Steven Avery Persuasive Essay

Imagine spending nearly 20 years in a prison for a crime you did not commit. Well that was the case for Angel Gonzalez. Angel was arrested and convicted of sexual assault and kidnapping on June 16, 1995. Angel was later then exonerated on March 10, 2015. The victim identified Angel from the back of the cop car and never got out the car to get a closer look at him. The evidence that was used to convicted Angel was that the victim told the police that the assailant had the same car as Angel. After 20 years in prison, The Innocence Project opened up his case and reviewed it. The organization brought up DNA testing that provided he wasn’t one of the assailants. After a day, Angel was released out of prison and walked as a free man. These types

The questionable forensic evidence, the untrustworthy witnesses and the insufficient investigation are all reasons why Steven Truscott should never have been charged with the rape and murder of Lynne Harper. Being charged with something you did not commit is something nobody wants to go through. Evidence, witnesses and the investigation portion is very important for a case to run correctly. It took Steven Truscott 42 years to finally get his name cleared. He went through many trials and hearings to finally get the news one day that he was free to go. Most of his life was taken from him that he will never get back. “They finally got it right after all these years. I am so used to fighting. Now we don’t have to fight anymore.”

claims his innocence of the murder, he was prisoned for two terms of life imprisonment at the

Since the start of slavery to the time of segregation, racism has been a part of America. It has held roots since the birth of America, a nation created for freedom yet many aren’t free. It has caused hardships for people of color and has created division in America. Some believe racism died with the end of segregation or with the election of the first African American president, but the reality is racism and racial profiling is still a major problem in modern America. Racial profiling and racism is causing controversy in America and creating division in a nation when unity is needed.

Since the accused killer, Chanel Lewis, picture has been released, social media has been in a 50/50 split. One side confused by the appearance of the man as he seems “off” to some, and the other side screaming “DNA does not lie!” A trail has not yet been put through for the case as of yet, but it would be a shame if years on the end results in many of the other ones in the system.

With the initiative of the innocence project, many of these convictions are being overturned, allowing families to be reunited. There are many reasons why these wrongful convictions happen. The most common among them is false eyewitness identification, which has played a role in more than 75 percent of wrongful convictions overturned by the Innocence Project initiative. Once presumed to be incontrovertible, the ever growing body of evidence now tells that eyewitness identifications are unreliable (please see image A2 for the trending of exonerations year by year). In approximately, 25 percent of DNA exoneration cases, innocent people were coerced into making false confessions. Of the 292 people freed by the Innocence Project, 28 actually pled

If the evidence is not accurate an innocent person will be convicted of a crime they did not commit. For example, in the Brain Banks article Brain was convicted of a crime that never happened, he was convicted with only circumstantial evidence. After Brain Banks served his six years in prison Wanetta Gibson confessed that Brain Banks never rapped her.

On the night of June 12, 1994 one of history's greatest murder mysteries that has yet to be solved still remains in question. The O.J. Simpson Trial was one of the biggest trial that lasted 8 months in time and yet the case still remains open as for whodunit is yet to be solved. It involves the death of Nicole Brown SImpson (O.J. Simpson's ex-wife) and Ron Goldman. Even though many supporting evidence pointed toward O.J. Simpson on October 3 around 10 a.m. he was declared “Not Guilty.” In the case of the O.J. Simpson trial, all odds turn to him being the verdict for the truth behind the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, as theories such as the glove, his chicago flight, and threats to Nicole help provide evidence to prove O.J. truly did it.

There were numerous mistakes made during the investigation of this crime and although Mr. Hunt’s blood type was not a match for the DNA found at the scene of the crime, he was still convicted. While that fact could not be ignored today, it is still possible to prosecute cases like this without conclusive DNA evidence. According to Brand (2006), some jurisdictions do not have the resources to conduct DNA analysis. In addition, today’s jurors expect physical evidence and the absence of it raises reasonable doubt (Brand, 2006). Defendants may still be prosecuted based on other direct and circumstantial evidence such as a witnesses’ personal account.

He actually filed these documents himself instead of having a lawyer do it for him. Bustle actually shared that Scott Walker doesn't have any plans to pardon Steven Avery if it is up to him. He is the Governor of Wisconsin and went to Facebook to make his thoughts on this case loud and clear. He posted saying "Viewers of the Netflix series on Steven Avery should read the unanimous opinion of the Court of Appeals before jumping to conclusions." Along with that, Walker posted a link to court of appeals paperwork.

In his 2008 Columbia Law Review Article “Judging Innocence,” Brandon L. Garrett claims that there are four major factors responsible for a majority of wrongful convictions, all of which I will discuss in detail. In short, however, these four factors are: (a) false confessions, (b) testimony of informants (or “snitches”), (c) improper use of forensics, and (d) witness misidentification (p. 55). Through Garrett’s (2008) study of the first 200 DNA exonerees in the U.S., we see a breakdown of the percentage of cases in which these four types of evidence may be used to secure a confession: 79% of the 200 cases involved witness identification of the subject, 57% involved forensic evidence, 18% were convicted with the aid of informant testimony, and 16% of exonerees had given a false confession that was ultimately presented at trial (p. 76). Some of these exonerees were even sentenced to death (p. 75).

After viewing the Making of a murderer series i believe that Brendan Dassey should not have been tried for murdering Teresa Halbach. He was a 16 year old boy who out of nowhere got asked to come over to his uncle’s house and he saw things he probably shouldn’t have. If you were that age and you got asked about murdering someone what would you do? Do you think he should have been tried for murder?

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.

In Andrew Cohens article “Yes, America, We Have Executed an Innocent Man” he shares the story of Carlos DeLuna. In February 1983 a robbery and the murder of Wanda Lopez in Texas had occurred. DeLuna was eventually executed because of this. The trial didn’t go that great, DeLuna was found guilty. Although there were not much evidence that he did it. There was one witness but her story of what happened wasn’t clear. Police and investigators found no evidence that it was DeLuna who did it. No blood, DNA, or finger prints were found. Carlos Hernandez, the one who actually committed the crime. Hernandez looked very similar to DeLuna yet Hernandez was a known criminal who used a special knife to murder others like he did to Lopez.

There was only one piece of physical evidence which were two hairs found in a pair of pliers inside Scott Peterson’s fishing boat (Gudgell, 2004). 174 witnesses and hundreds of pieces of evidence from wiretapped phone calls to police interrogations on video, the prosecutors used this to depicted Peterson as a liar and a philanderer who smooth talked Amber Frey, his massage therapist girlfriend while he was publicly yearning to finding his missing wife (USAToday, 2004). The police could not established exactly when, how or where Laci Peterson died. The evidence against Scott Peterson was mostly circumstantial. This was enough to persuade the twelve jurors of six men and six women to convicted Scott Peterson of first-degree and second-degree murder (CourtTV, 2008).