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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3094 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
I will give you an example. Before DNA technology came along, there was-hopefully, never in this territory, but apparently in other places-the old trick of offering a suspect a glass of water in the police station and, if the suspect drinks from it, taking the glass away and placing it at a crime scene, picking it up, fingerprinting it and using it to establish evidence that the offender was present at the crime scene.
Presumably that sort of thing could happen also with DNA technology. But that is abuse of the technology which does not for one instant repudiate the use of the technology in an appropriate way. Anything could be used in an illegitimate way, Mr Speaker. A person can stab another person with a knife, but that is not an argument for abolishing knives. The point of the new technology is that it has the benefit of being able not only to inculpate people, but also to exculpate people.
In an article in the Age of 1 April of this year-I assume that it was not meant to be a joke-there was extensive discussion about the effect of DNA and the article pointed out:
The use of DNA has shed new light on corrupt policing and the fabrication of scientific evidence. It has also highlighted the inadequacy of the compensation offered to those who are wrongly imprisoned. In California, 99 prisoners have been freed in recent weeks after DNA evidence helped expose a police corruption racket that manufactured prosecutions to inflate conviction statistics. Governor Ryan of Illinois, a Republican and death penalty supporter, declared a moratorium on executions in January after 13 death row inmates were cleared of their crimes. In Louisiana, Clyde Charles was released in January after DNA evidence cleared him of a trumped-up rape charge that had kept him in gaol for 19 years.
I understand also that in the United States there have been a number of cases of people who were committed to death row being exonerated by the use of DNA evidence, unfortunately in the case of some of them after they had already been executed by the state.
Mr Speaker, this is not just about putting people in the frame. It is also about taking people out of the frame. The point is that it can be abused, but that is a matter for the courts. If a policeman fronts a court and says, "Yes, I found this sample of skin at the scene of the murder," the court has the option of believing or not believing that policeman's evidence, just as at the present time before DNA technology becomes widespread the court is free to believe or not believe a policeman who says, "Yes, I found this glass at the murder scene with the defendant's fingerprints on it." The fact that abuse is possible is no argument against the technology. I have to say, quite apart from anything else, that Ms Tucker's use of that analogy in the context of the ACT, which has a police force which has been remarkably free of that kind of misuse of power, was a fairly unfortunate reference on her part.
Mr Speaker, I want to turn now to what Mr Stanhope has described as the crossing of swords by him and me over the last few days. We have had some disgraceful allegations and suggestions made by the ACT opposition in the course of this debate. We had the comments yesterday on the ABC about girl guides being held down by burly policemen while sampling tools were thrust into their mouths, comments which frankly are unsupportable on close consideration of the legislation. As Mr Stanhope now realises, I hope, the legislation does not apply-
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