The Wrongful Conviction Of The Criminal Justice System

In March of 1985, Bloodsworth was sentenced to death. Through it all Bloodsworth maintained his innocence and in 1993 with the help of a new technique used to test for DNA, Bloodsworth got his chance to prove he was innocent. Bloodsworth became the first person ever to be exonerated from death row by DNA evidence. (Jain, 2001) In one

The Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYK) is an important resource for those that need assistance proving their innocence. This foundation is a Canadian, non-profit organization that was founded in 1993 and incorporated in 2000.The goal of the AIDWYK is to “identify, advocate for, and exonerate individuals who have been convicted of a crime they did not commit and to prevent wrongful convictions through legal education and reform.” Without the efforts of this foundation 18 innocent individuals would still be behind bars, and hundreds of cases would

I. Before the 1980’s, courts relied on testimony and eyewitness accounts as a main source of evidence. Notoriously unreliable, these techniques have since faded away to the stunning reliability of DNA forensics.

This appeal evolved out of a 2006 rape case that occurred in Harford county Maryland. More than two years after the incident the victim identified Glenn Joseph Raynor, hereby known as petitioner, as a possible suspect. After departing a voluntary police interview in which petitioner ultimately declined a request for his DNA to be collected for comparison. Investigators collected DNA on swabs from the armrest of his chair. DNA analysis revealed a match from samples collected at the crime scene. After further investigation petitioner was charged and convicted of first-degree rape and related offenses.

Miscarriages of justices occur due to many variables including faulty or wrong confessions, faulty identifications, wrongful DNA evidence, and the police’s overreach of power. On February 9, 1978, a student from the College of William and Mary, located in Williamsburg, Virginia was sexually assaulted at gunpoint. When the police arrived at the scene, she described her assailant as an African-American male about 5’6 in height and weighing around 145. Having gathered this information, the victim agreed to identify her assailant through photo arrays at the police station. Bennett Barbour was identified arrested and in the span of about two months was charged with rape on April 14, 1978. Despite having an alibi, not matching the victim’s description, and having brittle bone disease Barbour was declared guilty by a jury. Barbour’s case is representative of the many cases in which wrongful eyewitness testimony produces miscarriages of justice. Bennett Barbour served 5 years in prison and 29 years of parole until he was cleared of his charges due to DNA evidence when the Virginia Supreme Court cleared his charges.

In the year of 1996 the 250th person to be freed by DNA testing since the year of 1992. Those 250 “ex-convicts” served a total of 3160 years between them all. Which still leaves the conspicuous question… How many innocent people are still incarcerated? In today’s society, there are many false convictions to all sex, gender. The Innocence Project was designed to assist wrongly convicted individuals. This paper attempts to identify how many cases with organization adopts per year and determine the accuracy rate of cases tried within the criminal justice system.

A conviction of a person accused of a crime which in the result subsequent investigation proves erroneous.It depicts as any conviction which is apparently not committed by the convicted.I have studied many cases that why wrongful conviction has occurred even with doing a systematic probe, having with an affirmation and evidence. The most prominent reason why I did research on it was to knowing the critical reasons that why the public entitled into wrongful conviction and even with having a rigid body of criminal justice system and what were the circumstances through which they could not able to get justice. This all convictions leads into a severe effects on the life of the persons who are accidentally associated to crime which they never even thought to commit.Case of Leighton Hay is a clear example of this, He was wrongfully convicted of murder, which led into 12 years of inexorably imprisonment.why it took 12 years for justice system to ensure that he was innocent. Moreover, it creates the wrongful perception in the people towards the justice system, whose core responsibility is to find out the exact truth and prevent public from those who violate the laws.For deterring this all sort of crimes criminal justice system imposed several penalties to deal with it,if anyone commit any crime this may be result into fine, imprisonment, etc also even rehabilitate to assume some possibility of not reoffending.In fact, there are many reasons due to which person

