Legal Work and "False Justice"
Petro became the first attorney general in the country to intervene in a case spearheaded by the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic that pioneered the use of DNA testing to prove wrongful conviction. The case exonerated Clarence Elkins, a family man with no prior criminal record who had been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his mother-in-law.
After his involvement in subsequent high-profile cases, Petro and his wife Nancy co-authored “False Justice: Eight Myths that Convict the Innocent,” which raises questions regarding the fairness of our justice system and identifies flaws in how police and prosecutors handle evidence, especially in capital cases. The book also examines how the authors believe DNA evidence has played a critical role in exonerating convicted people and highlight what the authors call the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.
Read more about this topic: Jim Petro
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