Australia: Only the worst get chance at DNA acquittal

AUSTRALIA'S only DNA evidence review body has begun taking applications from convicts seeking to prove their innocence, but only the worst of the worst can apply. The NSW DNA Review Panel, launched quietly in June, has received at least three applications from notorious criminals. Two applicants, whose identities have not been divulged, have had their forms sent back because of insufficient information. The third is Wayne "Shorty" Jamieson, who was convicted of the 1988 rape and murder of Janine Balding, 20. His 2003 application for DNA testing caused such an uproar that the panel's predecessor, the Innocence Panel, was abandoned in 2003.

While DNA technology has existed for 20 years and has helped convict thousands of criminals, Australia has been reluctant to use it to free the innocent. The 2001 quashing of Queensland man Frank Button's conviction for rape remains the only acquittal based on fresh DNA evidence.

While the new review panel may begin to redress the balance, its critics say it will be limited by its narrow guidelines. Only prisoners serving sentences of more than 20 years can apply, a rule described as irrational by the NSW Bar Association. Mr Button would have been ineligible because he was serving just seven years. Those who have completed their sentence will also not be able to apply.

The NSW Bar Association said the DNA Review Panel's powers were insufficient. "It's a toothless tiger," association president Michael Slattery QC said. "It doesn't have inherent powers to investigate whether biological materials exist. It doesn't have real teeth to find biological material and make sure it's preserved, which should be an important part of its function."

An inquiry into the previous Innocence Panel found that police continued to destroy evidence despite a commissioner's instruction that biological material be kept. Of the 13 prisoners who tried to have DNA exhibits tested via that panel, DNA exhibits were found for only one prisoner -- Jamieson. Jamieson was the only one of a gang of street kids convicted of anally raping Janine Balding. But when her rectal swabs were tested in 2003, the semen of two other unnamed males was found, not Jamieson's, and not that of another man, also known as "Shorty", who has been nominated by Balding's other killers as their actual accomplice.

When news broke that another exhibit was being sent to Britain for testing, Balding's mother reacted angrily and the Innocence Panel was shut down by then police minister John Watkins, who said: "The Balding family has simply suffered long enough. I can't stand by and let other families suffer this too."

Victims' rights representative on the DNA Review Panel, Howard Brown, said it was not a matter of the victims controlling the process, but being protected and notified. "If you have lived your life for 20 years in the belief that a particular person has killed and raped your daughter and someone decides that for the last 20 years you've been living under a misapprehension and we're going to start a process -- without telling you anything about it -- that might see that person released, as far as we are concerned, that victim has a right to know that that process is commencing." Speaking before any applications had been received, Mr Brown said the public had to expect the worst offenders, such as backpacker killer Ivan Milat, to apply. Milat claims DNA evidence would clear him. Testing of semen taken from one of his victims was botched and no reading was made.

Report here



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