DNA, Exonerations, and Statutes of Limitations

There's an interesting editorial in the New York Times written by a defense attorney and author (Scott Turow) about the use of DNA in forensic science and its affect on the statute of limitations. He argues that while the police were once reluctant to use DNA, they are embracing it more now (as is the public), especially in light of the spate of recent exonerations due to DNA. This has brought up new questions, however, about whether there should still be statutes of limitations on crimes if the police can prove conclusively that a suspect was indeed the perpetrator even decades later. He concludes that it would be unwise to get rid of statutes of limitation, however, as there is more to a criminal trial than the identity of a perp... Check out the article for more (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/opinion/08turow.html?pagewanted=2). See below for a brief excerpt:

The law has always feared the hazards of long-delayed prosecutions. The chief concern impelling limitations — that memories dim over time and that evidence is likely to become lost or dispersed — appears at first blush to be irrelevant in the face of today’s more exacting science. If DNA can prove, within 99.9 percent certainty, that a defendant was the perpetrator of an unsolved rape, why not send him to prison? Yet what if his defense to the charge is consent? Forensic science can often establish identity with near certainty, but it is not a time machine that can transport us backward so that we recapture every nuance of a largely forgotten event.