This Day in History: Gail Miller was found raped and murdered on this day (January 31) in 1969 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. On January 31 1970, David Milgaard, was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
For the next 22 years, David Milgaard would be incarcerated in a Saskatchewan prison, given a life sentence in 1970 after his conviction, until his release on April 16, 1992. Five years later, DNA testing would not only exonerate Milgaard, but would identify the person who had committed the crime. Milgaard would receive $10,000,000 in 1999 for the miscarriage of justice.
Since 1989, DNA testing has freed hundreds who were convicted of crimes they did not commit. There are many other cases where DNA strongly suggests innocence but does not conclusively prove it. Convicting and imprisoning an innocent person is arguably the worst thing a government can do to one of its citizens, short of mistakenly executing him. (There's increasing evidence that this has happened too.) Just about everyone agrees that these are unfathomable tragedies.
The Innocence Project claims that there are about 20,000 people in prison right now that are wrongfully convicted.
No comments:
Post a Comment