What happens in a DNA lab can alter the course of history.  In the case of two individuals from New York city, DNA analysis freed one person from prison and sent his accuser into a prison sentence of her own.

William McCaffrey was convicted of rape in 2005 based on testimony from the victim who said she was gang raped at knife point by three men including McCaffrey  while walking to a party in upper Manhattan.  McCaffrey was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The alleged victim Biurny Peguero recanted her testimony last year, admitting she lied in an attempt to cover up a fight she had with some friends.  She told the court her friends were impatient with her for complaining about the men who frightened but did not attack her.  By lying that she had been raped Peguero hoped for more sympathy.

DNA testing confirmed that the bite marks on Peguero could not have been made by McCaffrey.  In September of 2009 a judge declared McCaffrey innocent.

In his 10 page decision State Supreme Court Judge Richard D. Carruthers wrote “the only reasonable conclusion to draw from Peguero’s recantation, the DNA results, and the statements of witnesses made after the recantation is that Mr. McCaffrey did not commit the crimes of which he was convicted.”

Peguero pleaded guilty on two counts of perjury.  She will now be the one in prison for up to seven years.  McCaffrey spent four years in jail on the wrongful conviction.

This is the latest in a series of prison cases overturned on DNA evidence, leading one to ask how many innocent men were erroneously sentenced to death in the decades before science could prove innocence?

In his decision, Judge Carruthers called wrongful convictions “a catastrophe both for the injured party and for the criminal justice system”, proving the vital nature of the work of a DNA lab.