Criminal Conviction: A Case Study

Wrongful convictions are common in the court-system. In fact, wrongful convictions are not the rare events that you see or hear on televisions shows, but are very common. They stem from some sort of systematic defect that lead to wrongful convictions such as, eyewitness misidentification testimony, unvalidated or improper forensic science, false confessions and incriminating statements, DNA lab errors, false confessions, and informants (2014). Bringing awareness to all these systematic defects, which result in wrongful, is important because it will better adjust the system to avoid making the same mistakes with future cases. However, false confession is not a systematic defect. It does not occur because files were misplaced or a lab technician put one too many drops. False confessions occur because of some of psychological attempt to protect oneself and their family. Thus, the courts responsibility should be to reduce these false confessions.

This paper takes a leap into the corrupted side of the criminal justice system. After analyzing several articles regarding wrongful conviction cases in the Unites States, it is apparent that wrongful conviction cases occur more often than society believed. It has come to surface in recent years that wrongful convictions are a big problem with our criminal justice system. Researchers have discovered the causes of wrongful convictions to be bad lawyering, government misconduct, informants, false confessions, flawed forensic science and eyewitness error. Furthermore, this paper explores the affects victims face due to a wrongful conviction. As society has begun to steadily realize that miscarriage of justice is a possibility, researchers have considered reforms to the criminal justice system.

News reports daily of all of the many different crimes that has taken place. In today’s society, we depend upon the justice system. Criminal Justice is a big deal. The Criminal Justice system was put in place by the agencies and established by the governments to help control the crimes and apply penalties to those that violate the law. Many people feel that the criminal justice system is there to protect and serve while others feel that the criminal justice system fails them daily.

As defined, a wrongful conviction is a conviction of a person accused of a crime which, in the result of the subsequent investigation, proves erroneous. Persons who are in fact innocent but who have been wrongly convicted by a jury or other court of law. For this reason, wrongful convictions disrupt trust in our justice system, therefore, such convictions undermine public safety by leaving the correct or legitimate positives of the guilty in the community to carry out future offences. With this in mind, one needs to secure the society and/or families of crime victims that are caused by the incorrect or misleading errors that all humankind institutions occasionally make through accidental, unintentional, and through failures in working the system.

Before the victims movement, victims were ignored in most court systems by the professionals who process criminal cases. Victims were often seen as inconvenient. The victims rights movement has changed this unfair treatment. As time passed prosecutors’ offices in the most jurisdictions spend greater time than they did in the past giving notice to victims and consulting with them about decisions made in their case. The staff of the prosecutors offices and court systems have a responsibility of shepherding victims through the intricacies of the criminal justice system. For example, they send a notice providing information about the systems operation, and to help them secure protection of threatened victims who have suffered harm. Laws have changed to allow victims to be present throughout trials in a number of jurisdictions. Victims information or their voices are heard in court, mainly at sentencing, and at the time guilty pleas are received. All of this has had changed by giving the victim the respect and dignity they need, honoring their participation and

The first DNA-based conviction in the United States occurred shortly after in 1987 when the Circuit Court in Orange County, Florida, convicted Tommy Lee Andrews of rape after DNA tests matched his DNA from a blood sample with that of semen traces found in a rape victim (Calandro, 2005). It was two years later that DNA was again ruled admissible in a Virginia state ruling. In the years that followed the use of DNA in trial proceeding was not disputed. It was not until the technique of obtaining the evidence was more largely used did the practice become questionable.

Wrongful convictions heavily presided in Canada before adequate measures were taken to help prevent them. Many victims of wrongful convictions were subjected to the flaws in the Criminal Justice System, in which has undergone drastic reforms to repair some of the many imperfections. In Canada, the state provides compensation for individuals deemed factually innocent of the crimes they were charged for only through ex gracia, which simply means, “payment by the state, … made voluntarily, as a favour out of kindness or grace, and without recognition of any legal obligation” (Entitlement of Compensation- The Legal Framework). However, in order to be considered eligible for financial compensation, certain guidelines must be met under the Federal/ Provincial Guidelines on Compensation for Wrongfully Convicted and Imprisoned Persons, which was established in 1988. (Entitlement of Compensation- The Legal Framework). The guidelines as specified in the Federal/ Provincial Compensation for Wrongfully Convicted and Imprisoned Persons require that, an accused individual be convicted and imprisoned, and the conviction and imprisonment must be declared a miscarriage of justice as a result of new factual evidence presented (Entitlement of Compensation-The Legal Framework). Also, the individual must have been convicted and imprisoned under the Criminal Code of Canada, and the individual must be acquitted in the Court of Appeal, following a referral made by the Ministry of Justice.

