...Wrongful conviction, often referred to as miscarriages of justice, can be defined as those who have been arrested on criminal charges, who have either pleaded guilty to the charges or have been found guilty, and, notwithstanding, their guilty plea or verdict, are actually innocent (Huff & Killias, 2010).While it may say like these situations are very rare, in fact there are many cases where innocent people are incarcerated, or even executed, because of errors in the criminal justice system. For example, as Dr. Michael Naughton, founder of the Innocence Project, which a non-profit advocacy group that works to free the wrongly convicted, said, “People think that miscarriages of justice are rare and exceptional . . . But every single day, people...
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...Wrongful convictions can be described as a miscarriage of justice or an unfair decision in a court of law or as a conviction of a person accused of a crime which, in the result of a subsequent investigation, proves erroneous. Police misconduct refers to ill-appropriated conduct and illegal action taken by police regarding their official duties or any action performed by a law enforcement officer that is unethical, against established employment guidelines, unconstitutional, or criminal in nature. Official misconduct is more commonly caused by law enforcement officials and prosecutors in a number of ways. The knowledge we have about wrongful convictions and official misconduct comes mainly from studies of cases ending in exonerations. According...
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...Numerous people attribute to Damon Thibodeaux's wrongful conviction. To begin with, the police department's interrogation was not very effective. As trained law enforcement officers and detectives, they could have been more tried to focus on other possible suspects and not focus all their time and attention on Thibodeaux. After 35 hours of no sleep, food and feeling physically tired, Mr.Thibodeaux confessed just to get these three things back. His confession was never conclusive with the details of the crime, in fact everything he confessed was details given to him by the police about the crime. At the end the police department's findings were also incorrect. Further investigation showed Ms.Champagne was killed by the result of being hit with...
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...Wrongful Convictions In this article "Wrongful Convictions” Radley Balko discusses a case where a man by the name of Paul House was wrongful convicted in 1986 and was sentenced to death for a murder that happened in 1985 that he did not do. Paul House was released in 2006 after being behind bars for 22 years for a crime that he was not guilty of committing. This article raised the attention to how many innocent people are behind bars for convictions that they did not do (183). Forensic evidence helped to reveal Paul House innocence due to DNA testing of semen that was not a match of House blood type but matched the husband DNA of the woman killed. Even though rape was never part of the case against Paul House (186), it was used to be a conceivable...
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...The public relies on the justice system to provide safety and to ensure that criminals are put in their place so justice can be served. However, there have been many cases where the justice system has failed to put the correct person in jail. Wrongful convictions occur when an innocent person is arrested and charged with a criminal act. “Two thirds of all wrongful convictions are related either to rape or assault” (Ramsey, 2007). The case of Guy Paul Morin is an ideal example of wrongful convictions. This paper will first address the case of Guy Paul Morin, showing where the justice system went wrong. Later, lead on to the ways this problem can be solved and remedies that should be available to people who have become a victim of wrongful convictions. The case of Guy Paul Morin occurred between the 1980’s and the 1990’s. “Morin was accused with the rape and murder of his eight year old neighbour, Christine Jessop, and was convicted in 1992 in Ontario ” (Kaufman, 2001). “He was charged due to the evidence of hair and fibre found on the body of the victim” (Denov & Campbell, 2005). This indicated that there was direct contact between the victim, Jessop, and Morin. This is where the whole situation takes a turn. The forensic scientists that were put to investigate made some mistakes that had a huge impact on the case. “They failed to report that the fibre and hair found on Jessop was contaminated” (Macfarlane, 2006). This now creates the possibility that there was no physical...
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...Wrongful Convictions Author: Balko, Radley After carefully reading the article “Wrongful Convictions” by Radley Balko (Reason. Jul2011, Vol. 43 Issue 3, p20-33 14p.) I have learned how our technology has advanced greatly in the last 2 decades as far as DNA testing and Forensic Science is concerned. Though still suggests all possible mistakes and errors made in a wrongful conviction case. This article has also shed light on the ignorance and indolence of our government and all other parties involved in these wrongly convicted cases such as our law enforcement, members of the bar, judges, forensic analysts, and many more. As well as pointing out the trials and tribulations of the wrongly convicted from the first initial interrogation to the conviction and then on to what may or may not lead to their cases being overturned and those accused of being “guilty” proven innocent and being set free. Their main example used in this article pertaining to the wrongfully convicted cases in the United States was a man named Paul House. The first exoneration took place in 1989 thanks to the advancement of DNA testing. Since then 268 convicts have been exonerated and set free. On average most of those had already served 13 years in prison as well as waiting on death row. It has been found that 17 convicts that have already been sentenced to death were wrongfully convicted. Now since the onset of DNA testing in the year 2000 it has added great pressure for those awaiting the death penalty...
