On June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that prisoners have no constitutional right to demand DNA testing that could exonerate them. The decision stated that Congress and state legislatures are the proper avenues for deciding who has a right to DNA evidence. The original plaintiff in the case was denied access to DNA evidence by Alaska law.
According to the Innocence Project, a group that works to liberate the wrongfully convicted, DNA testing of evidence has freed 240 people, including 17 on death row.
The Supreme Court’s decision exposes the real intent of jurisprudence under capitalism: Rather than seek truth under the law, the legal system simply seeks to punish and terrorize working and oppressed people. Under this endemically racist, class-based system, it is oppressed people in the working class who suffer the most, facing imprisonment and even death, regardless of innocence.
