PETITION CLOSED

  • The time period for signing this petition has ended.
Give Prisoners Access to DNA
  1. Signatures
    170 out of 200
    Petitioning
    1. The President of the United States (+ 1 other)
      Petitioning
      close
      • The President of the United States
      • Solicitor General (Neal Katyal)
  2. Created By
    william newmiller
    Colorado Springs, CO
About this Petition Petition Letter

Disheartening news from http://legaltimes.typepad.com.





The solicitor general's office has turned down a request by the Innocence Project to disavow a Bush Administration stance on prisoners' access to DNA evidence in postconviction proceedings. As a result, on March 2, Neal Katyal will make his debut as deputy solicitor general by arguing before the Supreme Court in support of the state of Alaska's view that prisoners have no constitutional right to obtain DNA evidence that might help them prove their innocence -- even if the prisoners pay for the DNA testing themselves. The case is District Attorney's Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne.

Let President Obama and the Solicitor General know that we expect a change from the Bush-era opposition to innocence initiatives.

Recent Signatures

District Attorney's Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne

Dear Mr. President,

Please reconsider the position to be taken in the case of District Attorney's Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne.

Justice for wrongly incarcerated prisoners demands that they be given the opportunity to demonstrate their innocence through DNA testing.

In this particular case, the DNA testing would be at no expense to the state. To deny the opportunity to conduct such testing runs counter to the past strong support of access to DNA evidence you provided while a state senator in Illinois, where many of the early successes in exonerating innocent inmates through DNA evidence took place.

Due process, fairness, and common sense demand that the state turn over evidence for testing at the prisoner's expense and for testing that was unavailable at the time of trial, the results of which could conclusively exonerate the prisoner. 

[Your name]

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