Tag Archives: DNA

Ellis’ innocence bills

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

As he has done for the past several sessions, State Sen. Rodney Ellis has introduced numerous bills that will address issues of wrongful convictions and criminal justice procedures designed to help prevent them from happening. Ellis is proposing an “Innocence … Continue reading →

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An answer in the Claude Jones case

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Back in June, I noted the case of Claude Jones, who had been executed in 2000 for a murder committed in 1990. The main piece of evidence used to convict him was a single strand of hair that a forensic … Continue reading →

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It’s still hard to free an innocent person

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

No surprise, right? While some appellate attorneys are applauding Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos’ establishment of a Post Conviction Review Section, whose work led to the freedom of two wrongfully convicted men in the past week, Texas law continues … Continue reading →

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Claude Jones

Posted on June 19, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Claude Jones was a Texas inmate who was executed ten years ago. He protested his innocence of the crime for which he was put to death till the end. Now we may get to see if he was telling the … Continue reading →

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Beyond DNA exonerations

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

We’re all familiar with the way the Dallas DA’s office has handled using DNA to review cases in which a defendant’s guilt may have been in question. Now that most of the cases in which DNA evidence still exists have … Continue reading →

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Skinner gets reprieve from SCOTUS

Posted on March 24, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Good. The U.S. Supreme Court today stayed the execution of capital killer Henry Skinner one hour before he was to be put to death for the 1993 murders of his Pampa girlfriend and her two adult sons. The court halted … Continue reading →

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Hank Skinner

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

We’re all familiar with the Todd Willingham case and the possibility that he was an innocent man, but there’s another inmate scheduled for execution this week in which similar questions about innocence have been raised. The seven-member Texas Board of … Continue reading →

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Tim Cole officially pardoned

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

This is a small bit of good to come out of a great injustice. The [Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles] sent a letter to Tim Cole’s attorney at the Innocence Project of Texas on Friday saying that it had … Continue reading →

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The forensics backlog

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

I was going to blog about this Chron story regarding a backlog in fingerprint analyses for the HPD Crime Lab, but Grits said most of what I was going to say, so just go read him. The key, I think, … Continue reading →

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More LWOP, fewer death sentences

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The number of death sentences handed out by Texas juries has declined sharply in recent years, with the new life without parole (LWOP) sentence being one reason why. While the debate over capital punishment rages anew in Texas, new inmates … Continue reading →

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Link roundup on Todd Willingham

Posted on September 12, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Grits finds a bunch of links about Cameron Todd Willingham and the reaction that his case and the New Yorker article about it have generated, to which I added this Dahlia Lithwick article in the comments. Three things: 1. As … Continue reading →

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How to uncrowd the jails

Posted on August 11, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Defense attorney Rob Fickman makes the case for dealing with Harris County’s jail overcrowding problems. Jail overcrowding creates unsafe and unhealthy conditions. Locking up the wrong people does not leave sufficient room to lock up the right people, those who … Continue reading →

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Ellis asks for AG opinion on Cole pardon

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

You remember Timothy Cole, the wrongly-convicted man who died in prison ten years ago and has since been exonerated in a court of inquiry. The Lege passed a bill named for him to increase compensation to those who have been … Continue reading →

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Legislative wrapups

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

With sine die in the rearview mirror, tis the season for legislative wrapups. Here are a couple I’ve come across. – First, from Bike Texas, which had the fairly easy task of just following one bill: The final version of … Continue reading →

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“Just do the test”

Posted on May 24, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Grits points to this NYT article about the next phase of the battle between prosecutors and inmates over innocence claims and DNA testing. I agree with Grits – if some defendants are embarking on fishing expeditions, I say let them … Continue reading →

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Innocence, exoneration, and compensation

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

We’ve seen all of the stories about inmates being freed from jail in Texas after however many years inside, the result of DNA evidence proving they could not have committed the crime for which they were convicted. But what happens … Continue reading →

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Regional crime lab

Posted on March 30, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

This has been talked about for some time, and not unexpectedly it’s starting to move forward. After years of scandal at crime labs across the state, local officials have proposed opening a regional lab based at the Harris County Medical … Continue reading →

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Your eyes may deceive you

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron covers a report by the Justice Project about faulty eyewitness testimony and the many wrongful convictions to which it has led. Most wrongful convictions in Texas stem from mistaken eyewitness identifications, errors that experts say could have been … Continue reading →

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On DNA testing and innocence

Posted on March 13, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I’m glad to hear that District Attorney Pat Lykos is going to examine cases of wrongful conviction in Harris County. I’m sure there are plenty more than the five she plans to highlight, but the fact that she wants to … Continue reading →

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CSI: Needs Improvement

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Looks like Gil Grissom got out at just the right time. Crime labs nationwide must be overhauled to prevent the types of mistakes that put innocent people in prison and leave criminals out on the street, researchers have concluded. A … Continue reading →

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All DNA, all the time

Posted on February 18, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

How often should we collect DNA from someone who’s been arrested? Some people think the answer should be a lot more often than we do now. Texas is one of several states that draw DNA samples from anyone convicted of … Continue reading →

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Exonerating the deceased

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

One of the things Eric Berger focused on in his story about the relevance and importance of Charles Darwin some 200 years after his birth was the rise of DNA and its application to criminology. Today, DNA evidence is as … Continue reading →

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More on Larry Swearingen

Posted on January 23, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve blogged before about Larry Swearingen, who is on death row and is scheduled for execution on January 27 even though forensic evidence clearly demonstrates his innocence of the murder of Melissa Trotter. Multiple experts, including the Harris County medical … Continue reading →

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How many wrongly convicted people are there in prison?

Posted on January 22, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

A new study takes a crack at quantifying it. Criminal justice scholars often say that the true number of innocent people convicted of crimes is unknown–in fact, unknowable. A new University of Michigan study challenges that belief in one important … Continue reading →

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Mammoth DNA update

Posted on November 24, 2008 by Charles Kuffner

First they found the DNA. Now they’re trying to do something with it. Scientists for the first time have unraveled much of the genetic code of an extinct animal, the ice age’s woolly mammoth, and with it they are thawing … Continue reading →

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Mammoth DNA

Posted on October 1, 2007 by Charles Kuffner

Cool. Researchers report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science, however, that mammoth hair seems to be an excellent source of well-preserved DNA. “It is important to understand the genetic makeup of an organism before it went extinct,” explained lead … Continue reading →

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Mammoth extinction: Not our fault

Posted on June 13, 2007 by Charles Kuffner

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m relieved to hear this. Paleontologists long have assumed that massive hunting by humans led to the extinction of the woolly mammoths about 12,000 years ago. New genetic analysis indicates, however, that inbreeding … Continue reading →

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