Admissible: Shreds of Evidence

Wrongful conviction lawyers looking for pre-DNA era evidence to test found a trove of samples where they shouldn’t have been: taped to a lab technician’s paperwork. That material would exonerate 13 men in Virginia. Advocates praised forensic scientist Mary Jane Burton for keeping the samples and foreseeing the arrival of DNA testing. But few were asking why Burton broke chain of custody rules or why so many of her cases resulted in wrongful convictions. Whistleblowers said Burton would skip scientific steps and record her blood test results in pencil, so she could change her findings to benefit the police. Virginia Public Radio and Story Mechanics present “Admissible: Shreds of Evidence.” Host Tessa Kramer examines Burton’s work to answer whether those smuggled samples revealed more than just the wrong guy did it. Were the scientist’s unconventional methods responsible for getting innocent men out of prison…or for putting them there in the first place?