> The way I read it was if it was being used in a frivolous manner, e.g. "There was a murder in Times Square last night. We found a hair of yours in Times Square. Case closed."
There will always be more evidence than that. You can find circumstantial "evidence" of anything. If you were friends with the victim then "the defendant knew the victim." If you were enemies or competitors then you had motive. If you had never met the victim but the victim was robbed then you had motive again, and the same if you ever expressed opposition to any class of activity the victim had ever engaged in. If you were caught on surveillance near where the crime was committed then it will be used against you, but if you were at home sleeping then you have no alibi. And so it goes.
A prosecutor can whittle the world of facts about your life down to only the ones that imply you might have committed the crime. None of that stuff actually proves anything -- but it sure makes a good show for the jury.
Throw fraudulent DNA evidence on top of it and the outcome is predictable.
There will always be more evidence than that. You can find circumstantial "evidence" of anything. If you were friends with the victim then "the defendant knew the victim." If you were enemies or competitors then you had motive. If you had never met the victim but the victim was robbed then you had motive again, and the same if you ever expressed opposition to any class of activity the victim had ever engaged in. If you were caught on surveillance near where the crime was committed then it will be used against you, but if you were at home sleeping then you have no alibi. And so it goes.
A prosecutor can whittle the world of facts about your life down to only the ones that imply you might have committed the crime. None of that stuff actually proves anything -- but it sure makes a good show for the jury.
Throw fraudulent DNA evidence on top of it and the outcome is predictable.