Forensic DNA in Exonerations

Abstract

Justice is quintessence of life with dignity. Injustice results in individual’s frustration, social discontent and communal unrest resulting in breakdown of social order. In case, society perceives that the judicial system is not guarding the principles of justice, then faith of people depletes in the governing system, consequently may potentially promote rebellious tendencies against the state machinery. All men are born equal in liberty, but not in other endowments, according to the rule of nature. The principles of natural justice are the bedrock for legal system, and judges are primarily empowered for administration of justice. However, during judicial process, a judge may likely to commit two types of judicial errors for determination of guilt: firstly, convicting an innocent (false inculpatory finding or false positive), or secondly acquitting a guilty person (false exculpatory finding or false negative). Between two judicial errors, erroneous convictions are morally worse than wrongful acquittals since innocents are not liable to punishment. The public responses to the norms for determination of culpability or innocence are dynamic and vary with the seriousness of the offence.