Genetic Justice
The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 352, No. 26, pp. 2667-2667, 2005
2 Pages Posted: 4 Dec 2009
Date Written: June 30, 2005
Abstract
On December 21, 2004, Brandon Moon was released from prison in El Paso, Texas, after having served 16 years of a 75-year sentence for three counts of aggravated sexual assault. Moon, who was 43 years of age at the time of his release, had been convicted in 1988 on the testimony of the three victims, who had had only a fleeting or partial view of their assailant. In 2004, after undergoing DNA testing, Moon was excluded as the contributor of the DNA collected after all three rapes. As a result, Moon became the 154th person in the United States to be exonerated on the basis of DNA evidence that came to light after the person was convicted for a crime.
Keywords: DNA testing, Criminal law, exoneration, forensics, genetics, innocence project, CODIS, DNA data banks
JEL Classification: K31, K32
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation