Steven Barnes is about to celebrate his first Christmas outside of a prison cell in over twenty years. The man who was wrongfully convicted of a 1985 rape and murder is now a free man, and his loyal family and friends who fought to prove his innocence, couldn’t be happier about it.
Thanks to DNA testing, Barnes’ conviction was thrown out. It’s as simple as that. But, one must remember, Barnes was one of the lucky ones. It is estimated that biological evidence that can be subjected to DNA testing is only available in 5 to 10 percent of all criminal cases in this country. That means that the other 90 to 95 percent of the cases remain subject to shaky eyewitness testimony, scientifically invalid forensic evidence, or potentially exonerating evidence that is either lost, destroyed, or too degraded to yield a DNA profile. And if they’ve already been convicted, they could be SOL for life.
Something must be done to prevent what appears to be a rash of wrongful convictions around the country that has now reached epidemic proportions in New York. I say this in light of the recent murder charges levied against fourteen-year-old Joseph Giacona, New York’s newest Stolen Boy, who sits in an Oneida County jail cell, charged with murder, based on evidence that sounds about as shaky as that used to convict Barnes nearly twenty-five years ago.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
New York is third in the country when it comes to wrongful convictions proven by DNA evidence. They trail only Texas and Illinois. And this trend has got to stop. So what is New York doing to make sure this kind of injustice never inflicts an innocent woman, child, or man again? They must be implementing some kind of reforms that would make their criminal justice system more accurate and effective, right? Think again.
Even though twenty-five states – half of our nation – has now enacted laws to preserve biological evidence, which is considered critical in proving wrongful convictions, New York has not. And this does not bode well for people like Joseph, whose case also appears to be based on sketchy circumstantial evidence, at best.
New York is also one of 41 states in the union that does not require electronic recording of interrogations. This is so even though more than half of the wrongful convictions in the state involved false confessions. Even states like North Carolina, Connecticut, and New Jersey are adopting eyewitness procedures proven to increase accuracy. But not New York.
There might be hope on the horizon, however. Recognizing an essential moral need to extract justice from the New York criminal justice system, the New York State Bar Association has assembled a Blue Ribbon Task Force on Wrongful Convictions, which is expected to soon issue strong recommendations. The Oneida County Bar Association has also joined the bandwagon by demonstrating a strong commitment to learning from wrongful convictions in order to prevent them.
If the Blue Ribbon Task Force and the Oneida County Bar Association perform their tasks properly, it might make it easier for kids like Joseph Giacona, and even Stephen Barnes, to get the justice they deserve the first time around.
