Causes Of Wrongful Conviction
British Jurist, William Blackstone, famously stated, “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer” (Norris, Bonventre, Redlich, & Acker, 2010). The number of innocent people getting their convictions overturned is steadily increasing in the United States. The recent surge in overturned convictions is a product of The Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is an organization that was founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck at Cardozo School of Law. The purpose of their organization is to exonerate individuals have been wrongly convicted through DNA testing. They also work to help reform the criminal justice system to prevent further miscarriages of justice (Help us, 2017). The Innocence Project has …show more content…
The statistics are staggering. In 1932, Edwin Borchard conducted a groundbreaking study that examined 65 cases of wrongful convictions. He found that just under half of those wrongfully convicted had errors in the eyewitness testimony. Since then more studies have been conducted that agree with Borchard’s study. Between 1989 and 2003, Samuel Gross and his colleagues found that 219 out 340 cases had errors in eyewitness testimony. Seventy-six percent of the first 250 exonerations with The Innocence Project had eyewitness errors, and about half of those cases were death penalty cases (Norris, Bonventre, Redlich, & Acker, 2010). As humans we cannot retain or retrieve memories perfectly especially after a long period of time has passed. Our memories can also be corrupted or influenced without us even knowing it. Eyewitness testimony has proven time and time again to be an unreliable source of …show more content…
Those who have been wrongly convicted lost time with loved ones, missed opportunities for work experience and growth, and had to suffer in a violent and lonely prison environment (West & Meterko, 2015). On average, exonerees spent 12 years in prison (Chang, 2008). After release, they struggled to find decent jobs, housing, and services for mental health. They may have developed mental health issues in prison that they didn’t have before being convicted such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Seventy-three percent of exonerees were compensated, but it took 2 to 2 1\2 years to receive it. If they were not compensated they had to rely on family members and charity to move on with their lives (West & Meterko,
Case Study Of John's Wrongful Conviction: Flawed Pathology Evidence
1139 Words | 5 PagesEyewitness accounts play a huge role in general in trials and verdicts, but may be unreliable many times, with certain views placed on evidence provided by children. Unreliability may arise from not being able to recount the identity of the accused, the actions and speech occurring during that time, the relationship of individuals towards the person in question, and many
Innocence Project Report On The Case Of Jennifer Moore Case
2099 Words | 9 PagesInnocence Project Report on the Case of Curtis Jasper Moore Tommy Warrick Drake University According to the Innocence Project one of the greatest causes of wrongful conviction is due to eyewitness misidentification. They state that 72% of cases where defendants have been exonerated eyewitness misidentification played a role. Even though eyewitness testimony has been proven inaccurate numerous times, it can still be the decisive evidence in a court of law. This is because the law views the human memory as a camcorder which can record and repeat whatever it sees.
Book Review Of Picking Cotton By Jennifer Cannino
1518 Words | 7 PagesThe day after I finished the book without any enthusiasm, I attended one of the common read event called "An Overview of the Innocence Project and Innocence Work" held by a staff attorney with the Innocence Project, Karen Thompson. As mentioned briefly at the end of the book, the Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal organization committed to exonerating wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing (Innocence Project 2015) origin from the project found by Richard Rosen, the law professor who helped Ron to win his freedom and were influenced by his case and the flow of letters from people in similar situation as Ron looking for a justice and seeing DNA technology as their last hope to clear their name. The presentation was quite informative and interesting, I learned the actual definition of scientific evidence - what can be considered as an actual scientific evidence or cannot be used as a scientific evidence and how it helped and continue to free many innocent people who are wrongly convicted. After the introduction and some more information on imperfection in criminal justice system and the investigation process, the audience - including me, were asked to watch a short clip as an exercise. Right away I knew she would ask us a question regarding the clip that related to false memory from the book, so I made sure to memorize every little detail trying hard not to miss anything.
Wrongful Convictions Book Report
926 Words | 4 PagesManufacturing Guilt Wrongful Convictions in Canada, Second Edition, is relevant to the course I am taking Social Inequity and Justice because, like my course this book discusses and examines sociological approaches to social inequity in regard to race and ethnicity and how it effects these groups and their lives. Manufacturing Guilt Wrongful Convictions in Canada, Second Edition is about innocent people that spend many years behind bars, wrongfully committed for crimes they did not commit. When someone is wrongfully convicted, they are being punished for an offence they did not commit and to make matters worse the actual perpetrator of the crime goes free. Many people that do get exonerated their applications take years in the federal review
Why Is Lamar Johnson A Wrongful Conviction
1118 Words | 5 PagesThe case highlights the problems associated with flawed eyewitness identification, prosecutorial misconduct, and inadequate legal representation. By addressing these issues through comprehensive reforms, such as improving eyewitness identification procedures, increasing accountability for prosecutors, and providing adequate resources for public defenders, we can work towards a more just and equitable system. The case of Lamar Johnson not only underscores the importance of rectifying individual wrongful convictions but also emphasizes the broader implications for our society and the urgent need for criminal justice
Cheryl Beridon Research Paper
1533 Words | 7 PagesHer exoneration exposed the District Attorney’s office of their underlying corruption in office during the 1970’s. Her case shed light on possible other cases where convictions were based solely on eyewitness testimony or informants. Cheryle exoneration along with the other 2000 individuals released in the past 23 years has led to a spot light shine upon the injustices going on in this nation. The corruption in offices, the lack of effective counsel, speculation and assumptions made upon a person’s guilt or innocence and the power over another person’s life. There has been 2000 people that have been wrongfully convicted of a crime, they have lost their lives behind a huge miscarriage of justice.
