High Court: Convicts have no right to DNA tests : Via USATODAY.com .

WASHINGTON — Convicted prisoners have no constitutional right to biological evidence from their cases for DNA testing, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday by a 5-4 vote.
The high-profile dispute from Alaska, one of several closely awaited cases of the 2008-09 term that will end later this month, involved the modern testing technology that has led to the exoneration of more than 200 individuals.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, acknowledged that DNA testing "has an unparalleled ability both to exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty." But he said prisoners simply have no constitutional right to a state's biological evidence after conviction.

Roberts said inmates' access to such evidence — in this situation from a rape case — is a matter best left to the states.

He said 46 states already have some laws allowing access to crime scene evidence, as does the federal government. These statutes vary widely, however, and some, including the federal law, require a prisoner to sign an affidavit attesting to his innocence with the request.

Dissenting justices said the court majority was rejecting a way to "ascertain the truth once and for all."

Of the argument that the matter should be left to the states, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for dissenters that recognizing a right to access for DNA testing "would not prevent the states from creating procedures (for litigants); it would merely ensure that states do so in a manner that is non-arbitrary."

Read Original Article:(Via USATODAY.com .)