The Miscarriage Of The Justice System

Unfair trials happen all over the world and anyway can be affected by it through biases and mistakes in the trials. Although judge and jury determine the fate of a trial, it may not always be fair because they can make mistakes during a trial and sometimes have biases and it is the law that every human has a chance to have a fair trial.

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.

Miscarriage of justice is defined as a failure of a court or judicial system to attain the ends of justice, especially one that results in the conviction of an innocent person (Oxford University Press, 2015).

The 13th Amendment to the American Constitution is celebrated and known as the amendment to end slavery. The amendment provides that, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (U.S. Constitution, Amendment 13). What is often overlooked is that this amendment abolishes slavery, unless you are a criminal. After the Civil War, this loophole was wildly used by slave owners, as they would convict African Americans of minor crimes to then use them as slaves again. This exception to the amendment is continually used today in the American prison system. The Criminal Justice System in America contains significant flaws that are detrimental to society. A few of these flaws lie within the actions and ideals of the prison system, the policies and laws surrounding the criminal justice system, and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

In today’s Canadian society, it is certain that criminal law is to serve and protect and its fundamental purpose is to prevent crime and punish offenders. However, there have been cases where criminal law has punished the offender who turned out to be innocent. A conviction is needed to show that the system is not in disrepute and to keep order and people safe in society. If a criminal cannot be caught then people will look down upon the system in disgrace. In many cases, officers will arrest an individual who fits a certain description that they know will lead to an arrest and conviction. In the case of Guy Paul Morin it shows how the system failed in aiding the innocent who abide to the law. The law is established to protect those who

In what ways is the indigenous justice paradigm in conflict with the principles of the traditional, adversarial American criminal justice system? In what ways do the principles of Native American justice complement more mainstream correctional initiatives?

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.

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.

The miscarriages of justice represents the cases where the court has failed to exonerate the innocent. Due to this failure, many innocent lives have been taken away from their friends and families. It is the system’s job to prevent these miscarriages from happening, but our differences affect their decisions. It is unfair how people are held up to certain standards, where they are afraid to be themselves in public because of the ways authorities handle the situation where they are caught in their “wrongdoing”. There are various amounts of different cases in which the innocent are accused of crimes they did not commit or when the convict is caught in their act.

Since the late 1980s, there have been thousands of cases in which prime suspects have been wrongfully convicted, the most common causes being eyewitness misidentification, incriminating statements, and statements from informants. According to The Innocence Project, there have been almost four hundred post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in our country, and they are working to investigate even more wrongful conviction cases. This life changing program, along with their six attorneys, gather information about thousands of cases and determine whether or not DNA evidence can be reevaluated. Kenneth Ireland’s case was submitted for litigation after they found that the court relied heavily on false statements from witnesses. Researchers working

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.

The Canadian Criminal Justice System is a system that is rooted in fairness, justice, and equality. It does not discriminate against religion, sex, or race, and it is governed by the rule of equity. All this would suggest that the Canadian Criminal Justice System is one that Canadians can have faith in, knowing that the system will protect everyone: society from the criminals, and innocent people from wrongful incarceration. It is interesting, then, that Canadians actually have quite little faith in the system; a study done by Ipsos-Reid for Justice Canada revealed that “only 17 per cent of respondents had high confidence, while 61 per cent had moderate faith and 22 per cent had low level of trust [in the adult criminal justice system]… and only 15 per cent had a high level, 56 per cent had a moderate level and 30 per cent have low confidence [in the youth justice system].” (Harris) It is through cases such as the Steven Truscott case, the Coffin case, and the Karla Homolka case that Canadian faith in the Justice System weakens, cases where the two former individuals were wrongfully convicted of their charges, and where the latter was given a lenient sentence.

On the evening of February 26, Zimmerman saw Martin, who had left the house to purchase Skittles and iced tea. Martin and Zimmerman, whom it is believed never identified himself as part of a community watch, encountered each other in circumstances that have remained mysterious and conflicted. The confrontation ended with Zimmerman shooting the unarmed teenager in the chest. Martin died less than a hundred yards from the door of the townhouse in which he was staying. This was just one of the events that cause public outcry for change in the justice system, with many believing that the system is biased against minorities. The U.S. justice system is made to uphold the law equally for everyone, since the U.S. justice system does not have a racial

“It’s a general problem not specific to the law of the United Kingdom a criminal justice system characterized by an emphasis on crime control rather than due process will inevitably produce miscarriage of justice.”