In June, 2002, Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck tackled the time limit question head-on in his testimony before Congress on the Innocence Protection Act:
"Based on close to ten years of experience assessing and litigating more post-conviction DNA applications than any other office in the country, the Innocence Project has found that it takes an average of between three to five years to evaluate and perfect a post-conviction application from the time an inmate's letter arrives in our office until the time an adequately documented motion can be filed. The difficulties are legion: The inmates are indigent. They have no lawyers and their lawyers from trial or appeal have often been disbarred, died, or disappeared. They do not have complete copies of their transcripts and neither does anyone else. Important police and laboratory reports relating to key items of biological evidence cannot be found. And most importantly, no one can find the evidence. It might be in the court house as an exhibit, at the crime laboratory, in the prosecutor's safe, with the court reporter, at a hospital or medical examiner's office, or different items could be at a variety of these locations. Since the cases are very old, inventory records are lost, and long-term storage facilities for each institution change. "
It is in all our interests that we closely examine the innocence cases so that we can prevent their occurrence. Arbitrary time limits on making an innocence claim need to be abolished. If an innocent person has not already been executed in this country, it's only a matter of time. Whether you are for or against capital punishment, we need a moratorium now so we can avoid that eventuality. At a bare minimum, we need passage of the Innocence Protection Act.
DNA testing is a win-win for everyone. Think about it. Everytime a person is found to be factually innocent of the crime, it means the real perpetrator is still out there. While the innocent person is in jail, the real perpetrator may strike again. DNA testing not only frees the innocent, it convicts the guilty.
The killing of even one innocent person, whether it is done in good faith or bad faith, is a societal travesty. If it is preventable, through post-conviction DNA testing or a hearing on newly discovered evidence (such as learning that someone else confessed to the crime or that the inmate's confession was false or coerced or that her conviction was obtained through errors by grossly incompetent counsel) and we refuse to reconsider the conviction because of arbitrary time limits, how can we call ourselves a civilized society?
Should there really be a deadline on innocence? Of course not.
