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What Are The Causes Of Dna Crimes

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In today’s world, there are 69 organizations that have come together to create a group that is known as the Innocence Network. These agencies consist of 56 within the United States, and 13 stationed from around the world that all work together and apart to help and exonerate those that have been wrongfully convicted. The 13 international agencies include Argentine, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.(Innocence Network) Some of the agencies actually work together internationally such as Italy and the United States with the Amanda Knox trial, and Ireland and Greece with the later explained Mark Marku case. Most international agencies take cases that do and do not include DNA …show more content…

Although DNA has been used more and more to prove those who were wrongfully convicted innocent, there have been many times when the DNA evidence had also caused the conviction such as the case of Frank Button from Canada later described. There are many excuses and causes as to why these wrongful convictions has occurred such as forced confessions, but a lot of causes have to do actually do with forensics. Especially in America, as stated by the Innocence project, 46 percent of the overall 347 DNA exonerations that they have worked on were originally convicted due to the misapplication of forensic science. There have been many cases of wrongful convictions that have been due to improper forensic science, not only in America, but all around the globe. This essay discusses both the scientists around the globe that have been caught mishandling evidence, as well as individuals around the globe that have either been wrongfully convicted due to improper forensic science, or the use of forensic science had helped to exonerate …show more content…

He served 16 years in prison, one of the reasons for his wrongful conviction was because of a woman by the name of Janice Roadcap who was a chemist for the Pennsylvania State Police crime lab had provided a fake testimony during trial. Roadcap had stated that the vaginal swab that was taken from the victim matched the blood type of Laughman because the victim’s secretion masked the true semens’ blood type. Apparently, the victim was a type A secretor and Barry Laughman is a type B secretor, therefore Roadcap stated that the victims type A had masked Laughmans type B. The other issue with these swabs was that when the defence had looked for the samples in 2000 to retest them, they were missing from the evidence file. They were then found overseas in the hands of an ex-professor of the Pennsylvania State University. Another issue with the conviction of Barry Laughman was the fact that his confession was false and coerced by police. Barry was said to have a very low IQ which in turn allows him to be intimidated and manipulated easily, which had happened in his case. Finally, after serving his 16 years, he was released due to new testing done on the DNA of the vaginal

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