The use of DNA to arrest Bryan Kohberger for the murder of four college students in Idaho reminds me that its time to bring the death penalty back in a big way.
The possibility of executing the wrong man has been the lefts main line against the death penalty for decades. Its the only argument that has ever lessened Americans support for capital punishment.
Well, guess what? Thanks to the miracle of DNA, now theres no risk! The murderer can usually be identified with greater than 99.99% accuracy.
Good news, right? Nope! As we now know (also with 99.99% accuracy),liberals never cared about executing the innocent. They just want to spring killers.
Bryan Kohberger, who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students, leaves after an extradition hearing at the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg, PA, on Jan. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Until fairly recently, DNA was a one-way ratchet, used to free criminals, but rarely to catch and convict them.
Recall that DNA fingerprinting was only invented in 1984. The first time DNA was ever used as evidence in a U.S. court was in 1987. Courts werent sure what to make of this novel technology, and of course, it was treated like witchcraft by the O.J. jury in 1995.
Back then, genetic evidence was used primarily to overturn jury verdicts from the 1970s, 80s and 90s by poking holes in the prosecutions theory of the crime.
The media whooped about every overturned conviction, falsely claiming the prisoner had been PROVED INNOCENT.
Hardly.
Suppose a child molester/murderer was convicted in 1998 based on the following evidence:
Witnesses saw him abduct the child;
Tire tracks by the body matched those on the defendants truck;
His knife blade corresponded to the victims wounds;
The childs teddy bear was found in the defendants truck bed;
When arrested, the accused had a written suicide note in his pocket, confessing to the crime;
A strand of hair found on the defendants shoe was consistent with the victims hair.
If DNA testing later proved that the hair was not, in fact, the childs, the conviction could be overturned. Who knows? The jury might have put a lot of stock in that strand of hair! Throw in allegations of prosecutorial misconduct or ineffective assistance of counsel, and stand back for the celebrities and nuns holding candlelight vigils!
The DNA didnt prove innocence: It proved a strand of hair consistent with the victims did not belong to the victim after all. An overturned conviction may be legal innocence like a Bronx jury refusing to convict but its not factual innocence. Least of all did it warrant the words proved innocent.
The party ended when DNA began being usedagainstcriminals.
In 2018, investigators finally caught the Golden State Killer, whod terrorized women across California in the 1970s and 80s, murdering at least 13 people and raping dozens of women. Law enforcement IDed him by putting his DNA into two genealogy databases, GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA. It turned out to be Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., a former cop.
Joseph James DeAngelo, charged with being the Golden State Killer, appears in court in Sacramento, CA, on March 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)
Normal people: Hurray! We got him!
Liberals: WE MUST PREVENT THE POLICE FROM USING DNA TO CATCH MURDERERS!
Wait a second! Werent you the ones worrying yourselves sick about the possibility of executing the innocent?
Until very recently, the New York Times op-ed page fairly bristled with columns insisting in defiance of the evidence that there were innocents on death row.
GUESS WHAT, NEW YORK TIMES? You can relax! Theres no danger of an innocent person being strapped into an electric chair, or walked into a gas chamber, or injected with poison, as Bob Herbert put it in 1994.
Forget human fallibility: Weve got scientificinfallibility. Trust the science, liberals!
Of course, as soon as DNA started being used to catch criminals rather than release them, the ACLU threw a fit, demanding that genealogy websites like Ancestry.com cease cooperating with law enforcement. No fair locking up killers!
As the Times explained: Privacy advocates have been worried about genetic genealogy since 2018. Since 2018 hmmm, why oh, I see. Thats the year DNA was used to catch the Golden State Killer. Yeah, that sucked.
Google and Facebook know when were menstruating, were forced to undergo proctological exams at the airport, self-driving cars are careening onto sidewalks and killing pedestrians, but WE MUST PROTECT THE SERIAL KILLERS PRIVACY!
This is the lefts specialty: Coming up with new ways to make life worse without enriching it. So now law enforcement has to face another pointless hurdle to solve heinous murders.
What possible explanation is there for this mentality other than that liberals want murderers on the streets? (Just not their streets.)
Genealogical websites merely allow forensic scientists to identify distant relatives of the person who left DNA at a crime scene such as on the knife sheath lying next to one of the four murdered students in Idaho in order to put some people in the ballpark and take others out. Theres no danger of getting the wrong man. To the contrary, DNA steers investigators away from the wrong man.
True, it will make life much harder for rapists, child molesters and murderers. It will put an end to serial killers, who will now get caught after their first kill. Im trying to fathom who else would have a problem with it.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Democratic Party.
Go here to see the original:
Ann Coulter: Theres a 0.00002% Chance Youve Got the Wrong Man