful compromise to emerge from the 2003 negotiation was the requirement that grants to improve the representation of capital defendants be matched by equal-sized grants to capital prosecutors. While the provision authorizing federal support to capital prosecutors is carefully circumscribed, it represents the first time that the federal government will specifically bolster a state’s resources to carry out capital punishment. Of course only states that accept federal money to improve their defense systems will obtain money for prosecutors.

Even with the support of Sensenbrenner and Hatch, the bill did not become law in 2003. After the new bill was reported favorably by the House Judiciary Committee, Majority Leader Tom DeLay insisted on a special rule to protect the 2001 state law under which Texas had begun to reform its own counsel appointment system. And even after the bill overwhelmingly passed the House packaged with President Bush’s proposal to expand use of the federal DNA database, the Department of Justice nonetheless sent a scathing letter of opposition that emboldened Senate opponents led by Jon Kyl of Arizona.

The IPA only passed the Senate after Chairman Sensenbrenner played legislative hardball by attaching it to highly popular victim’s rights legislation sponsored by Kyl. Even so, opponents were able to win one final concession: a soft time limit on post-conviction DNA testing described below. So altered, the IPA became law as Title IV of H.R. 5107, the Justice for All Act. President Bush signed the bill into law on October 30, 2004, just days before the 2004 election. Were it not for the election, Bush might have vetoed the bill because the Justice Department remained opposed to the bitter end.

Now that the dust has settled, it is possible to examine the final version of the IPA to see whether it lives up to my 2001 prediction in these pages that “enactment of meaningful reform is inevitable.” At the very least, it can be said that the new law plants the seeds of meaningful reform.

In the remainder of this article, I will review the key provisions of the enacted version of the IPA. A fuller description of the act and useful legislative history can be found in Senator Leahy’s floor statement at S11609 of the Congressional Record (November 19, 2004).

Title IV of the Justice For All Act contains two subtitles: Subtitle A enacts a new chapter in the Federal Criminal Code dealing with DNA testing. It establishes rules for when a court shall order post-conviction DNA testing (to be codified at 18 U.S.C. 3600) and rules for when the government may dispose of biological evidence (to be codified at 18 U.S.C. 3600A). Subtitle B authorizes grants to states to improve the quality of legal representation in capital cases.

Under new Section 3600, a federal inmate can obtain post-conviction DNA testing by showing that the testing may produce new material evidence that would raise a reasonable probability that the inmate did not commit the offense for which he is imprisoned. This standard was the subject of difficult negotiations, as members recognized that setting the standard too low could invite frivolous applications, while setting it too high could defeat the purpose of the legislation and result in injustice. In the end, Congress was guided by the principle that the criminal justice system should err on the side of permitting testing.

The bill lists numerous requirements for obtaining a post-conviction DNA test, but none are onerous enough to defeat a meritorious claim. Notably, the applicant must assert his or her innocence under penalty of perjury; the evidence to be tested must have been retained under conditions sufficient to ensure that it was not contaminated; and the applicant must identify a theory of exoneration that is not inconsistent with any affirmative defense presented at trial.

If the applicant was convicted following a trial, the identity of the perpetrator must have been at issue in the trial. If the applicant was convicted following a guilty plea, this requirement does not apply. Congress rightly rejected the Justice Department’s position that inmates who pleaded guilty should be ineligible for DNA testing in light of the many documented cases in which defendants pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit, due to fear, mental disability, or other reasons.

As noted earlier, the final version of the IPA includes a “soft time limit” on DNA testing. Section 3600 requires that motions for post-conviction DNA testing be made “in a timely fashion.” There is a rebuttable presumption of timeliness if the motion is filed within five years of enactment of the IPA, or three years after the applicant’s conviction, whichever is later. Thereafter it is presumed that a motion is untimely, except upon good cause shown. The good cause exception is intentionally open-ended, and, as Senator Leahy made clear in his November 19 floor statement, should be sufficient to permit any serious claim of innocence to move forward.

This provision is far from a rigid three-year time limit, which is what the Justice Department sought. In rejecting a time limit, Congress recognized the need for a permanent DNA testing law. The need will likely diminish over time as pre-trial DNA testing becomes more prevalent, but there will always be cases that fall through the cracks due to a defense lawyer’s incompetence, a defendant’s mental illness or mental retardation, or other reasons. There should be no statute of limitations on serious claims of innocence.

