The American Dassey Case

Steven Avery did not give up and tried to prove his innocence. He tried in 1995 with some evidence under Beersten’s fingernails. While it revealed that it matched an unknown assailant, it didn’t eliminate Avery (Weghorst & Warden). In 2002, an attorney from Wisconsin Innocence Project got a court order to analyze the pubic hair collected in the rape kit, which was submitted to be compare to FBI databases. The hair did not match Avery, but did match Gregory Allen, who also lived around the area (Davey, 2005). In an article written by Susan Smith, she described this revelation as a “Cold Hit” because neither the scientist nor the police were looking for Gregory Allen despise the fact that there were several factors that would make him a suspect (Smith, 2006). On September 11, 2003, this revelation also made a joint motion by Manitowoc District Attorney’s Office and the Wisconsin Innocence Project to dismiss all the charges against Avery. The motion was granted and Steven Avery was released (Possley).

In the video “The Confessions” presented by Frontline, a murder of a women that was committed by one man, quickly resulted into a false gang murder-rape scene committed by eight men. The victim, Michelle Bosko, was seen to be raped and killed in her apartment in Norfolk, Virginia. From the video, it has been proven that seven out of the eight men that confessed were innocent, but somehow they all received an unequal punishment. Because the innocent men admitted to a murder that they didn’t commit out of fear, they were all sentenced to some time in prison. The head detective, Glenn Ford, intimidated the men so much that they either were convinced that they were at the crime scene or they told him every detail that he wanted to hear.

The Reid Technique is a nine step process which majority of the nine steps were employed in the Dassey interrogation. The first step is the confrontation, where the suspect is accused of the crime. The goal here is for the interrogator to present real, or fabricated evidence in order to make the suspect uncomfortable.The police began by saying they reviewed what he had said on the Monday prior and that where they are seeing that Brendan is okay from what he's said. The also state that they already know the truth and that they can tell when he is lying. They restate several times through the interview that they know the truth and they have all the evidence to know what the truth is they just want to hear it from Brendan. Brendan does not say

Todd Willingham was a man living in the state of Texas with his wife and three kids. He was a man who was described to be a delinquent his whole life getting into small crimes as he grew up and matured. On December 23, 1991 a fire broke out in his household which led to the death of all three of his children. In his statement to the police he said he was woken up by the screams of his kids but could not get to them in time before they were killed, which was later found out to be a lie. The cause of the fire was unknown but thought to be just an accident that ended in tragedy. After the fire Willingham’s demeanor was said not to be of a person who had just lost his three children. He was reported getting drunk with his friends the day after and making comments that were on the suspicious side, such as now that this has happened the money will start rolling in. After this police began to investigate the fire and concluded that it was not accidental but actually arson and Willingham had become the prime suspect. He was later arrested on accounts of arson and three accounts of murder for each of his children. He was sentenced the death penalty but still claimed to be innocent. While on death row a fellow inmate reported that he allegedly confessed to him that he did set the fire and this only added to evidence against him. As he sat in jail awaiting death he began to write to a woman who eventually came to see him in jail. This woman said Willingham seemed to be a great guy and

Where the prosecution sought to provide answers, the defense aimed to raise questions and according to experts they did just that by pointing out the flaws in the forensics that ultimately led to the acquittal of Casey

On June 9th 1959, a twelve year old girl by the name of Lynne Harper was walking around her neighbourhood until she encountered a young boy from school, Steven Truscott who gave her a bicycle ride home. Once he dropped her off home and went off, she was abducted, two days later her body was found, she had been raped and strangled. By the reason of several witnesses spotting Steven and Lynne together, the Ontario police wrongly convicted him for committing murder. Steven Truscott was a 14 year old boy, who was popular, athletic, he had no behavioral issues and no criminal past. However the Ontario police did not take time to consider the fact that Steven Truscott was just a normal teenage boy, instead they jumped to conclusions and prosecuted

