Gabriel Baddeley's Autobiography

In the 20th century, we did not have the advanced technology to prove if someone was truly guilty like we do today. A young man named Donald Marshall Jr. is a prime example of this. He was casually walking in Sydney’s Wentworth Park and saw a friend named Sandy Seale. They soon encountered two mysterious men (Roy Ebsary and Jimmy MacNeil) and shortly later the two man stabbed Seale in the stomach, leaving her in critical conditions. Marshall was slightly cut, but he was left to look like the criminal. This was not Marshall’s first encounter with the law. At the age of 15, he was expelled from school for striking a teacher. The law enforcers soon became aware of Marshall from his delinquent

Do you ever wonder why people make false confessions? I believe this is a huge problem. One reason why people falsely confess is because they honestly feel there is no way out. Juveniles can be manipulated into confession to something they did not do. There should be laws that help others who falsely confess. The Innocence Project is an organization that is dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. In both Picking Cotton and in the Central Park Five, the suspects made False confessions.

With the number of DNA exonerations growing in the recent years, wrongful convictions reveal disturbing trends and fissures in the justice system. It shows how broken the system is, and why it needs urgent fixing. According to Huff (1996), over ten thousand people are convicted wrongfully for serious crimes each year. This study established that factors leading to wrongful convictions are false eyewitnesses, a prejudiced jury, incompetent prosecutors, and suspects’ ignorance. Where DNA evidence clears a suspect, array of reasons emerge; misconduct, mistakes, to race and class factors. It is important to make DNA data available to attorneys in order to enable them mount a strong

Throughout the history of the United States more and more teenagers and children have been put in situations where they have been tried as adults.All of these teenagers and children made a mistake which may have been because of their lack of knowledge or their curiosity as a child.

In recent years, there have been multiple high-profile cases of people being exonerated, often by DNA testing, after giving a false confession to a crime they did not commit. People who often fall into this trap are juveniles or those with a diminished mental capacity (Redlich, 2009). DNA testing has helped many innocent people that gave false confessions be free again. This trend brings up the question of how were they able to give a false confession.

Jaime Arellano was only sixteen when he decided to get behind the wheel intoxicated, which in return led to the death of a pregnant woman and her unborn child. In 2007, his case was immediately moved to the adult court of Texas where he was sentenced 20 years in prison. Jaime Arellano, is a Mexican immigrant, which in itself is considered to be in society in the “lowest of standings”. A formerly high school dropout with no money to pay for a highly credibly attorney, the state assigned him one. The attorney could not possibly argue his client’s innocence due to any psychological reasons such as “afluenza”, which resulted in a plea deal of 20 years instead of the 50 he was facing. On the other hand, we have the “afluenza teen” Ethan Couch, who in 2013, killed twice the

The Innocence Project was established in the wake of a landmark study by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate with help from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (Schneider, 2013). This study found that there were numerous reasons why people are wrongfully convicted including, but not limited to eye witness identification, perjured testimony, improper forensic science techniques, and government misconduct (Roberts & Weathered, 2009) The original Innocence Project was founded twenty two (22) years ago as a part of the Cardoza School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York City, New York (Davis, 2012). The Innocence Projects primary goal is to exonerate those whom have been convicted of a crime when there is DNA evidence available to be tested or re-tested (Mitchell, 2011). DNA testing has been possible in five (5) percent to ten (10) percent of cases since 1992 (Risinger, 2007). On the other side, other members of the Innocence Project help to exonerate those have been convicted of a crime where there is no DNA evidence to test. A goal of the Innocence Project is to conduct research on the reasons for wrongful convictions, how to fix the criminal justice system, as well as advocate for those who have been wrongfully convicted (Steiker & Steiker, 2005). The members of this organization strive to teach the world about the dangers of wrongful convictions. To date, this non-profit legal organization, has freed three hundred eighteen (318)

In about 25% of DNA exoneration cases, innocent defendants made incriminating statements or pled guilty. These cases show that confessions are not always prompted by their own knowledge or actual guilt, but are sometimes motivated by other influences. Eddie Joe Lloyd was one of these people contributing to the percentage. Lloyd was convicted in 1984 for the murder of a 16-year-old girl in Detroit after he wrote to police with suggestions on how to solve various recent crimes. During several interviews, police fed details of the crime to Lloyd, who was mentally ill, and convinced him that by confessing he was helping them “smoke out” the real killer. Lloyd eventually signed a confession and gave a tape-recorded statement. The jury deliberated less than

In 1987 in Texas, a prosecutor was faced with this dilemma. Michael Morton was convicted of murdering his wife based on circumstantial evidence. Morton’s defense attorney was never told about, or given access to, the police report in which Morton’s three year old son had told police that his daddy had not killed his mommy. After serving 25 years for murdering his wife, Morton was exonerated after attorneys were finally given access to the police report and DNA testing of a bloody bandana found at the scene of the murder matched a man who was serving a sentence for the murder of another woman.

It is common knowledge that t he degree in which a person is convicted, more often than not, depends on the severity of the crime. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, juvenile crimes were at an all time high which resulted in the a strong advocacy for stricter trials for young criminals . Many congressmen pushed for harsher trials and punishments for juvenile offenders to set the example that even though they are young, their actions have consequences. Miles Corwin, a journalist for

While in town, Jake Talley stumbles onto a secret that could expose the man responsible for causing the rancher’s daughter so much grief. Determined to put an end to the bad luck plaguing the Fuller Ranch, he sets out to find answers. Will taking time away from his duties to investigate endanger the very woman he vows to protect?

DNA exonerations are very common. So much so that in the United States alone, there have been “317 post-conviction DNA exonerations” (2014). The very first DNA exoneration dated back to 1989. The Innocence Project examined these DNA exonerations and found that “8 of the 317 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row. Another 16 were charged with capital crimes but not sentenced to death” (2014). More so, the average time served was about 13.5 years, and the average age was 27 (2014). This means that before the age of

Every time an innocent person is exonerated based on DNA testing, law enforcement agencies look at what caused the wrongful convictions. There are many issues that contribute to putting guiltless lives behind bars including: eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, imperfect forensic science, and more (Gould and Leo 18). When a witness is taken into a police station to identify a suspect, it is easy for their memories to be blurred and their judgment influenced. This can lead the witness to identify a suspect who is actually innocent. Flawed forensic science practice also contributes to wrongful imprisonments. In the past, analysts have been inaccurate due to carelessness, testified in court presenting evidence that was not based

My Big Five Personality Test results provide implications for how I might practice social work and relate with others. I scored high on the dimensions of Openness and Conscientiousness, 88% and 83% respectively, suggesting that I am open-minded, organized, and think before I speak (Cournoyer, 2011). This will help me to approach client situations strategically. My percentile score for Extraversion was 79, which suggests that I am a good communicator, a skill that will be very helpful as a social worker. I scored in the 57th percentile for Agreeableness, which pertains to the way a person relates to and interacts with others (Cournoyer, 2011). Since my score was only in the 57th percentile, I may need to be mindful to ensure that I present myself

False confessions have been a leading factor in destroying the lives of many innocent people. Since the advances of technology, victims of false confessions have been exonerated from the charges previously placed on them while others are still fighting for innocence or died a criminal. One technological advance that has exonerated many individuals is DNA testing. According to Randy James, DNA testing was discovered in 1985 and was first used in court to convict Tommie Lee Andrews (Time, 2009). Today many Americans are convicted because of false confessions that have not yet been overturned with new evidence (Kassin, 2014). Although DNA testing has led to freedom for many innocent Americans, there are still many innocent people who are locked