According to Scheck, Neufeld, and Dwyer (2003), the majority of convictions overturned by DNA evidence involved mistaken eyewitness testimony. The Innocence Project estimates that around 70% of the convictions due to eyewitness misidentification have been overturned by DNA evidence (2015). A main factor in this occurrence is that eyewitness memory is unreliable (Wright, 2007). Eyewitness identification in a line-up is an important tool in criminal investigations. The eyewitness evidence that results from these line-ups has an impact on the subsequent investigation and prosecution procedures (Wells, 1984). Furthermore, according to Wright, it is not just about witnesses making errors when identifying, misidentifying, or not identifying, a suspect

Australia on the other hand is just starting to get their feet on the ground when it comes to wrongful convictions, especially with DNA exonerations. Just in 2013, Southern Australia had passed legislation that now allows for a second or subsequent post-conviction appeal if the court will be satisfied and there is fresh and compelling evidence that should be considered. In 2010 in New South Wales and Queensland, they have recently introduced DNA innocence testing in legislative and guideline forms. In Australia, there was a man by the name of Frank Button who was convicted of rape in 2000. (Weathered: 1411) Button is considered to be the first wrongfully convicted person to be exonerated by DNA evidence within Australia. Button was convicted due to original DNA that was found at the crime scene, even though that Button had lived in the home in which the rape had occurred; therefore, it should not have been unusual or suspicious that his DNA was present.(Weathered: 1412) During the trial, it was said that Buttons DNA was found exactly on the bedsheets from where the rape had occurred, but later on

The Innocence Project is committed to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals and to prevent future injustices and convictions. Since 1989, over 2,000 wrongfully convicted people have been exonerated. Marion Coakley

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.

The Innocence Project was established in the wake of a landmark study by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate with help from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (Schneider, 2013). This study found that there were numerous reasons why people are wrongfully convicted including, but not limited to eye witness identification, perjured testimony, improper forensic science techniques, and government misconduct (Roberts & Weathered, 2009) The original Innocence Project was founded twenty two (22) years ago as a part of the Cardoza School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York City, New York (Davis, 2012). The Innocence Projects primary goal is to exonerate those whom have been convicted of a crime when there is DNA evidence available to be tested or re-tested (Mitchell, 2011). DNA testing has been possible in five (5) percent to ten (10) percent of cases since 1992 (Risinger, 2007). On the other side, other members of the Innocence Project help to exonerate those have been convicted of a crime where there is no DNA evidence to test. A goal of the Innocence Project is to conduct research on the reasons for wrongful convictions, how to fix the criminal justice system, as well as advocate for those who have been wrongfully convicted (Steiker & Steiker, 2005). The members of this organization strive to teach the world about the dangers of wrongful convictions. To date, this non-profit legal organization, has freed three hundred eighteen (318)

During the past twenty years reports have shown cases where people had been wrongfully convicted and exonerated in murder and rape cases. Many exonerations occurred during post-conviction and DNA tests have revealed the innocence of wrongfully convicted individuals (Leo & Gould, 2009). Over 230 prisoners have been exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing and in the past twenty years many wrongful convictions prove their innocence through non-DNA means (Leo & Gould, 2009). Before 1989, the first year to use post-conviction DNA testing was used to establish innocent and even in capital punishment cases. There has been a growth in culture and among criminal justice professionals who were wrongfully conviction that occur in criminal justice systems (Leo & Gould, 2009).

Robert Blake was charged with murdering his wife Bonnie Blake. The prosecutor presented over 70 witnesses against Blake, the jury wanted to see forensic evidence and when none was presented the jury found Blake not guilty.

Another reason why some believe that DNA is a wonderful tool to have is that some feel eyewitness testimony is not as accurate. In 1977 and 1979, the Bird Road Rapist attacked over 25 women. Luis Diaz in 1980 was convicted of eight charges of rape on Bird Road. The identification and testimonies from the victims landed Diaz with multiple life sentences” (Sainvil, 2012). He spent 26 years behind prison walls even though he did not match the description that was given in the beginning of the case. During that time two witnesses also recanted their statement. It was not until 2005 that Diaz was actually exonerated of the charge as a result of DNA testing.