System That Convicts Innocent Needs Reform

On July 9, the long agony of JonBenet Ramsey's family was brought at least to a partial close. On the basis of new forms of DNA testing, the Boulder, Colo., district attorney wrote a letter of apology to her father, John Ramsey, because the results cleared him and his late wife of any involvement in the girl's murder.

The new form of testing -- called Touch Testing -- used cells from under the victim's nails and from blood on her clothes to rule out involvement by John and Patsy Ramsey. Sadly, no matches could be found to identify the actual murderer.