"The use of DNA has been the major reason so many cases have been overturned and the defendants exonerated. The Innocence Project lists 325 cases in recent years where DNA has corrected wrongful convictions. The number of wrongful convictions nationally seems to be growing as DNA continues to help free those whose lives have been devastated by flawed evidence that later is determined to be unreliable. This is a lesson prosecutors and judges must heed to prevent the innocent from paying a price they should never have to pay..........The court—including its newest member from the Fredericksburg area, Stephen R. McCullough—freed Harward just one day after Attorney General Mark Herring filed a brief with the court supporting Harward’s petition for innocence. Everyone involved in Virginia’s justice system should not forget this case. It’s just the latest one in which someone was sent to prison because of unreliable forensic evidence, the withholding of exculpatory evidence by prosecutors and even coerced confessions. Bite marks on a victim’s legs were the only physical evidence presented to convict Harward of rape and murder. He was a 26-year-old sailor assigned in 1982 to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, which was in port at the time. He was not identified by any witnesses, but police were told the fatal beating of a Newport News man and rape of his wife were committed by a man wearing Navy clothing. Harward was sentenced to life in prison. Bite-mark experts testified with a “medical certainty” that the bites on the woman’s leg came from Harward. DNA tests, which weren’t available then, later showed that the person responsible for the crime was another sailor on the Vinson. That man died 10 years ago while serving a sentence in an Ohio prison. The Innocence Project, which joined Harward’s lawyers in the case, called bite-mark evidence “grossly unreliable” and said that at least 25 people arrested or convicted based on such evidence have been exonerated, according to a story in The Washington Post. However, the story said, no state or federal appellate court has rejected such evidence as inadmissible. If the courts were to show more skepticism about bite-mark evidence, they would find allies in the very organization that accredits and certifies forensic odontologists, which is the formal name for the dentists who conduct such testing. The group finds the Harward case “very troubling” and it calls on members of the group to review all their cases. The odontology board has also issued new guidelines that say experts should limit their opinions to just including or excluding someone who is being tested, the Post story said. The courts should show at least as much concern about the evidence as the board that accredits the experts." The entire editorial can be found at:
