On The Front Lines
John W. Whitehead, President of The Rutherford Institute, Joins with Innocence Commission to Call for Criminal Justice Reform in Virginia
WASHINGTON -- After an 18-month study of 11 wrongful conviction cases, the Innocence Commission for Virginia (ICVA)--of which John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, is a member--has issued a 134-page report recommending reforms for preventing future wrongful convictions. The mission of the ICVA is to supplement the steps that have been taken by the Commonwealth of Virginia to strengthen the reliability of its criminal justice system by examining known cases of wrongful convictions, to identify common factors that led to these errors, and to propose specific reforms based on best practices across the country that could reduce the likelihood of future wrongful convictions. The ICVA is only the second innocence commission in the United States and the one of the first groups to study actual exoneration cases. A copy of the ICVA's report is available here."The good faith and hard work of Virginia's policy makers, while important steps, are only the beginning of the process necessary to increase the fairness and reliability of Virginia's justice system and, most importantly, to minimize the risk of wrongful convictions," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "It is critical that we take deliberate steps to safeguard human rights, and I believe the reforms recommended in the ICVA's report go a long way toward ensuring that justice is served. The Rutherford Institute is pleased to fully support any procedures that ensure that innocent people aren't wrongfully convicted."
Virginia is one of only 10 states to have had more than 10 exonerations since 1980 and ranks twelfth among the states with the most exonerations per capita. Virginians spent over two million dollars to imprison 11 innocent men, whose wrongful convictions might have been prevented by the policy recommendations set forth in the ICVA's report. The report calls for reform and highlights measures in seven areas--eyewitness identification, interrogation, discovery, law enforcement investigation, scientific evidence, and defense practices--that would improve Virginia's criminal justice system and offer the latest and best practices to law enforcement officers, courts, prosecutors, and defense counsel alike. Thanks to efforts by the Virginia State Crime Commission and lawmakers in both political parties, Virginia has enacted important recent reforms to its criminal justice system. For example, in 2002, voters approved a referendum to allow defendants an opportunity to introduce exculpatory DNA evidence post-conviction, and in 2004 Governor Mark Warner signed into law a revision to the 21 Day Rule recommended by the Crime Commission that gives defendants one opportunity to seek a "petition for a writ of actual innocence" based upon newly discovered, non-DNA evidence that was unavailable at trial. The Commonwealth has also created a Public Defender Commission whose mission is to improve the quality of indigent defense state-wide. Yet as the report points out, simple, common-sense and critically needed reforms are still needed in areas that Virginia policy makers have not yet addressed. For additional information about the ICVA, visit here.
The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.
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