During the past several years, DNA evidence has begun to play a major role in the criminal justice system. It has been used both to prove that suspects were involeved in crimes and to exonorate wrongly convicted people.
| Case | Description |
|---|---|
| Willie "Pete" Williams | On April 5, 1985, Williams was convicted by a jury of his peers of rape, kidnapping, and aggravated sodomy of a woman in Atlanta's Sandy Springs neighborhood. In 2007, DNA science proved his innocence and he was exonorated of his crime after spending nearly 22 years in prison. DNA evidence has exonorated 208 wrongly convicted people in the United States. |
| Orenthal James Simpson
|
The case of O.J. Simpson made the public aware of DNA testing in criminal cases. On the evening of June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson, O.J. Simpson's former wife, was met by an assailant who stabbed her to death. The killer also slaughtered the man with her, Ronald Goldman. O.J. was contacted at his home shortly after the crime was committed. He had a cut on his left hand, and evidence from the crime scene indicated that the killer also had a cut on his left hand and had dripped his own blood on the crime scene. The blood was tested and found to be a match. Three separate types of analysis determined that only one person in 57 million, 1 in 170 million, and 1 in 240 million could produce an equivalent match. Despite this unrefutable evidence against O.J., the defense focused on corruption in the Forensics Department and accused them of switching DNA samples. Because of skillful defending, O.J. was given a verdict of "Not Guilty." |
|
JonBenet Ramsey
|
JonBen�t Patricia Ramsey was a six-year-old girl known for her participation in beauty pageants in the United States. She was found murdered in the basement of her parents' home in Boulder, Colorado, nearly eight hours after she was reported missing. According to her mother, Patsy Ramsey, on December 26, 1996, she discovered her daughter missing after finding a ransom note in the kitchen demanding $118,000. She reported her daughter missing. Police found her body in the basement. She had been strangled to death with a length of nylon cord from the handle of a paintbrush. In 2003, investigators had extracted enough DNA from evidence left at the scene to establish a DNA profile. This proved the parents innocent. The DNA belonged to an unknown Caucasian male. John Mark Karr admitted to the murder, but the DNA evidence proved that he was not guilty. The killer remains unknown. |