Of course there can be no post-conviction DNA testing unless biological evidence is preserved. With certain exceptions, new section 3600A requires the preservation of all biological evidence secured in relation to a federal criminal case for as long as any person remains incarcerated in connection with that case unless meaningful notice of imminent destruction is permitted. If the evidence is unusually large or bulky, or if it must be returned to its rightful owner, the government may remove and retain representative portions of the evidence.

While it provides a statutory procedure for federal prisoners to obtain DNA testing, the final bill does not directly establish such a right for state prisoners. However the IPA encourages states that have not already done so to enact evidence retention and post-conviction DNA testing laws of their own. This incentive is created by conditioning certain grant programs authorized in the act on the adoption of state procedures for providing post-conviction DNA testing and preserving biological evidence comparable to the new federal procedures.

The bill also authorizes federal grants to assist states in carrying out post-conviction DNA testing. Fittingly, this new grant program is named in honor of Kirk Bloodsworth, the first death row prisoner exonerated by DNA testing and a major advocate for enactment of the IPA itself.

Post-conviction DNA testing is an essential safeguard that can save innocent lives. But most criminal cases do not involve biological evidence at all. Subtitle B of title IV addresses the predominant cause of wrongful convictions: inadequate defense representation at trial.

Testimony in both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees documented the utter failure of most states to provide competent lawyers to indigent defendants facing the death penalty. Too often individuals facing the ultimate punishment are represented by lawyers who are drunk, sleeping, soon-to-be disbarred, or just plain ineffective. Even the best lawyers in these systems are hampered by inadequate compensation and insufficient investigative resources.

Section 421 of the new law authorizes a federal grant program to improve the quality of legal representation provided to indigent defendants in state capital cases. Grants will be used to establish or improve an “effective system” for providing competent legal representation in capital cases.

The phrase “effective system” is a term of art. It is defined in the new law to mean a system in which a public defender program or other entity establishes capital counsel qualifications, maintains a roster of qualified attorneys, and itself assigns attorneys from the roster in each capital case. The underlying purpose of the scheme is to help insulate the appointment process from the political pressures that make it difficult for trial judges to appoint competent lawyers in individual cases.

The act’s definition of an effective system evolved from standards developed by the American Bar Association and adopted by other standard-setting bodies, such as the Constitution Project’s blue-ribbon commission on capital punishment. While the ABA standards call for an “independent” appointing authority, the word “independent” dropped out of the IPA during negotiations. Still, the law precludes the participation of sitting prosecutors on the panel, although judges may participate. Significantly, Sen. Leahy’s floor statement describes North Carolina and New York, two states that have established relatively independent state-wide entities for this purpose, as models for the national program.

In the course of negotiations to pass the bill in the House last year, sponsors of the bill reluctantly accepted an amendment, now Section 421(e)(1)(C) of the act, that has come to be described as “the Texas carve-out.” Under this provision, a state may qualify for a capital representation improvement grant if it has adopted and substantially complies with a state statutory procedure enacted before the IPA under which the trial judge appoints attorneys from a roster maintained by a state or regional selection committee or similar entity.

In fact, the “Texas carve-out” is not a carve-out at all. It simply acknowledges that Texas is in the process of implementing a recent statewide reform law, the Fair Defense Act of 2001, and should be permitted to continue that process. If Texas is awarded a federal grant it will still be required to improve its capital counsel appointment system, but federal authorities will measure those improvements against standards in the 2001 Texas law.

Texas is not yet living up to the promise of the Fair Defense Act. A November 2003 report by the Equal Justice Center and the Texas Defender Service demonstrates that many Texas counties have failed to establish effective roster systems for identifying qualified lawyers and fail to provide reasonable compensation to capital counsel. If Texas accepts federal funds under this new program, it will be required to live up to its own standards, including a requirement of reasonable compensation.

Indeed, any “effective system” under the new law must provide “reasonable” compensation to capital defense lawyers. Thus, section 421(e)(2)(F)(ii) requires, among other things, that public defenders be compensated according to a salary scale commensurate with the salary scale of the prosecutor’s office in the jurisdiction. This requirement parallels the requirement that capital representation improvement grants are to be divided evenly between the defense and prosecution functions. In these provisions the bill’s sponsors endorsed the concept of resource parity between the defense and the prosecution.

Another important requirement concerning attorney compensation appears in section 421(e)(2)(F)(ii)(II), which states that appointed attorneys be compensated “for actual time and service, computed on an hourly basis and at a reasonable hourly rate in light of the qualifications and experience of the attorney and the local market for legal representation in cases reflecting the complexity and responsibility of capital cases.” Again, this concept is drawn from the American Bar Association standards. This new statutory requirement would clearly preclude a participating state from compensating attorneys under a flat fee or capped fee system, because such a system would not compensate the attorney for “actual time and services, computed on an hourly basis.”

