Thanks to post-conviction DNA testing, Johnnie Earl Lindsey was freed from a Texas prison on Friday after serving 26 years for a crime he didn't commit. Every time I hear about people like Johnnie, I have deeply mixed emotions. Why? Because as the first person sentenced to die to be exonerated by DNA testing, I know what it's like to win your freedom after fighting for it for so long.
Johnnie overcame the longest of odds to win his freedom in a system that was convinced of his guilt for over a quarter century. Imagine the patience and persistence that took. Imagine the hardships he endured being isolated from friends and family. Imagine never knowing if the truth would come out. Somehow, Johnnie found the strength to persevere. And for this I am extremely happy.
But exonerations like Johnnie's are also deeply unsettling to me because they demonstrate once again the very serious problems confronting our criminal justice system. The fact is, for all the resources our country invests in investigating and prosecuting crime, we still get it wrong far more often than we should. And when that happens, everybody suffers. While Johnnie was behind bars, the real perpetrator went unpunished and may have committed even more crimes.
The victim in Johnnie's case, who was sexually assaulted in a park, mistakenly identified him in a photo lineup in which Johnnie was pictured shirtless, just as her attacker was. What's more, the police sent her the photos in the mail -- not exactly sound police procedure.
Johnnie maintained his innocence throughout his entire ordeal. He went before the Texas parole board seven times, and seven times he refused to say he was guilty of the crime, even when it could have meant his release from prison.
As it turns out, Johnnie was at work pressing pants at a commercial laundry when the attack occurred, and he had time cards to back up his alibi. But no one believed him -- not the police, not the prosecutors, not the jury, not the judges who heard his appeals, and not the parole board -- until post-conviction DNA testing proved his innocence.
During his incarceration, Johnnie wrote six letters to the Dallas District Attorney's office requesting DNA testing. None of his letters were answered until Craig Watkins took over as District Attorney last year. Once the DNA test was done, he was immediately excluded as the attacker -- something that could have been done years earlier. Thanks in part to Watkins' professionalism, Dallas County leads the nation with the most DNA exonerations.
There is a real price to be paid for delays like this. In August, police in Michigan announced that they had identified the real perpetrator in a 1994 rape for which Ken Wyniemko had been wrongfully convicted and later exonerated. But by the time the discovery was made the statute of limitations had run out, and the perpetrator could not be prosecuted.
Stories like Ken's are a real wake-up call to our criminal justice system.
My organization, The Justice Project, recently issued a series of recommendations to improve access to post-conviction DNA testing that should be adopted by every state in the country. The recommendations include a requirement to preserve all biological evidence throughout a defendant's sentence; to allow petitions for DNA testing regardless of a defendant's plea, confession or the nature of the crime; and that states should pay for DNA testing and provide legal counsel for indigents who can't afford to pay for it themselves. To view these and other recommendations, please visit our website at www.thejusticeproject.org.
Delaying or denying access to post-conviction DNA testing for people with claims of innocence is simply wrong, and we shouldn't tolerate a criminal justice system that refuses to use readily available technology to correct its mistakes.
We must take the necessary steps to make post-conviction DNA testing more accessible. Ask Johnnie Lindsey. He'll tell you it's worth it.
Kirk Noble Bloodsworth is the first person sentenced to death row in the United States to be exonerated by DNA evidence. He is the program officer of The Justice Project, a nonpartisan organization that works to increase fairness and accuracy in the criminal justice system, with a focus on the capital punishment system.