Understanding Osborne and Access to DNA Evidence

Andrew M. Grossman / June 18, 2009

The immediate reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Osborne case has been both ill-informed and negative. And liberals are already spinning it as the Roberts Court’s latest affront to justice. This is no surprise. It’s easy for political hacks to attack decisions when the public doesn’t understand the facts of the case. Understand the facts in Osborne, however, and it becomes clear that the decision was plain common sense.

The Court held that individuals who have been convicted of crimes have no constitutional right to access evidence held by the state for DNA testing. The key to the decision is that several of those words have very specific meanings:

Convicted of Crimes: The ruling applies to criminals who have already been found guilty in a court of law, not to individuals merely accused of a crime, who do have a right to access and test such evidence. Once a person goes from being a suspect to a convicted criminal, the court explained, he does not have a constitutional right to retest evidence with every new technology that becomes available in the hope that one of them will cast doubt on his conviction by a jury. (more…)