The Importance Of Statutes Of Limitations

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.

The United States has a unique criminal justice system that stems from the unique rights granted to its citizens by the Constitution. The United States Constitution grants the most basic rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and no citizen can be denied these rights without due process of law. Due process is the way in which the criminal justice system ensures that the right person is punished for the right crime. This process includes certain rights of the accused and specific procedures that must be followed to the letter or the accused could be released without having punished for a crime he or she could have

Chapter 15 is titled "Criminal Trials, Appeals, and Postconviction Remedies." A criminal case goes to trial after the pretrial process and if the defendant has not pled guilty to the charges. The statute of limitations establishes the time period in which prosecution must begin after the crime has been committed. Certain felonies like murder generally have no statute of limitations, meaning that defendants can be charged with the crime no matter how much time has passed after its commission.

It has been reported that millions of crimes is committed in the United States of America which violates and harms the individual rights, properties, and freedoms that are not only guaranteed to American citizens of this country. It has been highlighted that justice is dealt with according to the crimes committed based on the findings and principles of our country, which derived from the Constitution of the United States. While it has been argued justice may not always be fair due to certain rights given to those who may be charged with crime sometimes an error is made. A simple mistake, a missing or broken link in the chain that represents the investigation and trial processes causes an innocent bystander to become caught up in an investigation. More importantly, in many cases can result in a wrongful conviction. This error can rise from many forms like a mistaken eyewitness identification, a false confession, misconduct of the governing authorities, improper forensic investigation, or including staff that neglect to make efforts or unskilled litigation by the defense attorneys. Those whom are affected endure years in prison, deal with lost wages, isolation from friends and family, scrutiny from potential employers, and isolation from their community.

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

Wrongful convictions can be the result an assortment of conditions that contribute to injustice. Variables include the Brady violations, faulty forensics, weak defense, misleading prosecution, misidentification, lying, false confessions, race and financial resources of the defendant (Gould, J. et al. 2013). Seventy-five percent or more of erroneous convictions have involved mistaken eyewitness identification: (Garrett, 2009). False confessions of innocent people pleading guilty corrupt our system. Furthermore, it must be noted that the American judicial system relies heavily upon a plea-bargaining system, where some may plead guilty as opposed to taking their chances before a jury. States that have a reputation for punitive juries may

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.

Certainly, the studies of wrongful conviction have been able to generate press coverage especially when the findings tell the story of an innocent defendant who narrowly escaped a death sentence. Due to the fact that much of the American public assumes that it is not at risk for a wrongful conviction, few of those stories have “legs” to breed sufficient interest in reform. In this assumption the public is correct. Notwithstanding the claims of some reformers that anyone of us could be subject to a wrongful conviction, the research actually suggests that most individuals have little to fear. Indeed, the most recent national study of wrongful convictions shows that individuals with a prior criminal record are at the greatest risk of being wrongful convicted (Gould et

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.

Limitations of criminal law and due process are present in almost all parts of the statutory law. One major component of these limitations is what is known as “the Statute of Limitations,” or a statute which limits the time a crime is allowed to be prosecuted by. This is an essential part of the criminal justice system today, and has been for centuries. With these statutes, citizens have more of their rights protected and the government power is put into check. The Statute of Limitations, despite the limitations and barriers it puts on the prosecutorial team or the plaintiffs, is beneficial to American citizens in many forms. The Statute of Limitations can hinder the criminal justice system in some aspects, but is a beneficial tool which continues to protect citizens from an overbearing government and justice system. Because of this, the American criminal justice system has become what it is today and allows for protection of rights which are considered undeniable. Through the examination and analyzation of both historical and modern aspects of the American criminal law, the evidence proves the Statute of Limitations is an essential part of the criminal justice system, for both the government and the citizens themselves.

People have been wrongfully accused and convicted of crimes all throughout history. However, wrongful convictions are still a problem in our society and since the start of the Innocence Project in 1992, the issue of wrongful convictions has become a topic that has resurfaced (Misapplication of forensic science, 2017). Thus far, the Innocence Project has been able to exonerate more than 300 people who were wrongfully convicted (Misapplication of forensic science, 2017). In more than 70% of the overturned cases, the individuals were initially arrested due to eyewitness misidentification (Eyewitness misidentification, 2017). Additionally, the misapplication of forensic science is the second most common contributing factor related to wrongful convictions affecting nearly half (46%) of the cases (Misapplication of forensic science, 2017).

To begin with, Deterrence is the belief that society can reduce crime by making punishment tougher than the benefits gained from criminal acts. To “deter means to prevent” a person of an act by the threat, warning, or as in imprisonment (Merriam-Webster, 2015). The death penalty serves as a powerful deterrent to people who may choose to commit major crimes. The issue with the Death penalty is the lack of ability of the justice system in carrying out the penalty immediately. The long appeal process compromises the deterrence reason of capital punishment. Some criminals are truly above the law, in that their influence can reach the outside world even if they are behind bars. For an example, recently in New York “two criminals used their outside

Rand Paul once stated, "The injustice of mandatory minimum sentences is impossible to ignore when you hear the stories of the victims" (Flatow, 2013). There has been a great amount of controversy concerning the mandatory sentencing laws throughout the years'. Mandatory minimum sentencing refers to a minimum term given to a person convicted of a crime, instead of allowing Judges to determine punishment. In the article pertaining to mandatory minimum sentences, it stated the reasoning for enforcement, " Congress also decided to eliminate the courts’ discretion to exercise leniency in some instances by requiring courts to impose a mandatory minimum sentence for certain types of crimes. (Bernick & Larkin, 2014). Instead of allowing the U.S. Sentencing

It is neither advisable nor practicable to fix any time limit for trial of offences. Any such rule is bound to be qualified one. Such rule cannot also be evolved merely to shift the burden of proving justification on to the shoulders of the prosecution. In every case of complaint of denial of right to speedy trial, it is primarily for the prosecution to justify and explain the delay. At the same time, it is the duty of the Court to weigh all the circumstances of a given case before pronouncing upon the complaint. The Supreme Court of U.S.A. too has repeatedly refused to fix any such outer time-limit in spite of the Sixth Amendment. Nor do we think that not fixing any such outer limit in effectuates the guarantee of right to speedy