DNA Exonerations and Race
Thomas ******
**** College
Course:****
Dr. *** **** October 18, 2015

. Originally I planned on doing my paper on African Americans and the death penalty. After doing research for a few days it hit me that there was a whole other topic that I should be doing. Under most instances I support the death penalty but I came across an article that gave an opinion that all death penalty inmates should have their evidence reexamined and DNA tested if they were convicted in a pre DNA era. After that I looked into the statistics of people that had been exonerated after serving years in prison by reexamining the DNA from their cases. I was amazed that there had been so many people exonerated out with such limited resources. I now knew that I wanted to know more about DNA exonerations what the statistics were with race and those wrongfully convicted. I think the two subjects African Americans and the death penalty and DNA exonerations could be really enlightening as it shows that the American Justice System in the past surely has executed wrongfully convicted men in the past. So I used Google to search “Exonerated by DNA and Race” and began to read not only their cases but also their stories. The next day I was already questioning my stance on the death penalty. Not only did I think about how their lives will never be the same I thought about all the time they lost and can never get back. Time stood still for them while their families, friends, and loved ones moved on with their lives likely never expecting to see them on that side of their lives again. I sat there and thought how many men have been wrongfully convicted for crimes they didn’t commit and had no one to believe in them or their innocence to help set them free. Many of them no longer have hope and certainly don’t have much trust in the Justice System getting it right the second time around and I can certainly see where the distrust for the system comes from. Why would you expect the system that put you there in the first place to do the right thing in the end no matter what new evidence you give them? Luckily for these men and women they have groups and teams of advocates on their side and to date have freed over three hundred men and women. One of these groups that I came across is called The Innocence Project. Not only have they helped free men from their prison sentences they have saved their lives. The number of men who they helped set free that were sentenced to death is eighteen. That’s two starting lineups in Major League baseball. Out of the three hundred and eleven innocent lives exonerated due to DNA is one hundred and seventy one. Over half of the exonerations involve DNA testing of old evidence and materials. More importantly to this topic is that out of those three hundred and eleven people exonerated seventy percent of them have been people of color. FEEDBACK ON PART 1 (need to state the type of paper you will write- literature review or empirical study?) What position will you argue? What is the opposing view/position?

References (should be on separate page)
State of California v Herman Atkins. 1988. Print State of Virginia v Marvin Anderson. 1982. Print State of Indiana v Richard Alexander. 1998. Print State of Illinois v Kenneth Adams. 1978. Print State of North Carolina v Joseph Abbitt. 1985. Print State of Missouri v Antonio Beaver. 1997. Print State of Louisiana v Gene Bibbins. 1987. Print State of Missouri v Johnny Briscoe. 1983. Print State of Mississippi v Kennedy Brewer. 1995. Print State Of Louisiana V Dennis Brown. 1984. Print.

(Need some scholarly journal articles in addition to these court cases)