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...Wrongful Convictions A man who was caught in a crime scene at the wrong time, is now serving 25 years to life, for a crime he did not commit, this is an example of a wrongful conviction. Wrongful convictions occur when innocent defendants are found guilty in criminal trials, or when defendants feel forced to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit in order to avoid the death penalty or very long prison sentences. In some instances, the law runs into convictions before getting complete facts, which is very unfair in the criminal justice system. Also, in the United States about 10,000 people may be wrongfully convicted of serious crimes each year according to Ohio states. This shows that it’s a major issue that needs to be solved; therefore,...
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...Wrongful convictions happen every day within our justice system, according to the , Bureau of Justice Statistics, admits that statistically 8% to 12% of all state prisoners are either actually or factually innocent. One out of every 100 adults in the United States is behind bars. If we take those on parole or probation into account, that ratio jumps to 1 out of 31 adults. America, the Land of the Free, imprisons five times more people than Great Britain, nine times more people in Germany, and 12 times more people than Japan. Only about 8 percent of sentenced prisoners in federal prison were incarcerated for violent crimes, and about 52 percent of sentenced prisoners for state prisons. Within three years of their release, roughly two-thirds of former prisoners are re-arrested, while 52 percent are re-incarcerated. Those statistics only show a small part of the lingering problems with our criminal justice system. What about the reported 1-2 percent of our prison population that shouldn’t be there in the first place? Radley Balko, senior writer for Huffington Post and contributing editor at Reason, says since 1989, “DNA testing has freed 268 people who were convicted of crimes they did not commit.” (HVnews, 2011) We are paying taxes to not only take care of the convicted but also the innocent. With everyone wanting fast justice, many people in power like police, judges and lawyers tend to rush through a case if they feel they are able to get something stick without following...
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...Lessons of Wrongful Convictions Stephanie Worthington CM107: Professor Kosse The Lessons of Wrongful Convictions When we think of someone going to prison for a crime, we do not think about whether or not they are actually guilty. That is the job of the court to decide that. When evidence is presented to the jury, we like to think that they research all pieces of evidence thoroughly before rendering a judgment. That is not always the case unfortunately. There are more times than most people are aware of, of people being wrongfully convicted. The issue of this, is that DNA evidence is not always present in these cases. With the implantation of DNA in these criminal cases, there would be more innocent people walking the streets instead of behind bars. There are many reasons that a person is wrongfully convicted. Some reasons are due to eyewitness identification errors, inadequate evidence or lack thereof. There are so many more factors that play into this issue. The number one reason that someone is wrongfully convicted, is due to Eyewitness misidentification. In fact, that was that factor played in 72 percent of the post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States. At least forty percent of the eyewitness misidentifications involve cross racial identification. Studies show that people are less likely to be able to recognize the faces of a different race, rather than that of their own. (search.proquest.lib.kaplan.edu/docview) ( innocenceproject.com) The first DNA...
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...A Case of Wrongful Conviction - Mark Scheme A01 (max 5 marks) Anxiety and misleading information both stated as possible factors in affecting EWT in this case. Inconsistency in EWT identified – brown hair or blond hair in first interviews. Interviewing in a group stated as less good than interviewing individually. EW’s may mislead each other by being interviewed in a group. Third interview conducted three weeks after first interview / final line-up was several months after the crime SO recall less likely to be accurate after this time lag compared to immediately after the event. Mixed EW certainty over ID from the photo - two bystanders were sure of the perpetrator’s ID from the photo, but the main victim (cashier) and other bystander were not. Cognitive interviews (CI) would be better than standard interviews for better recall detail and accuracy. Link to research showing CI are better. A02 (max 5 marks) Fewer inconsistencies in second interview may have been due to first interview being a group interview – EW s may have been misled or guided by others’ statements. Appropriately made research link e.g. Loftus (1975) / Loftus (1978) or Loftus and Palmer (1974), with brief outline of the research study. Research e.g. Christianson and Hubinette (1993) or Yuille and Cutshall (1986) shows main victim of / those closest to centre of violent crimes usually most accurate with recall of events. Since the cashier was initially unsure of James Taylor (from photo) being...
