DNA Test Freeing the Incarcerated

original story posted August 10, 2009

Most people in jail try to tell the tale that they were wrongfully imprisoned and they are actually innocent of their crime. To the outside eye, most of the time it comes off as bull, but there are certain instances where men, especially Black men, are raped by the system and thrown into the system unjustly.

Another man was freed from his sentence after spending 23 years in prison for a charge of kidnapping and rape. DNA testing has proved to be more effect than Maury telling a man that the baby is not his as the results provided an opening that would give doubt that the man committed the crime and was released on bond Friday.

Ernest Sonnier, 46, has spent half of his life behind the prison walls after he was convicted of

a 1985 sexual assault and was sentenced to life. With the aid of state district Judge Michael McSpadden, the man was finally able to leave his prison confines and go back to his family although the man he went in as in his early twenties can't be anything like the man that would stand before them.

The Innocent Project, which is a national organization that puts in work to have wrongfully convicted people freed from their charges, began this epidemic of reissuing DNA tests last year according to attorneys. In the case of Sonnier, they worked his case for close to 18 months and further testing had the potential to clear him as they were connected to two other felons. Stains left from the rape of the woman were blood type O, but Sonnier is blood type B.

Although out of the bing, Sonnier will temporarily still be in the system as he will be monitored by a GPS tracking device that he will be required to wear and also be given supervision while the motion continues to play out to have him fully exonerated. It might be harsh if he's been basically freed but hey, it beats 23 hour lockdown so he has to take the minor jabs in stride.

Sonnier will be the sixth convicted man to be released from jail after stepping up to challenge the results that were provided from the Houston Police Department crime lab. Shaky results have left doubts and raised questions on hundreds of conviction as they have been speculated to be inaccurate. 160 cases have been appointed to be re-investigated as a result of these findings.

It's good to know that DNA testing is being utilized in a more effective way now as opposed to creating a lane for some deadbeat father's to avoid child support.