In his November 19 floor statement, Senator Leahy suggested that a state rate comparable to the federal compensation rate of $125 per hour should be considered reasonable in most parts of the country, taking into account regional cost of living differences. “Capital cases are among the most complex, high stakes cases tried in any courthouse, and the lawyers who represent defendants in such cases should be paid at a rate comparable to that earned by other lawyers engaged in similarly important litigation.” Cong. Rec. at S 11614.

For those states that accept funds to improve their defense systems, section 422 authorizes grants to state capital prosecutors. These grants may only be used to implement training programs for capital prosecutors; enforce appropriate standards for prosecutors and assess their performance; establish programs under which prosecutors conduct a systematic review to identify cases in which post-conviction DNA testing is appropriate; and to assist the families of murder victims.

A key limitation on these prosecution grants is that they may not be used “to fund, directly or indirectly, the prosecution of specific capital cases.” They are not to be used to hire additional capital prosecutors. As Senator Leahy said in his floor statement, “the bill’s sponsors intend the grant program to be administered in a way that ensures meaningful improvements in this vital State function. Congress did not create this program to support existing death penalty systems in the States but rather to leverage needed improvements.”

Finally, the requirements of the new grant program are enforced through a unique system of audits by the inspector general of the Department of Justice, informed by public comment. While it would have been preferable for a state’s compliance with federal requirements to be assessed by a federal habeas court, as the original IPA contemplated, the inspector general is an independent voice within the department who can be counted on to render a judgment without political interference.

It is important to acknowledge the limitations of the final IPA, especially the counsel title. Funds may never be appropriated for the new grant program. Even if funds are available, the states most in need of reform may never apply for a grant in order to avoid subjecting the state to federal oversight. Thus, the final version of the Innocence Protection Act amounts to only incremental, potential advances.

Nonetheless, the act establishes a framework for improving the administration of capital punishment and the justice system generally. It creates a foothold in federal law for congressional oversight of state death penalty systems. And most importantly, it represents the first time Congress has recognized flaws in capital punishment and the fallibility of the justice system.

In these ways, the IPA is a turning point in the national debate over the administration of the death penalty reform and the reliability of the criminal justice system as a whole.

As published in the March 2005 edition of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers‘ magazine, The Champion.

“After days, months and now years of hard-fought negotiations we finally reached an agreement. This bipartisan, bicameral legislation is one of the most significant bills that will come out of the 108th Congress,” said Hatch.

“This bill represents a compromise which was reached through extensive negotiations among Senators on the Judiciary Committee and members of the House Committee on the Judiciary,” Hatch said. “We have done justice today and set an example of what the legislative process can accomplish. I commend my colleague from Vermont, Senator Leahy, as well as Chairman Sensenbrenner and Congressman Delahunt, for their unrelenting commitment to finalising this monumental legislation.”

“This is a groundbreaking crime bill that will allow us to unleash the evidentiary power of DNA,” continued Hatch. “It will provide law enforcement with the ability to find and punish the guilty, yet give us the comfort of more certainty in criminal prosecutions.”

“DNA technology has the power to protect the innocent and convict the guilty and will move our criminal justice system into a new era of increased fairness and efficiency,” said Hatch.

Provisions of the “Justice for All Act of 2004” include:

• President’s Bush’s DNA Initiative, which was announced on March 11, 2003, and provides $755 million for the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program to eliminate the current backlog of over 400,000 rape kits (and other crime scene evidence) awaiting DNA analysis in the nation’s crime labs.
• Senators DeWine’s and Biden’s Rape Kits and DNA Evidence Backlog Elimination Act and DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act, which authorize over $500 million for additional grant programs to: (1) improve the capacity of federal, state and local crime labs to conduct DNA analyses; (2) reduce other forensic science backlogs; (3) train criminal justice personnel in the use of DNA evidence; (4) support sexual assault forensic examiner programs; and (5) promote the use of DNA technology to identify missing persons.
• Senator Leahy’s Innocence Protection Act: (1) creates a federal post-conviction DNA testing process to protect the innocent from wrongful prosecutions; (2) helps States improve the quality of legal representation in capital cases; and (3) increases compensation in Federal cases of wrongful conviction. In addition, the bill creates the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program and authorises $25 million over five years to help the States to defray the costs of post-conviction DNA testing.
• Senators Kyl’s and Feinstein’s Crime Victims Rights Act that ensures victims’ rights are protected in criminal prosecutions.