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Editorial: Flat wheels of justice / A DNA exoneration case raises troubling questions

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Sunday, December 14, 2003

Pennsylvania has joined the growing number of states with the dubious distinction of having exonerated -- with the hindsight provided by the miracle of DNA evidence -- a man who had been condemned to death. The case of Nicholas James Yarris is a cautionary tale for anyone concerned about the workings of criminal justice.

That caution extends to divining the moral of the story. The Post- Gazette has a long history of opposing capital punishment, in part because of the potential for a fatal miscarriage of justice. But if DNA evidence can prove definitively that someone did not commit a crime, then it can also be used to prove that someone did. The moral question remains, even if DNA evidence brings clarity to it.

The clarity brought to bear on Yarris' long-alleged part in a rape and murder may one day set him free, although he faces 30 years of imprisonment in Florida for offenses committed after he escaped from prison in 1985. Accused originally in the 1981 death of a suburban Philadelphia woman, Yarris became one of the nation's first death-row inmates to try to prove his innocence through DNA.

Last week, he succeeded. Prosecutors told a Delaware County judge that Yarris, who had his conviction overturned in September, would not be retried. That was because the DNA evidence showed that indisputably someone else had left his unique biological signature on the body.

The prosecutors acted honorably in this case. But they won't say if they still believe Yarris, no angel in the past, was somehow implicated in the slaying. Moreover, prosecutors won't say that this was a miscarriage of justice. Instead, the case is offered as proof that the appellate process works.

That is not the moral to be taken from a case that is subversive to general confidence in the system. Yarris was the 112th death-row inmate cleared since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 and one of about a dozen to be exonerated through DNA evidence. It inevitably makes one wonder how many other innocent people sit on death row or languish elsewhere in the nation's prison system.

However one feels about the death penalty, this case is reason enough to remember -- especially by those predisposed to have little mercy for people accused of crimes -- that the criminal justice system is subject to human frailty. Not every case comes with definitive DNA signposts pointing to guilt or innocence, and the standard of reasonable doubt must be applied diligently by all who sit in judgment.

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