Editorial: Guilty or innocent?

Monday, April 30, 2007 | 7:37 a.m.

Readers old enough to remember 1981 could better understand the loss suffered by Jerry Miller if they took the time to think about everything they have accomplished since.

It was in September of that year that a woman was attacked in a Chicago parking garage. She was raped and thrown into the trunk of her car before attendants appeared and chased away the attacker.

Miller was picked out of a lineup after the attendants helped police make a sketch. Although he testified he was home watching TV at the time of the attack, Miller was found guilty and sentenced on charges of rape, robbery, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated battery.

After spending nearly 25 years in prison, Miller was paroled in March 2006, with his reputation ruined.

His name, at least, has been restored by the Innocence Project, begun 15 years ago at Yeshiva University in New York City by attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. Officials with the organization persuaded prosecutors to recheck a semen sample taken from the victim's clothing.

DNA testing proved that Miller was innocent of this horrific crime. Miller's exoneration by an Illinois judge was the 200th since the project began.

Freeing wrongly convicted inmates is what first comes to mind with the Innocence Project. But its work also leads us to realize that for every person freed, a person capable of the worst kind of violence got away with a terrible crime.

The larger lesson of the Innocence Project is that our system of justice is fallible, and that DNA testing should be readily available for all applicable cases.

Yet a sizable backlog still faces many of the nation's crime labs when it comes to cases of violent crime in which a suspect could be positively identified through DNA testing.

Base on what the Innocence Project has proven, we believe there should be more state and federal funding made available to reduce backlogs to almost zero.