"Trashing the Truth" by Susan Greene and Miles Moffeit, Denver Post, July 23-26, 2007.

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For twenty years, Clarence Moses-El has claimed that he is innocent of the rape for which he's serving a forty-eight-year sentence. When a judge finally granted his request for a DNA test in 1995,

Moses-El raised $1,000 from fellow inmates to pay for the lab work. Before the test could be performed, however, police destroyed the crime-scene evidence, in what they said was an accident.

Moses-El's case is one of 141 uncovered by the Denver Post in their four-day series "Trashing the Truth," an exhaustive examination of DNA mishandling. Looming large over the controversy is a 1988 Supreme Court decision declaring that destruction of evidence only violates a fair trial if it's done in "bad faith." As the Post describes, however, that standard is almost impossible to prove.

The Post approaches the issue from multiple angles, including the disorganization of evidence vaults and the lack of a uniform national policy. The series combines inmate interviews, statistical analysis, and expert testimony. The Post also developed a multimedia presentation of the issue on their Web site, featuring explanations of DNA evidence, video interviews with inmates, and an interactive timeline of the history of DNA case law and criminal policy.

The series has already made an impact. One case highlighted by the paper is being reexamined by the district attorney; Colorado Governor Bill Ritter has created a task force to investigate the issue. "The governor has been reading the Denver Post series," an aide told the paper. "We are aware of the issues that it has raised. And we'll be having conversations about that as we go forward."

As for Moses-El, the Denver DA is defensive. "You can't just assume that [the destroyed evidence] would have exonerated him," he told the Post. Moses-El will have another twenty-eight years to wonder just that.