Inmate DNA

After spending 35 years in jail for a crime he did not commit, Florida inmate James Bain has become the longest-serving prisoner to be exonerated using DNA evidence.

A court-mandated DNA test proved Bain was wrongly convicted of sexual assault in 1974.

According to Innocence Project co-director Barry Scheck, head of the group that helped free Bain, there have been 248 post-conviction exonerations based on DNA evidence since 1989.

In this interview, Jeffrey Brown talks to Scheck, who describes why wrongful convictions occur, and why it is often difficult to find or use DNA evidence in criminal trials.