Jaela West-Lewis

Mrs. Haack

Convergent Science

15 March 2019

Extracurricular Analysis 2

Presented below is my second extracurricular analysis. The project is to complete, outside of

Glenelg’s curriculum, an analysis of research, a competition, a news item, etc. The subject must

relate to the primary research focus, the essential question. Four analyses in total must be

completed.

My essential question relates to the relevancy and reliability of forensic science in today’s

criminal justice proceedings. Through the scientific inability to gain DNA evidence analysis, a

man was wrongfully prosecuted and spent the next 20 years of his life in prison. I took a personal

interest to the story for its connection to my family, as my mother currently works at the

company that Mr. Roberts worked at when he was accused of murder and arrested. I also focused

on DNA evidence being prevalent in the case for its complexity and my general intrigue in

forensic biology and chemistry.

The title of this article is DNA Evidence Exonerates a Man of Murder After 20 Years in

Prison. It was written by Sandra E. Garcia. She is a freelance reporter for the New York Times

and have been writing for them for over 5 years. Her article was published by the NY Times in

the middle of October in 2018. The purpose of her article is to share the power of DNA evidence

and bring to attention the good of the California Innocence Project.

The article begins with the reveal of Horace Roberts’ exoneration. He was convicted of

the murder of his girlfriend and coworker, Terry Cheek, in 1998. The two worked together at
Quest Diagnostics, but both were married when they began their affair. One year previous, Ms.

Cheek had been settling her divorce with her husband Googie Harris Sr. One year later, Ms.

Cheek was found murdered, her body near Mr. Roberts’ truck that she often borrowed. When

questioned by the police, Mr. Roberts at first denied the relationship. But police found a watch

that looked like his, and it was concluded that he was lying about the affair. The jury convicted

him on account of his truck, his lies, the affair, and his watch. In 2003, Roberts hears of the

California Innocence Project, a nonprofit group based in California that uses DNA evidence to

exonerate wrongly convicted people. Roberts decides to send in his case for a chance at his name

being cleared, and the group takes his case. The CIP got to work and found more DNA evidence

on the watch and some rope from the crime scene, as well as underneath Ms. Cheek’s

fingernails. The DNA connected to someone unidentified and Mr. Harris’s son, so they bring this

to the district attorney. Their exoneration request was denied, but the CIP did not give up, and

found more DNA evidence. That DNA connected to Googie Harris Sr. and Jr. and Mr. Harris

Sr.’s nephew. Mr. Harris Sr. and his nephew, Leal, were arrested and Roberts was set free quietly

a few days before their arrest.

Garcia’s article’s structure paints the story of Mr. Horace Roberts’ wrongful conviction

and salvation with facts and well executed transitions. She gives the conclusion of the story as

presented by the headline, then goes back to the beginning and goes through the tale with a

‘justice prevails’ sort of theme in her writing. Her opening remark is very blunt and unexpected,

as it was, “The headlines are disturbingly familiar: A person, usually male and often black, who

has spent a substantial stretch of his life behind bars is freed after DNA evidence shows that he is

innocent.” She puts this at the beginning to hook readers in and to cause awareness at the

frequency of these wrongful acts of this country’s past when it came to imprisonments. She goes
on to tell Mr. Roberts’ tale, using relevant details to drive it, showing the time and effort she put

into the article. She gives case details, dates, and quotes from parties involved. Towards the

middle and end of the article, her style of writing went to implicate that the California Innocence

Project was extremely instrumental to Mr. Roberts’ exoneration. While Garcia does mention

CIP’s fellow nonprofit who seeks to help those who were wrongfully convicted, she mostly

centers on the efforts of California Innocence Project, rather than the national based Innocence

Project who had been running 7 years longer. She mentioned the project not for a biased

viewpoint but because they were the only wrongful conviction organization directly involved

with Mr. Robert’s case. She gives the impression that the CIP is the only force fighting for the

wrongfully imprisoned. Because of her easy to follow story line, her article can be appealing to

all, especially those who appreciate the righting of injustices.

I learned the details about a case where DNA was used to help a wrongfully imprisoned

man. When beginning to learn about the topic of forensics I had always wondered about the

advantages and disadvantage of the application of DNA evidence. I also learned of the existence

of the California Innocence Project. I had previously known of the national Innocence Project,

and was curious to see the completely separate but similarly named organization. It has led me to

wonder why it was created 7 years later. I wish to further research into the reason behind its

creation, to see if it is convenience based or formed in spite the national project, through an

opinion that the project was not working efficiently enough. This article relates to the relativity

aspect of my essential question as both Innocence Projects are fairly young and the use of DNA

evidence to reexamine cases is also a fairly recent trend.

 Citations

Garcia, Sandra E. "DNA Evidence Exonerates a Man of Murder After 20 Years in Prison." The

New York Times, 16 Oct. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/us/20-years-exonerated-

dna-prison.html.