The Wrongful Conviction Of Criminal Justice System

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).

Since the very beginning of time our Founding Fathers and those that basically built the foundation of this country left a lot of responsibility in the hands of our government and the bases of religion. From Darryl Hunt to Arthur Allan Thomas to Richard Jewell every year there are wrongful convictions that make their way across the courts around the United States. Every year citizens are brought into the courtrooms with cases to present to the judge and jury and although our country places so much responsibility in the hands of the jury and judges across the country, there are times when they simply make mistakes. With so

Every year in the United States of America, millions of crimes are committed that violate and harm the individual rights, properties, and freedoms that are not only guaranteed to American citizens of this country, but also naturally inherent to mankind as whole. Based on the founding principles of our country, which are derived from the Constitution of these United States, justice is dealt accordingly to the perpetrators of these crimes. While this justice is usually fair, due to certain rights given to those who may be charged with crimes, sometimes an error is made. A simple mistake, a missing or broken link in the chain that

“Wrongful convictions happen every week in every state in this country. And they happen for all the same reasons. Sloppy police work. Eyewitness identification is the most- is the worst type almost. Because it is wrong about half the time. Think about that.” (Grisham). Wrongful convictions can happen to anyone, at anytime. Grisham implies wrongful convictions happen for the same reasons, careless police work as well as eyewitness identification. An eyewitness identification is a crucial aspect in detective work because it essentially locates the person at the crime scene. This is the worst cause of wrongful convictions because it is wrong half the time.

News reports daily of all of the many different crimes that has taken place. In today’s society, we depend upon the justice system. Criminal Justice is a big deal. The Criminal Justice system was put in place by the agencies and established by the governments to help control the crimes and apply penalties to those that violate the law. Many people feel that the criminal justice system is there to protect and serve while others feel that the criminal justice system fails them daily.

In many countries across the world people are wrongfully convicted by a system whose sole purpose is to protects its citizens. Wrongful convictions are a grave miscarriage of justice. A report Published by Nation Registry of Exonerations stated that 149 people were cleared in 2015 for crimes that they did not commit in the United States (Ferner, 2016), this number is staggering. Also, in Japan 162 wrongful convicted between 1910 and 2010 (Johnson, 2015). With that said, a lot of people is being detained for crimes they did not commit in every region of the world, meanwhile the real culprits are left to roam freely. Common reasons for wrongful conviction in the United states and Japan are harsh and long interrogations, witness identification, errors or misconduct of the law enforcement and jailhouse informants also known as snitches, but mostly lack of DNA evidences. Even though, these countries have constitutional rights for its citizens, the reasons for wrongful convictions are similar.

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.

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

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,

The hit television series Law and Order Special Victims Unit deals with cases that can be very controversial when the accused is a celebrity. In the fifteenth year episode nine the detectives had to make a decision that would could destroy the accused career if they made the wrong choice. Through the different characters in this episode there are different ethics that they follow.

The topic of wrongful convictions will be discussed in this research paper. Wrongful conviction is defined as the conviction of a person who is accused of a crime in which, in the result of subsequent investigation, proves erroneous. These persons who are in fact innocent, will be wrongly convicted by a jury or a court of law.