Although a percentage of these exclusions probably represent the use of DNA as an investigation tool, it also reveals how often the police were wrong about a suspect's potential culpability. Additional evidence of how often police investigators are wrong about a suspect's guilt was provided by studies showing professionals who are required to judge the guilt or innocence of a suspect based on an interview, such as polygraphers, detectives, and customs inspectors, were accurate only 45-60% of the time (Kassin and Gudjonsson, 2005, p
Although a percentage of these exclusions probably represent the use of DNA as an investigation tool, it also reveals how often the police were wrong about a suspect's potential culpability. Additional evidence of how often police investigators are wrong about a suspect's guilt was provided by studies showing professionals who are required to judge the guilt or innocence of a suspect based on an interview, such as polygraphers, detectives, and customs inspectors, were accurate only 45-60% of the time (Kassin and Gudjonsson, 2005, p
If the rate of wrongful convictions is perceived to be too high then public trust in the justice system would be also undermined. With 273 DNA-mediated exonerations since 1989 (The Innocence Project, 2011), resulting in 16 states imposing a moratorium or outright bans on the death penalty, it seems that confidence in the justice system has already eroded enough to question the use of the death penalty (Schwartz and Fitzsimmons, 2011)
M. On August 18, 1989 a 9-1-1 call was received by the Savannah Police Department reporting shots fired in the Cloverdale neighborhood (U.S. District Court, Savannah Division, 2010, p
The discrepancy between the two surveys were interpreted as a reflection of increasing official recognition that wrongful convictions do exist, thanks in large part to the successful use of DNA to obtain exonerations. Despite this growing awareness, nearly 20% of all respondents in the 2005/2006 survey still believed that wrongful convictions did not occur in their own jurisdictions (Zalman, Smith, and Kiger, 2008)