Besides basic human rights issues, freeing wrongly accused people is also a public safety issue, Scheck said.
"Every time you exonerate an innocent person, you stand a better chance of catching the guilty person before they commit another crime," he said.
In 15 of the cases where the Innocence Project has freed someone, police have captured the guilty person--including serial rapists and killers.
The panel suggested a myriad of changes to the current criminal justice system, from the simple--videotape all interrogations--to the more complicated--accreditation and standardization of all crime labs.
Education is needed across the board, panelists said. Police need to be educated in how to handle physical evidence and students need to be taught about scientific evidence. As it stands, lawyers are intimidated by DNA evidence.
"Ver-dicts will be false-dicts because of our reliance on scientists we don't feel we can question," Lewontin said.
The problem begins in law school, panelists said. Students are not taught about forensic evidence.
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