All state justice systems should allow post-conviction DNA testing and the collection of DNA from suspects. This will help the wrongly convicted to prove their innocence and avoid the death penalty, and also have the chance at exoneration. Law enforcement should collect DNA from suspects to prove if suspects truly are innocent or guilty. As well as require state officials to properly catalogue and preserve biological evidence for as long as the suspect is incarcerated.
DNA testing is an important way for those who have been wrongly convicted to prove their innocence. There have been many cases where the finger was pointed at the wrong person and the convicted person had to either do jail time and is still doing so or was given the death penalty, and was never given the chance to prove their innocence. Access to these tests are not easy to obtain. Before inmates are even given an opportunity at a post-conviction DNA test to prove their innocence, they serve 11 all the way to 22 years depending on the sentencing. In some states, those who have taken a guilty plea will not be allowed access to the tests. For
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According to the Innocence Project, Townsend is mentally retarded, having the mental capacity of an eight-year-old, and was convicted of six murders and one rape. He was sentenced seven concurrent life sentences. In 1979, he was arrested for raping a pregnant woman in Miami, Florida. As the crime was being investigated, Townsend confessed to other murders. These confessions were the consequence of him wanting to please authority figures, a very common practice with someone with Townsend’s mental capacity. In 1980, Townsend confessed to two 1973 killing of women in Browad County. He confessed to the murder of 13-year-old Sonja Marion in 1979. In 1982, he pled guilty to two slayings in Miami in the late 1970s as well as two other murders in 1979 in Broward