Not everyone behind bars is a criminal. In fact, the mission behind The Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organization, aims to demonstrate the reason is due to discrepancies in the current criminal justice system. In affiliation with The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the project has assisted in proving the innocence of 273 people in the United States using DNA testing. Since its beginning in 1992, The Innocence Project's high case success rate attests that not everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
According to the research completed by the organization, it has been discovered that a huge factor in changing the way that the criminal justice system works has been in DNA testing. It has provided scientific proof that the American system convicts and sentences innocent people in addition to exemplifying wrongful convictions are neither isolated nor rare. Most importantly, DNA testing has opened a window into wrongful convictions making researching causes and proposing remedies feasible with results that have helped to minimize the chances of more innocent people being wrongfully convicted.
Many of the cases the organization handles are circumstances of poor, forgotten and unfortunate individuals whom have little or no alternatives for legal assistance. The hope these individuals have is that the biological evidence still remains, as many have been incarcerated for more than ten years.
The Innocence Project worked on the case of Kenny Waters, an example of witness misidentification and false confession wrongly convicting him of murder.
It was May 21, 1980 when Katherina Reitz Brow was brutally stabbed in her own Massachusetts home. Her body was discovered by her daughter-in-law and found to have been stabbed more than 30 times. In addition, some personal belongings were found to be stolen including her purse and envelope full of cash. Crime scene investigators recovered hairs, blood and fingerprints in the house as well as the apparent murder weapon which led to the identification of possible suspects immediately.
Kenny Waters was among one of these suspects. At the time, Waters lived with his then girlfriend Brenda Marsh. Waters was a neighbor to the victim and worked at a nearby diner which was frequently visited by Brow. Questioned by the police, Water's provided an alibi that placed him away from the scene of the crime because of work obligations. In further investigation, Water's was also asked to submit a voice stress test which he voluntarily completed and passed.
Nearly two years later, the case still remained open yet no one was found guilty of the murder of Katherina Reitz Brow. Robert Osborne went to the Ayer Massachusetts Police Department in October of 1982, offering information relating to murder in exchange for monetary gain. Osborne proceeded to convince the officers that Waters had confessed to Marsh that he was guilty of killing a woman which led to a full trial seven months later. Osborne also coerced his significant other, whom had a history with Waters, to testify with the same story.
During the trial, Osbourne and Water's ex-girlfriend Brenda Marsh attested and the verdict was reached without using any of the original evidence gathered at the crime scene, but rather relied primarily on the word of each witness. Waters ended up serving almost two decades in jail for a murder he did not commit and was only later proved innocent through DNA testing.
Among the top reasons for cases of wrongful conviction include invalidated or improper forensic science at the time of the trial, false confession and informant testimony. Conceivably the leading cause of criminal conviction is due to eyewitness misidentification, wherein the witness themselves makes a mistake in the recognition of the suspect.
