The vast majority of folks who get cleared based on “new DNA evidence” or whatever actually don’t have their innocence proven. Instead in most of these cases, there is shown to be some problem with a piece of evidence relied on at trial.

To be clear, the prosecutors should be held to a high standard, and they should be forced to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. But we should also be a little more cautious about proclaiming the “innocence” of people whose guilty convictions are found to be problematic. In case that evidence had been excluded on time, it is possible that the prosecutors could still have built a solid case that relied on different evidence.