Colin McEnroe Show: DNA Policy, Eyewitness Panels & The Future Of Connecticut's State Crime Lab
We speak with Kevin Kane and a retired Supreme Court Justice.
The English jurist William Blackstone said "Better that ten guilty men go free than that one innocent suffer."
In recent years, I've seen Blackstone's ratio, when it's cited, shrink down to four to one, as if there's been some kind of deflation of the presumption of innocence. I also wonder how it would fare as a poll question. It's an older idea than Blackstone's 18th century. It's as old as Genesis, as old as Maimonides, but there seem to be plenty of people eager to convict the guilty and not commensurately worried about the innocent.
President Reagan's Attorney General Ed Meese famously said that most arrested people are guilty.
One of our guests today has proven that even convicted people are not always guilty. Karen Goodrow has won the exoneration of three Connecticut prisoners. She and Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane and retired Supreme Court Justice David Borden discuss three interlocking stories in the criminal justice system on today's show.
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Thanks for posting this,
Thanks for posting this, Chion!
=Dan
EMAIL FROM LARRY:
Today's discussion on eyewitness identification and the use of DNA was very interesting and informative.
However, there was a major factor which did not come into the discussions, it is the issue false matches,
the competence of the "experts" who present testimony and the matter of standards used for determining what
constitutes a positive identification.
EMAIL FROM DAN:
Charter Oak State College (CT's online public college), is holding a free lecture & panel on Eyewitness Testimony in Hartford on Wednesday, October 27th.
The lecture speaker is Dr. Jennifer Dysart, the Associate Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
The panel consists of Hartford Police Chief Daryl Roberts, New Haven Police Chief Frank Limon and Bridgeport Police Chief Joe Gaudett. It's moderated by Branford Police Chief John DeCarlo (Ret.).
I don't know if you'd want to mention it on the show, but it is free and features the chiefs of police of the 3 biggest cities in CT talking about this hot topic.
Here's more info about it on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=265312390166097
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