Legal-reform advocates and legislators yesterday called for amendments to regulations to give defendants the right to request DNA testing and retrial for the re-examination of evidence to help people who might have been wrongly convicted.
Taiwan Association for Innocence (TAI) chairman Law Bing-cheng (羅秉成) said that the nation possesses advanced DNA technology for forensic examination and that it should be used to re-evaluate evidence in criminal cases, in which possible wrongful convictions have been cited.
“In the past there were shortcomings in DNA testing as well as flaws in gathering and examining evidence. This has led to innocent people being wrongfully convicted,” Law said.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
“Now that the technology has matured, we believe that DNA testing should be instituted into the judicial procedure. If we put it into law, it would not be difficult for people wrongfully convicted to seek a re-examination of evidence, which is done by the consent of the judges,” he said.
TAI was joined by Judicial Reform Foundation, along with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Wellington Koo (顧立雄) and Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) at yesterday’s event, which was also attended by Chen Lung-chi (陳龍錡), who had his guilty conviction from a 2009 case overturned after DNA testing.
“My case went through several trials and appeals; the courts found me guilty and gave me a four-year jail term. I was innocent, so I kept on making appeals, but the judges said there was no need for further DNA testing. It was only through the help of TAI that the Taichung branch of the Taiwan High Court agreed to re-evaluate my case and conduct a new DNA test,” Chen said.
“I was cleared by the new test and the high court overturned the ruling and gave a not-guilty verdict in 2014. I was lucky to have a high-court judge who was willing to listen to us and agree to the need for a re-examination. However, we should not rely on the goodwill of judges to correct the numerous wrongful convictions, we must put this into the law to give defendants the right to seek to seek DNA testing,” he said.
Law said Chen’s guilty verdict was based on a Y-STR (short tandem repeats of male Y chromosome) DNA test for 17 gene loci, which was carried out in 2010, adding that Chen was cleared of all charges after the high court consented to undertake the more recent and complete Y-STR test, which analyzes 23 gene loci.
Koo and Yu said there have been many cases of wrongful convictions and each case meant ruining a person’s life and causing misery to their family; therefore they would push for an amendment to give defendants the right to ask for DNA testing in the aftermath of a guilty verdict in criminal cases.
An amendment is needed, because judges can deny requests for DNA testing and can refuse to re-examine the evidence held by the court unless the defendant presents new material as evidence, Koo said.
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