Properly used, DNA testing is a good tool

Advances in medical science have helped improve the quality of life in many fields, and criminal justice is no exception. So it is with the DNA testing that was unknown just a few years ago.

As with all human artifacts, our system of criminal justice is imperfect. Although it is vastly more protective of the rights of the accused than most any other system -- and vastly more so today than it was 50 years ago -- flaws remain, as indeed they always will.

In the case of the criminal justice system, this means that from time to time innocent men and women will go to prison, despite the best efforts of all involved in our system to prevent such outcomes.

DNA testing promises to change this for the better. According to the Innocence Project, 110 people convicted of crimes across the United States have been exonerated due to DNA testing. Such testing operates, in many cases, by a process of elimination.

An example is Eddie Joe Lloyd of Detroit, who spent 17 years in prison for the rape and murder of a teenager which, DNA testing now reveals, he couldn't have committed. Despite a lack of physical evidence, Lloyd was convicted in 1985 based heavily on a taped confession he made to Detroit police while he was in a mental hospital. (Lloyd suffers from bipolar disorder and was on medication when police say he confessed.)

The genetic evidence in the teenager's slaying was gathered from a bottle and a pair of long johns found at the crime scene, as well as from evidence slides discovered three weeks earlier, say spokesmen for the Innocence Project. The DNA doesn't match any samples in the FBI's data base, meaning Lloyd couldn't have committed the crime. The victim was strangled with the long johns.

The American system of justice is a search for truth under law. The vindication of the innocent is a triumph for justice, a step forward to be hailed by all those who value truth and justice. Properly used, DNA testing is a tremendous advance in mankind's age-old search for justice under law.