preview

Pros And Cons Of Miscarriages Of Justice

Decent Essays
Open Document

Miscarriages of justices occur due to many variables including faulty or wrong confessions, faulty identifications, wrongful DNA evidence, and the police’s overreach of power. On February 9, 1978, a student from the College of William and Mary, located in Williamsburg, Virginia was sexually assaulted at gunpoint. When the police arrived at the scene, she described her assailant as an African-American male about 5’6 in height and weighing around 145. Having gathered this information, the victim agreed to identify her assailant through photo arrays at the police station. Bennett Barbour was identified arrested and in the span of about two months was charged with rape on April 14, 1978. Despite having an alibi, not matching the victim’s description, and having brittle bone disease Barbour was declared guilty by a jury. Barbour’s case is representative of the many cases in which wrongful eyewitness testimony produces miscarriages of justice. Bennett Barbour served 5 years in prison and 29 years of parole until he was cleared of his charges due to DNA evidence when the Virginia Supreme Court cleared his charges.

WHAT Lead to Wrongful Conviction

Eyewitness identification, for the most part, is considered reliable eyewitness identification by the courts as excellent evidence to proof crimes at trial. Yet, Bennett Barbour’s arrest revealed these inaccuracies as he was wrongly arrested due to an over-reliance on eyewitness identification. Barbour’s physique, specifically his

Get Access