Mark A Godsey scripts a return to innocence

The director of the Ohio chapter of Innocence Project, Mark A Godsey, was in Delhi recently to talk on wrongful convictions. Founded in 1992 in the US, the Innocence Project is dedicated to
exonerating wrongfully convicted  individuals through DNA testing. In an interview with Manisha Pande, Godsey explains why there’s a high risk of wrongful convictions in cases that evoke public outcry, like in rape cases. Excerpts:

The Innocence Project has helped exonerate 305 wrongfully convicted people. It depends largely on DNA technology. Is it being used to establish guilt in the first place?
In the US, DNA is being used very frequently by the prosecution to prove guilt. It has, in fact, become routine in criminal investigations. In the US, DNA testing was brought first to prove innocence and then the police started using it to prove guilt. And that lessens the chances of wrongful convictions.

One of the first cases the Innocence Project took up was of Clarence Elkins, wrongfully convicted for rape and murder. Did you face hostility trying to free a man who was a criminal in the public eye?
We have faced absolute hostility from the authorities, the government, the police and the prosecutors. It still exists, even though we have won several cases and proved that we are legitimate. Many prosecutors support us but many still think what we are doing is awful...

More so in cases like rape that evoke public outcry?
Yes, and the risk of wrongful conviction is the highest when there’s public outcry. Most of the exonerations and wrongful convictions have occurred in rape cases. This is because the police is usually under tremendous pressure to solve the case, and the witness has undergone extreme trauma that affects the ability to recall the actual incident. It also makes the person susceptible to suggestions that may alter their memory while testifying.

After the Delhi gang rape, public discourse in India has been in favour of death penalty for rapists. But that seems like a precarious proposition...
Extending death penalty to rape cases would scare me to death. I am not saying rape is not a serious crime, but from my experience of 20 years, I know that the highest risk of convicting the wrong person is in rape cases. In any case, death penalty in rape cases should apply only if the DNA test match.

So should DNA testing be mandatory in rape cases?
Yes. It’s not mandatory in the US but it is routinely done in any rape case. It would be shocking if it’s not done.

Do you think death penalty can serve as a deterrent in cases of rape and murder?
Even supporters of the death penalty have given up arguing that it serves as a deterrent. In any case, deterrence works more in white-collar crimes or financial crimes where the person is calculating or pre-meditating a crime and is weighing the pros and cons. Crimes like rape and murder are committed by people who are usually mentally disturbed, or are not thinking straight or are intoxicated. They aren’t really thinking about getting a long term or death at the time of committing the crime. They are thinking that they are going to get away with the crime.

How can we replicate the Innocence Project in India, considering our inept handling of DNA evidence and lack of infrastructure?
There are many things you could do without using DNA. For example, a witness may intentionally frame someone, which happens more often than we think, and may talk about it years later when tempers have cooled. You could also get those witnesses to talk who had falsely testified and have been afraid to come forward. You’ll realise that once people in prison and the public learns that the Innocence Project exists, all of a sudden you’ll start hearing of things you didn’t hear before because they had no one to turn to.

In India, torture in police lock-ups often result in false confessions. What circumstances could lead a person to admit to a crime s/he has not committed?
In the US, there’s rarely physical torture. But the psychological pressure put by the police during the interrogation can be so intense that the suspect may get convinced of his or her culpability. The police sometimes convince suspects after hours and hours of interrogation that maybe they blacked out while committing the crime and don’t remember it. Sometimes the police may have a person believe that it has all the proof against him or her and that accepting the crime would be better so as to claim leniency and escape death. Admitting to a crime you haven’t done then becomes a rational decision to escape harsher punishment.