Peter Rose:
Peter Rose was charged and convicted of rape, kidnapping, and forced oral copulation and was sentenced to 27 years in jail. The incident that occurred in which Peter was wrongfully convicted happened in California in the year 1994. Peter's wrongful conviction can be attributed to an eyewitness misidentification, government misconduct, and invalidated or improper forensic science.
Peter Rose ended up serving 8 years of jail time of his original 27 year sentence for a crime that he did not commit. Peter's innocence was proven due to DNA testing that found that he was not the source of the semen found on the clothing of the young rape victim.
The Progression of DNA Testing:
In 1985 Gregor Mendel made the first theories about the idea of heredity and the passing on of genetic traits. As Mendel was much ahead of his time with these theories, it took several years for the scientific community to catch up and understand his theories. In 1935 Andrei Nikolaevitch Belozersky isolated the pure state of DNA for the first time. Once having been isolated, the structure of DNA was discovered in 1953 as being a double helix. In 1958 Coenberg discovered DNA polymerase one of the enzymes used to produce DNA from a test tube. In 1972 in California the first DNA cloning experiments were successfully performed. The first splicing of DNA took place in 1973 to create a dual antibiotic resistance . In 1984 DNA fingerprinting is first used in order to identify people however it is not until the following year that this technique enters the court room. DNA fingerprinting has been used in various court cases as evidence since it's court room origin in 1985.
My Thoughts:
I think that this story has changed my perspective of the United States justice system in that I now understand that as with any system the justice system makes mistakes. This story has softened my faith in the justice system and in the idea that the justice system in this country will protect me and others from the "bad guys" of this world. One thing that will stay with me and that I will ultimately take away from this story and others similar to it is that not everything is as simple as it seems. It is not a simple thing to just send the bad guys away to jail because sometimes the people that we think are bad guys are just normal people, people who have lives and who want to go on living their lives without the weight of crimes that they did not commit weighing down on their shoulders. Learning about this story of the Innocence Project among other Innocence Project stories gives me a much greater appreciation of science and the capabilities of science as well as the benefits and consequences of the use of science both in and out of the court room.
Really nice job on this post Shannon. I like that you don't attack the Justice system as a whole, but rather take away the possibility of mistakes. No system is perfect and to think one can be is idealistic. Thank you for being thoughtful in your work.
ReplyDelete