Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has ordered a review of a little-known Bush administration policy requiring some defendants to waive their right to DNA testing even though that right is guaranteed in a landmark federal law, officials said.
"It's a mean-spirited policy. Truth, ascertained by science, should trump the finality of a conviction," said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the New York-based Innocence Project. He said the waivers are effectively "gutting the impact" of the 2004 law because 97 percent of federal convictions result from guilty pleas.
TVNL Comment: The entire Bush era was "mean-spitited!" Everything they did was "mean-spitited!"