Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins established a “conviction integrity unit” in 2007 whose purpose is to make sure that there are no innocent people in the Texas prison system who were wrongfully convicted by his office. The Dallas Morning News reported this past Sunday that Watkins’ integrity unit has recently shifted its focus from DNA cases to those cases of possible innocence not involving DNA.

            Since 2001, there have been 20 DNA exonerations in Dallas County—most of whom involved faulty identification procedures. Police and prosecutorial misconduct, withholding of evidence, were involved in the other cases. Watkins told the Morning News that the experiences of his integrity unit have changed his perspective in the way he sees cases of potential innocence.

            “At the time, I started out looking at legitimate claims of innocence, and obviously we still do,” the District Attorney told the Morning News. “But now, it’s how we improve prosecutor and police techniques. It’s about the ability to argue for changes in the law.”

            Watkins’ office identified a total of 502 cases for potential DNA cases. His prosecutors tested 50 of those cases. Seven men were exonerated and 28 were confirmed to be guilty. DNA results in some of the other tests proved inconclusive. Watkins said they may be investigated further.

            The 400 cases not tested proved to be a stickler. Watkins’ office decided not to test them either because there was no genetic evidence to test or the DNA evidence available would not have established either guilt or innocence.

            Although the number of DNA exonerations has sharply dropped off the last couple of years, Dallas County public defender Michelle Moore, the former president of the Innocence Project of Texas, believes there will be more DNA exonerations. “I think when it’s all said and done …there could be another DNA exoneration,” she told the Morning News.

            The decision by Watkins to move from DNA cases to non-DNA cases has not been embraced by everyone. Watkins’ Republican challenger, Danny Clancy, in the next election favors a more cautious, conservative approach. “We have to be very careful, especially in the non-DNA cases,” Clancy told the Morning News. “It becomes a slippery slope when we start second-guessing jury verdicts, but we have to be prepared to do that when new, credible evidence is presented that point to an individual’s innocence.”

            Clancy said a district attorney takes an “oath” to “seek justice, even if it’s delayed.”

            If district attorneys would honor their oath at the outset of a criminal prosecution, the issue of wrongful convictions would not be the significant criminal justice “issue” it is today. The fact that more than 75 percent of the nation’s 254 DNA exonerations involved mistaken identification means that prosecutors are not doing their jobs at the front end of a criminal justice system. They know the difference between a “good” identification and one that is just “good enough” to pass constitutional mustard on appeal.

            But Clancy does make a legitimate point with the “slippery slope” argument. It is hard to dispute DNA exonerations. But if a jury verdict is reversed and a judicial determination of actual innocence made in a case where later evidence emerges that absolutely establishes the guilt of a released offender, particularly one convicted of murder and who had a death sentence, the political backlash will be tremendous. It can only be hoped that other district attorneys across the country, like the one in New York, who have established in-house “integrity units” will, like Watkins, focus as much on improved prosecutorial and police investigative techniques as establishing the innocence of those wrongfully convicted.

            That will ultimately prove to be the only safety net in those non-DNA cases.