Garbage belts in the USA do not only contain all that could have been recycled and should never have been bought. It also contains boxes with evidence that could have been examined for DNA and could possibly have led to someone’s exoneration or conviction.
“Clarence Moses-EL may spend the rest of his life behind bars as the face of a national problem that too long has gone ignored. From prison, the Colorado inmate won a judge’s permission to test the DNA evidence from a rape for which he says he was wrongfully convicted. He managed to raise $1,000 from fellow inmates to pay for the lab work. Denver police wrapped up the evidence and labeled the box, “DO NOT DESTROY.” Nevertheless, it got tossed in the trash.”
The Obama administration has now announced that they will launch a federal working group to recommend standards for preserving forensic evidence. “The aim is national guidelines that can be adopted by law enforcement, courts and anyone else who’s responsible for storing evidence, especially long term,” says Mark Stolorow of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
TV shows glorify DNA forensics and their storage facilities are always guarded, impeccably clean, temperature controlled and organized. In real life, however, too many evidence rooms are mismanaged, are under- funded, and routinely failing to track valuable items from crime scenes. Prosecutors and police nationwide claim costly storage space among their reasons to justify tossing DNA samples, including rape kits. The taxpayers of Colorado Springs paid $1.24 million to expand evidence rooms in 2002. But the space was cramped with unorganized piles within three years! So…the Police Department trashed evidence from 500 cases, including several cold-case sex crimes and suspected murders.
Read the article here.
