Assisting Victims After Postconviction Results Have Been Obtained

Prosecutors and victims' advocates should ensure that information about testing results is provided to the victim or survivors in a timely fashion. Information should be provided in person, if possible. The more critical the information, the more important it is to provide it in person, or at least by telephone. Victims should be provided with a thorough explanation of the meaning and consequences of testing results.

Prosecutors and victims' advocates should ensure that counseling resources are available through their offices or a community-based assistance program.

If testing results produce exculpatory evidence, particularly in mistaken eyewitness identification cases, victims may still believe the defendant is guilty. Victims may be upset and angry. The credibility of sexual assault victims is usually attacked in trial, and a conviction is viewed as a significant validation of the victim's credibility. To face having his or her credibility called into question once again will cause tremendous distress. Victims or survivors will need a great deal of support and an opportunity to express their anger and frustration. Some victims may feel terrible guilt about their part in convicting an innocent person.

Reassure victims that they did the best they could at the time and that memory can be fallible. It may help to remind victims that DNA technology, which may not have been available at the time of the original investigation, can be an important tool in making sure the right person is convicted. Remind victims or survivors that the criminal justice system is not perfect, and emphasize the importance of knowing the truth and identifying the right perpetrator to ensure justice and to prevent future victimization of other individuals.

Also, it may help to inform victims of the following:

  • Even the Innocence Project concedes that, in many cases in which postconviction requests are made for DNA testing, the results confirmed the identity of the convicted person as the true perpetrator. These confirmations may have a significant impact on any future decisions regarding probation or parole.
  • The victim should be assured that everyone in the system, particularly prosecutors and judges, will make sure that ambiguous results, e.g., results that do not clearly exonerate the perpetrator, will not result in a new trial or weaken the conviction.
  • If postconviction testing of DNA evidence results in a valid exclusion, the victim can be reassured that growing DNA databases will increase the future likelihood of identifying the true perpetrator in his or her case. DNA databases will also make it easier to accurately identify and link perpetrators to crimes in future cases.

Go to the Next Section: Recommendations for Laboratory Personnel 

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