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...Research Question: Wrongful convictions have been a concern especially with the high rates of exonerations raising the question of how exactly does the criminal justice system work and is it ineffective in serving justice? The government through the criminal justice system is charged with the duty to uphold law and order, by discouraging and alleviating crime as well as punishing and assimilating the law breakers. The criminal justice system therefore, has for long been part and parcel of the society and a huge area of concern for many. The system consists of all the organizations as well as procedures put in place by the government to regulate crime rates. It is hard to think of a society without the system, what it would be like and the levels of crime that would be present. However, with all the positivity’s that come with the system, then so are the questions raised. The criminal justice system and its operations is a key area of concern and with it the topic on the wrongful convictions whose number rises every waking dawn. A lot has been claimed about the criminal justice system ranging from the fact that race and class are the determinants of the kind of justice served (Cole, 1999), the fact that the dispensers of justice are hugely involved in the crimes taking place to the fact that some...
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...There have been over 300 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the history of the United States. Although the number is high, there are still many more wrongfully convicted people who’s still incarcerated and have yet to be considered for retrial. Unaddressed wrongful conviction cases show the weaknesses in the U.S. justice system. This paper will touch on the causes that lead to wrongful convictions and discuss possible solutions. The main factors of wrongful convictions are eyewitness misidentification, misleading/unreliable forensics, false confessions (coerced/intimidated), witness perjury, prosecutorial misconduct, insufficient lawyering, racism and implicit bias. Since the first DNA exoneration conviction in the United States case that...
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...fixated on Truscott as the prime suspect since he was the last person to see Lynne. They didn’t consider any other suspects, even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the murder. He was arrested 24 hours later, and stood trial as an adult. (Steven Truscott | Murderpedia). The entire case was based on circumstantial evidence, and Truscott was found guilty and became the youngest person in Canada to be sentenced to death at the age of 14. The Crown’s theory was that Truscott committed the murder sometime between 7:15 and 7:45PM. The theory was supported by conflicting testimonies from child witnesses, testimony from the pathologist, Dr. John Penistan, and evidence on Truscott’s body (Harland-Logan). Four months after his conviction, Truscott’s sentence got commuted to life in prison. After spending 10 years in prison, Truscott was paroled in 1969, where he began a new life under a new name and started a family. This never changed the fact that Truscott had lost many of the good years of his life. Throughout his whole life he maintained his innocence, but he still remained a convicted killer with the possibility that his parole would be revoked. Truscott maintained a very low profile with his family until 2001, when lawyers for the Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted filed an appeal to have the case reopened, and in august of 2007, nearly 50 years later, the Ontario court of appeal...
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...One thing that contributed to the wrongful conviction of Baltovich was the over-reliance on key eyewitnesses. About 20% of the time witness are picking people in a lineup that are innocent (When Eyes Deceive, 2009). The eye witness evidence should have not been used in this case because the eyewitnesses were all unsure of what they saw. The witness that claimed he saw Baltovich driving Bain’s car described someone that looked nothing like Baltovich. Furthermore, the two witnesses that claimed they say Baltovich and Bain’s at a picnic table were discredited because Baltovich was with his family the whole time, but still these two witnesses were included in the trial. The National Post (2015) article notes that the witness answer during a lineup should be yes or...
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...02/23/2024 Wrongful convictions affect everyone involved. According to the National Institute of Justice, being wrongfully convicted means that “the person convicted is factually innocent of the charges” (Wrongful Convictions, n.d.). They have been around since the beginning of the criminal justice system, and the numbers continue to grow. Eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, and flawed forensic evidence are the leading causes of wrongful convictions, which result in detrimental consequences for those involved. The purpose of this report is to analyze the main causes of wrongful convictions and to propose potential solutions. DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS Problem Defined Wrongful Convictions are when the person convicted of a crime is...
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