Author ORCID Identifier
Tonja Jacobi 0000-0002-5200-5765
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2008
Keywords
DNA testing, Economic screening model, Monetary costs, Conditional penalties, Proportionality of punishment
Abstract
This Essay formally illustrates how it is possible to force prisoners to self-identify as innocent or guilty by deciding whether to seek postconviction DNA testing. Additionally, it shows why other systems that aim to reduce the number of guilty petitioners seeking post-conviction DNA testing create perverse incentives, and why only additional incarceration can effectively encourage innocent and guilty prisoners alike to self-identify. This will reduce costs on the judicial system by discouraging guilty prisoners from seeking post-conviction DNA tests. It will also make it faster and easier for actually innocent prisoners to seek the tests they need for timely exoneration.
In Part II, we describe the problem: Costless or low-cost postconviction DNA testing has created a flood of petitions from guilty prisoners, making it impossible to address actually innocent prisoners' petitions in a timely and just manner. In Part III, we provide a screening model, and show how a certain number of days of additional incarceration creates incentives for guilty petitioners to avoid seeking testing, while at the same time encouraging and enabling the innocent to seek potentially exonerating post-conviction DNA testing. The appropriate number of days will depend on factors such as the length of the sentence the petitioner would otherwise face and whether the petitioner will also bear the monetary costs of the test. In Part IV, we assess other regimes that govern post-conviction DNA testing. We explain why they have all failed to adequately deter guilty petitioners from seeking testing and why many run the risk of deterring the actually innocent from petitioning for testing. In Part V, we review the constitutional issues, and argue that imposition of a self-screening system through the use of additional incarceration is constitutional, if done properly. We conclude by considering whether our analysis can be applied more generally within the criminal justice system, such as to all habeas petitions made on factual grounds.
First Page
263
Publication Title
Northwestern University Law Review
Recommended Citation
Tonja Jacobi & Gwendolyn Carroll, Acknowledging Guilt: Forcing Self-Identification in Post-Conviction DNA Testing, 102 NW. U. L. REV. 263 (2008).
Included in
Bioinformatics Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Evidence Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons