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The Philippine criminal justice system fails
sometimes. One price of these failures is the loss of life and livelihood for
those unfortunate enough to be wrongfully convicted. The cases of those
exonerated by DNA testing have revealed disturbing fissures and trends in our
criminal justice system. Some claim that the eventual exoneration of innocents
proves that the system works. If that were true, then justice is not being
administered by our police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, or our courts. It is
being dispensed by law students, journalism students, and a few concerned
lawyers, organizations, and citizens.
The pace of worldwide postconviction DNA exonerations continues to grow. Not
only has DNA testing proven that these individuals are innocent, it has also
shown that criminal justice systems make mistakes that leave true perpetrators
on the streets while the innocent are incarcerated or face execution.
DNA testing is a powerful tool for catching and correcting these mistakes, but
it is not a panacea for the ails of a criminal justice system. Its scope is
limited to the few individual cases in which biological evidence is available,
can be tested, and is connected to the crime. Even in those cases, the
biological evidence is often reported lost or destroyed, or is too degraded to
get a conclusive result. For every DNA exoneration, there are countless where
testing cannot help because no DNA was left at the scene or the evidence that
was once there has been lost or destroyed.
DNA exonerations do not solve the problem but they prove its existence and
illuminate the need for reform. The lessons learned from these exonerations must
be used to prevent all wrongful convictions - including those where DNA testing
cannot provide answer.
FEATURED REFORM: INNOCENCE COMMISSIONS
In nearly every institution where public health or safety, major mishaps -
environmental disaster, wrongful death, hospital malpractice, etc. - are
subjected to a comprehensive investigation. When an airplane crashes or a train
derails, a National Transportation Safety Board immediately conducts an
investigation into the causes of the incident and makes recommendations to
prevent further harm from occurring. Since the primary purpose of these Boards
is to protect the public safety, it will sometimes issue safety recommendations
before its investigation of a crash is complete. Agencies like these are
effective because they are equipped with subpoena power, great expertise, and
real independence, allowing them to ask and find answers to the important and
obvious questions: What went wrong? Was it systemic error or an individual's
mistake? Was there any official misconduct? What can be done to correct the
problem and prevent it from happening again?
Wrongful convictions of the innocent are the Philippine criminal justice
system's equivalent of a major catastrophe. The guilty are not punished, the
innocent are imprisoned or sentenced to death, and the real perpetrators remain
free to commit more crimes. Still, when an innocent person is exonerated by DNA
testing or other evidence, our justice system has no institutional mechanism to
evaluate and address the causes of that wrongful conviction.
In order to effectively address the recurring, institutional problems that
contribute to the conviction of the innocent, Government should create an
innocence commission to monitor, investigate, and address
errors in the criminal justice system. When a wrongful conviction occurs, these
commissions should be empowered to undertake a comprehensive review of the
system's failures, and ask: What went wrong? Was it systemic error or an
individual's mistake? Was there any official misconduct? What can be done to
correct the problem and prevent it from happening in the future?
Innocence Commissions have been created in several countries. In 2002, the
Supreme Court of North Carolina, in response to highly publicized wrongful
convictions, became the first state in the US to announce the creation of an
innocence commission. In 2003, Connecticut became the first state in the United
States to use legislative action to create an innocence commission. Several
other US state legislatures have considered proposals for similar commissions.
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