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 case of Dwayne Providence is not only a heart-retching but an insightful yet horrendous case which illustrations and elaborated on how an individual can easily be wrongfully convicted. This case was set in motion once Dwayne was arrested in Detroit Michigan, in the year of 2000. The beginning of the case goes into sumptuous detail about how he was getting his life together before he got arrested. The issue about the entire case started with Dwayne thinking that he was pulled over for a traffic violation. He was denied the ability to obtain knowing about the situation, and once he questioned the police he was not given an answer. It was later, that he had found out that he was going to be questioned for homicide. Dwayne told the officer

Have you ever been in a situation to try to prove your innocence? And could you save yourself from wrongful convictions? Director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade had produced the movie, Murder in a Sunday morning, in 2001. This movie won the award for best documentary ceremony at this year. De Lestrade’s movie was really helpful to aware public about overwhelming innocent people rights. He showed that how lawyers can save their defendant’s life. The story is about a black American young boy, Brenton Butler, who was accused of murdering a white tourist, Mary Ann Stephens, at a parking lot in Florida. He had been identified as the killer by the victim's husband and later confessed by enforcement of detectives. Polic officers did not investigation completely,

In episode 3 of Making a Murderer, they questioned Dassey and during this time the police would say what happened first and the Dassey would begin to put a word into it. They were “making him say stuff.” “They kept on and on

The relationship between law enforcement and prosecutors, which goes hand-in-hand, can’t be overlooked. Evidence of a crime that detectives and law enforcement discover is as equally important as a good trial on part of the prosecution. If detectives aren’t able to find good solid evidence – that case usually isn’t bothered in being pursued. Several years ago, in the late 80’s, there was a murder case in Southeastern Oklahoma which now serves as a tragic example to the need for honest, constitutional work in the criminal justice system. Disreputable investigative procedures, fraudulent sources, and bad evidence were the foundation of this case that shattered innocent lives.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and analyze the practices conducted by law enforcement during the investigation of the murder of Ashley Smith. The following pages will discuss the crime scene investigation, the evidence collection, the investigative steps following the initial crime scene investigation, the interviews of witnesses and suspects, and other strategies performed by the acting case investigators. Constitutional challenges have surfaced regarding specific pieces of critical evidence and a section of this paper will analyze the admissibility of this evidence. Lastly this case’s law enforcement processes will be contrasted with textbook processes in an effort to determine the validity of the case’s outcome.

Despite all this evidence, the jury found O.J. not guilty. The LAPD made some mistakes, which allowed the defense to attack the creditability of the police. O.J.'s defense, called "The Dream Team," took advantage of the prosecutions and the officers incompetence and created reasonable doubt in the jurors minds (CNN). The officers' duties included making sure that no unauthorized people may enter the scene. They had allowed unauthorized officers the go through the scene, thus causing some contamination to the crime scene. By all accounts, the prosecution did a poor job presenting the evidence and the officers did not do a very good job at securing the scene

Interrogation is common activity for police officers. Interrogations are used with suspects to gain information on a case and hopefully get a confession. Recently, the issue of false confessions and poor interrogation tactics have come to light in the media. With T.V. movies, such as Netflix’s “Making a Murderer”, or the podcast “Serial”, potential issues with the process of interrogation become a public concern. These concerns need to be researched to determine what issues do exist in the system and how many of these cases are just random, rather than normal occurrences.

One of the ways in which the Norfolk Four and Guilford Four cases can be most discernibly connected is through the use of coercive interrogation techniques by the detectives involved in obtaining confessions. While all eight of these individuals have now been fully pardoned, the long painful process of trials, prison, and clemency petitions became necessary due to false confessions that wrongfully convicted these innocent individuals. False confessions can be divided into three subcategories, two of which are relevant in the Norfolk Four and Guilford Four cases. In both cases, there are examples of coerced-compliant as well as coerced-internalized confessions (Hart, Roesch, & Zapf, 2010). It