On any given day in Canada, there are more blameless individuals in jail than liable ones. By "blameless individuals" I mean the individuals who have been blamed for a wrongdoing and are being hung on remand, anticipating a safeguard hearing or a trial. “dozens of innocent people might be languishing behind bars. Over the ensuing 30 years, more than 20 convicted murderers have been freed on the basis of serious doubts about the reliability of evidence and trial fairness in their cases.” The revealing of wrongly convicted wrongdoers has been apparently the overwhelming lawful improvement in Canada over the past half-century. In recent years, the issue of wrongful conviction has turned into an acknowledged reality in most common law jurisdiction; Prominent cases tend not just to attract our consideration regarding the deleterious impacts of a wrongful conviction on an individual but also to illustrate how parts of the criminal justice process have fizzled. An across the nation system of attorneys, columnists and legitimate associations have fought resolutely in the courts to get the freedom of offenders who had, in some cases, spent decades incarcerated. Clearly, wrongful conviction is the aspect of being in fact innocent but unfairly held accountable by a jury or other court of law for an act you did not do. Also a criminal code is a statute which implies or endeavors to set out all denied or criminal offenses, and their different disciplines. In this paper, I discuss

The purpose of this article by Clow, Leach and Riocciadelli(2012) was to investigate the consequences incurred by victims of wrongful conviction by reviewing relevant literature on the topic and examining how the research can influence legislation to improve the lives of victims of wrongful conviction following release. This topic is important to the fields of law and psychology because people are getting exonerated and released from prison having missed out on many years of their life as well as having incurred life changing events while in prison and the adjustment of the wrongfully convicted becomes of increasing concern as more people are released.

Even though America’s prisons are illustrated as a credible approach for individuals and institutions to bring justice, it has done a poor job to properly convict people for criminal acts and instances of violence, and to provide victim’s with satisfaction for due justice. Karakatsanis further evaluates upon the process of convictions in America. For instance, he examines the techniques that help support a court verdict, when he writes, “For many decades, American courts have allowed criminal convictions based on policing and forensic techniques that lack a scientific basis. Even after these methods were formally exposed as unscientific by the most prestigious collection of American scientists, police, prosecutors, and courts continued to use them every day nonetheless” (Karakatsanis (265). In accordance with Karakatsanis, the process for criminal convictions are largely flawed. In particular, eyewitness testimonies from police and evidence from forensic lack a significant scientific groundwork, and such approaches have been heavily scrutinized and criticized by the scientific community. Even with such criticism, there have been a lack of an institutional reform to rectify these imperfections. Subsequently, the methods for criminal convictions are often unreliable. Subsequently, plausible consequence may include how criminal suspects may be wrongful convicted of a crime that they were never involved in, and the victim’s or the victim’s family’s desire for justice may never

We hear in the news about police misconduct, use of excessive force, embezzlement, but one thing I found while researching what I should write this paper on is the Wrongful convictions of innocent men and women, that spend years in prison being innocent, and there is nothing that gets done till it’s too late. Some wrongful convictions are honest mistakes, but many times law enforcement and prosecutors lose sight of the obligation of ensuring truth and justice, and are focused on their conviction rates. As with any job, they are honest people and ones that just don’t care and are corrupt, this exists in the criminal justice system. One way to prove someone is innocent now is through DNA testing, but even at all levels of a criminal investigation there could be misconduct or mishandling of evidence, which then causes the evidence to become compromised.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has asked a city judge to reconsider Tuesday’s ruling that sharply restricts the number of cases of priests accused of sexual misconduct that may be used in the retrial of Msgr. William J. Lynn.

I would like to look at a page of statistics on the Innocence Project website. The website states that, as of March 17 when the article was last updated, 337 people have been exonerated by DNA evidence since 1989. Over 200 of these people have been since 2000. The article then goes on to discuss the different statistics for race and crimes exonerated from. But, the importance of this article lies at the end, when they begin to discuss the leading causes of wrongful convictions. Eyewitness misidentification accounts for over 70% of wrongful convictions. False confessions account for 31%. These are both directly related to Steven Avery’s case. Not only was there a misidentification by the woman, but Brendan claims he was coerced into confessing.

Some of the recent literature surrounding public perceptions of wrongful convictions, focuses on how frequently wrongful convictions occur and whether the public know of this and consider it to be an issue that needs to be rectified (Zalman 2005; Bell & Clow 2007) Most of this literature seems to suggest that although the general public can identify many of the reasons behind wrongful conviction [eye witness testimonies, false confessions etc.], and estimate that 6-10% of all convictions are wrong (Zalman 2005) still are of the opinion that wrongful convictions are not an issue that needs to be considered by justice system (Zalman 2005). In contrast, another study conducted by Bell & Clow 2007 found that 82% of those surveyed believed that wrongful conviction was an issue. The difference in the findings may be explained by the difference in culture between the US and Canada, and the difference in methodology used (Clow & Ricciardelli 2014).

To continue on this specific case, I was confused about this mans sentencing. Not because I personally thought he should deserve a harsher sentence but because legally I thought he should have days added to his current jail time. He had already been jailed for 60 days before going before he was tried for his 2nd crime. Why is it that he didn’t get a further sentencing, adding on top of what he had already done? To me if he had again committed a crime of the same stature shouldn’t there should be repercussions to instill in this man’s mind that what he is doing is not ok. They way I looked at it is that the judge figured since he had yet to complete the amount of time already given to him, why don’t we just wait and see if he’s a changed man