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4.2.12
WC: 191694

In the MacDonald case, justice delayed by the courts may actually result in justice being denied to an innocent man.

Nor is MacDonald alone in having the courthouse door shut on new scientific evidence that could acquit the innocent and convict the guilty. It is even possible that several innocent people may have been executed because the courts have refused to consider the scientific evidence that could have proved that others committed the murders.

One such case came to my attention too late for me to try to do anything to prevent a possible miscarriage of justice. A letter arrived at my office on a Monday. I opened it and read a poignant request from a condemned man to review his case. I receive many such requests but this one was different. It began by informing me that by the time I read this letter, the writer may already have been executed. I checked and sure enough, he had been executed a few days earlier.
Nevertheless, he asked me to help clear his name posthumously, so that his family would know he was innocent. He had asked to have the blood on a towel tested for DNA, but his request had been denied. He believed that the DNA test would show that the killer was someone else. I immediately sought to have the blood tested at my own expense, but the authorities told me that the evidence has been destroyed when the defendant was executed.

It is entirely possible therefore that an innocent man was executed while the guilty man remains at liberty, because the courtroom doors were shut to new scientific evidence that could prove both innocence and guilt.

The prime lesson of the important scientific developments over the past half century is that the courthouse must always remain open to new evidence, even if such openness denies legal finality in criminal cases in which there is no scientific finality.

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