Behind virtually every wrongful conviction lies a tangled tale of tunnel vision, faulty conclusions and, too often, lost evidence.
Organizations that work to exonerate the innocent - a hardy band of legal warriors who ferret through dusty evidence and court records in search of fresh clues - have repeatedly been confronted with the reality of lost evidence.
The courts should seriously consider a proposal by one of these groups, The Innocence Project, that would end this travesty.
The Innocence Project is seeking a declaration that would compel the Crown to catalogue and retain evidence in serious convictions, primarily murder, unless a defendant specifically waives the right to have it stored.
Of course, governments already archive evidence in criminal cases, often with great care. The problem is that, as with so many aspects of the court system, the mechanisms they utilize are archaic and have evolved in a piecemeal fashion over time.
With technology readily available that enables materials to be catalogued and tracked with stunning precision, there is no longer any excuse for the loss of court exhibits such as hairs, fibres or autopsy photographs.
Crown lawyers have signalled that they will inveigh against the creation of an unwieldy, bureaucratic task for the state.
The beauty of the Innocence Project proposal, however, is that the Crown would be able to destroy evidence by obtaining a judicial order to do so. Defendants could appear to block the Crown by opposing their application, but few are likely to do so.
In reality, most inmates simply exhaust their appeals and serve out their time. A small number adamantly insist that they are innocent, and it is these claims that should set off alarm bells.
Twenty years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada stunned officialdom with a ruling in R v Stinchcombe that required the Crown to disclose to the defence any evidence bearing on guilt or innocence.
Since then, millions of pages of documents have been located, vetted and disclosed by police and prosecutors. Yet, the planet continues to revolve on its axis and the Stinchcombe requirement has unquestionably prevented miscarriages of justice.
The time has arrived to extend the principles of Stinchcombe to the retention of evidence.