Learning What We Can from DNA
DNA has forever altered the death penalty debate—but how and why? Two death penalty cases illustrate what DNA tests have done to affect some death penalty cases, but not others. In this essay, I compare the DNA exoneration of Kirk Bloodsworth with the case of Troy Davis, who was not exonerated by DNA or anything else. Very few death penalty cases—and homicides generally—have testable DNA evidence, but a small number of cases that do have resulted in exonerations, raising larger questions that have had a broad impact on the public and policymakers. This has produced legislative efforts to make the death penalty more accurate, fascinating debates among judges and policymakers, and changes in public attitudes. DNA and accuracy can cut both ways for those who want to abolish the death penalty and also for those who want to defend the institution.