Thursday, February 26, 2009; 12:30 p.m. Phillip H. Hart Auditorium (McDonough Hall), Georgetown University Law Center An unprecedented gathering of people from around the country who have been exonerated through DNA testing, leading legal authorities on federal post-conviction remedies, a crime victim from a recent high-profile Texas wrongful conviction case, and others will discuss District Attorney’s Office v. William G. Osborne, which is set for oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court on March 2. The state has arbitrarily refused Osborne’s requests for DNA testing for years – even though the testing would be performed at no cost to the…

On February 18, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released its long-awaited study of forensic science labs.  The study, launched in 2005 at the behest of Congress, found that America's crime labs are underfunded, understaffed, and frequently rely on forensic methods that have not been scientifically verified.

The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project seeks a Virginia DNA Staff Attorney to coordinate MAIP's involvement in a groundbreaking project in which the Commonwealth of Virginia is performing post-conviction DNA testing in nearly 1,000 old cases in which biological evidence was saved by the state crime laboratory between 1973 and 1988 (before DNA testing was used in courts).  For a complete job announcement and application instructions, please see below.  Virginia DNA Staff Attorney  The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project (MAIP) is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the correction and prevention of wrongful convictions in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.  For almost two years,…

The National Academy of Sciences will publish a report later this month that calls into question the practices of forensic laboratories. Forensic labs work with evidence such as fingerprints and blood spatters, and have been popularized by shows such as CSI. Conducted over a 2 year period, the study found that analysts are often undertrained and employee substandard methods. Despite these inadequacies, the study also discovered that analysts are prone to exaggerating the accuracy of their results. Sloppy lab work and misleading expert testimony are common causes of wrongful convictions. The study is expected to bring dramatic changes to both…