One 2003 morning in late summer, the press gathered outside an Illinois Court. Minutes later, a brown-haired man exited. He’d been granted six-figures in compensation. In 1979, he was sentenced to 50-years imprisonment for a rape that never happened. This was the first wrongful conviction overturned by DNA testing. His name was Gary Dotson . By that morning of Mr. Dotson’s compensation, DNA testing had exposed miscarriage of justice on a grand-scale in the United States’ criminal justice system. Combined, exonerated innocent persons had served about 1,100-years in jail. Unending news headlines of perjury committed by state officials and false victims put the lie to United States’ mantra: a nation of laws, not of men. The public’s faith in their courts system was tainted. To restore public trust, the US criminal justice system launched an inquiry into wrongful convictions. Institutional and unconscious bias was identified, compensation paid, and DNA evidence made standard.
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