Analysis Of When Our Eyes Deceive US
516 Words | 3 PagesThe article “When Our Eyes Deceive US” speaks about the wrong decisions that can lead to a wrongful conviction. This particular article decided to focus on cases of wrongful convictions of sexual assault. The first case mentioned was that of the wrongful conviction of Timothy Cole. His victim positively identified him three times (twice in police lineups and one in person at the trial), he was exonerated by DNA testing. To the utmost misfortune, the real rapist had been confessing to the crime for nine years.
Causes Of Wrongful Convictions In Australia
119 Words | 1 PagesWrongful convictions are a problem that most government officials won’t admit. The United States and other countries such as Australia have been susceptible to these miscarriages of justice. This can arise from a snowball effect of scenarios such as witness misidentification, perjured testimonies, coercive methods of interrogation, prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective counsel. These are some of the reasons that can potentially lead innocent people to be convicted of crimes they did not commit. The thousands of exonerations in the United States has caused concern for other nations to reevaluate their criminal justice system.
John Jerome White Incarceration
2040 Words | 9 PagesIntroduction Did you know “About 10,000 people in the United States may be wrongfully convicted of serious crimes each year, a new study suggests (Spring & Huff, n.d.). ” The results are based on a survey of 188 judges. Can you imagine being incarcerated for a crime you had nothing to do with?
John Wayne Gacy's Contributions To The Justice System
1030 Words | 5 PagesTherefore, this is an outdated claim, due to our justice system changing and adapting to public beliefs. There may be a few wrongful convictions in the criminal justice system, however that does not make it cause more harm than good. In any system there are flaws, we cannot disregard all the good the justice system does. Although this system has flaws like all others, it is what safeguards our society's
Conviction In Supreme Court Cases
230 Words | 1 PagesThe Supreme Court recently began hearing oral arguments in a case, where two men were convicted of bribery by a jury. However, that conviction was overturned by an appeal because the jury had been improperly instructed as to what constitutes a guilty verdict. The attorney for the defense, Lisa Blatt said, “The government should bear the consequences when overlapping charges produce split verdicts of acquittals and invalid convictions.” This quote identifies with one of the fundamental principles of the American legal system, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. While Blatt continues to argue that the vacated conviction is worthless.
Innocence Project Thesis
1227 Words | 5 PagesSince the founding of our judicial system there have always been individuals claiming innocence to a crime that they have been found guilty of, traditionally, after their sentencing no matter how innocent they may or may not be would have to serve, live and possibly die by the decision of their peers. The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck alongside Peter J. Neufeld faces this issue by challenging the sentencing of convicted individuals who claim their innocence and have factual ground to stand upon. The Innocence Project uses the recent advances in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing to prove their client’s innocence by using methods that were not available, too primitive or not provided to their clients during their investigation,
Convicting The Innocent Summary
955 Words | 4 PagesConvicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong In Brandon L. Garrett 's book, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong, he makes it very clear how wrongful convictions occur and how these people have spent many years in prison for crimes they never committed. Garrett presents 250 cases of innocent people who were convicted wrongfully because the prosecutors opposed testing the DNA of those convicted. Garrett provided simple statistics such as graphs, percentages, and charts to help the reader understand just how great of an impact this was.
Wrongful Convictions In Criminal Justice
539 Words | 3 PagesLuckily, it is known what causes wrongful convictions and how to fix them. Many wrongful convictions are due to mistaken eyewitnesses, jailhouse snitches, or false evidence. I think many of the wrongful convictions could be solved with harder evidence, more information. A case should not rely on a single eye witness but multiple.
Essay On Wrongful Convictions
1225 Words | 5 PagesFurthermore, there can be several factors at play when a wrongful conviction occurs and each case is unique. Three of the more common and detrimental factors that will be explored in this essay are eyewitness error, the use of jailhouse informants and professional and institutional misconduct. Firstly, eyewitness testimony can be a major contributor to a conviction and is an important factor in wrongful conviction (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p. 227). Witness recall and, frankly, the human emory are not as reliable as previously thought. In fact there has been much research showing the problems with eyewitness testimony such as suggestive police interviewing, unconscious transference, and malleability of confidence (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p.227).
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