The Innocence Project: False Imprisonment

Wrongful Convictions The criminal justice system exists for individuals to express their right to due process. However, even the criminal justice system has flaws. Wrongful convictions do occur and statistics show that as much as .5% - 1% of all convictions are wrongful. (Zalman, 2017) The past system, especially prior to DNA evidence testing, was harsh and very one-sided.

After reading Picking Cotton by Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino in Professor Morton’s class last semester, I became interested in the concept of eyewitness misidentification and bad forensic science leading to wrongful convictions. After further research I chose to take up an internship with the New England Innocence Project for this Spring semester. Since the inception of the first Innocence Project in 1992, 337 people across the United States have been exonerated on the basis of new strides made in forensic science capabilities, this is only a fraction where there have been 1,744 total exonerations between the Innocence Project combined with other groups (University of Michigan). The statistics of why this happens are overwhelming:

Wrongful Convictions: Exonerated by DNA Since 1992, 333 people in the United States have been wrongfully convicted and exonerated by DNA testing. Of these 333 people, 20 served time under death row. (Inn Proj) Because of this, faith in the criminal justice system is at times questioned. 1.

There are several incidences in history when someone was accused of witchcraft. Maybe they didn’t have anything to do with witchcraft but if someone said it, everyone believed them. Some many people’s lives were taken because of something they didn’t do not had a part in. From June – September 1692, 19 men and women have been convicted of witchcraft. They were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village for hanging.

When convict individuals for criminal acts and making sure the right person is captured it may be best for law officials to use DNA evidence that would exonerate wrongfully-convictions. In recent years there has been great advancements in technology that would allow investigators to use when trying to prove evidence on individuals who are sitting on death row. Citizens have also, made great efforts ensuring innocent people are not convicted for crimes they did not commit. According, to the Equal Justice in 1973, there were at least 156 people released from the criminal justice system for being wrongfully convicted. When innocent people are wrongfully convicted it not only take away many years of their lives, and causing hurt to the victim’s

The Witch Trials, Bias, Stereotypical, and a Mistake In the past when humans didn't understand something, they turned to the unthinkable for answers. An example of this action of the 1692 Salem Massachusetts Witch Trials. These trials started because of two girls, and resulted in many deaths and accusations. Although there was evidence of witchcraft, could it have been all a mistake and bias?

Three Trails of Officers Acquitted in the fatal shooting of African Americans Shootings of African Americans by police in the USA is inflating. Officers involved in shootings are being discharged from trials. While people who advocate officers seem to be convinced with guiltless conclusions, victims’ families and others who defend them, call the trails as “implicit bias” against minorities. The three trails of the officers Jeronimo Yanez, Ray Tensing and Dominique Heaggan- Brown support such situation. Officer Ray Tensing’s trial ended in a mistrial and other two were found not guilty.

Can you begin to imagine spending over 30 years of your life in prison over something you knew you never did? Imagine the point in which you were voiceless and the odds seemed to be against you. That is what has happened to so many people in North Carolina particularly due to wrongful convictions. Since 2007 the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission has been able to get over 7 people exonerated from the death penalty and back into society after spending more than 15 years incarcerated for a crime they did not commit due to tampering of evidence, coerced confessions, plea bargains, and much more. The legal definition for wrongful conviction is persons who are in fact innocent but who have been wrongly convicted by a jury or other court

Annotated Bibliography #1 Working Research Question:     Should the U.S. Judical branch take action to prevent wrongful convictions and improve police investigations, or should the government spend its time and resources on other things? Bibliographic Entry: Hunt, B. Problems in the Criminal Justice System. Retrieved September 22, 2017, from http://mtabolitionco.org/issues/problems/ Source Summary:     This article is all about the issues in the U.S. criminal, from the outdated technology through racism. Also it talks about the origin of why and how all of these issues came about and potential ways to solve the problems.

A total of 1000 court cases where the defendant plead innocent 25 percent of whites, 18 percent of blacks, and 12 percent of Latinos got their sentences reduced through bargaining.(Noisette) Along with these people the poor also are not treated fair, imagine a father or a sibling couldn’t afford an attorney for his court trial, so he then was sentenced for five years but then stayed 50 years to finally pay off the attorney. This is a great example where minorities and poor people have a disadvantage vs a wealthy white person. This is a direct violation of the law saying everyone has the right to a fair trial but the statistics show that it really isn’t fair. To fix this problem we can have a system to test judges, stop racial and economic profiling,