The Wrongful Convictions Of Innocent Men And Women

Unfortunately, wrongful convictions of innocent people sometimes happen in the criminal justice system. According to a new report from the University of Michigan Law School 's National Registry of Exonerations, 2015 set a record for the number of wrongly convicted Americans who received justice; 149 people who were either declared innocent or cleared of their convictions or guilty pleas. Many of them had already served long prison terms for crimes they did not commit (Mencimer, 2016.)

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.

During recent studies from several researchers it has been concluded that there is a fault within our criminal justice system. Researchers discovered there is a high wrongful conviction rate within the United States judicial system. After, extensive research, it was found that wrongful convictions are caused by eyewitness error, false confessions, flawed forensic science, an informant, bad lawyering, and government misconduct. Without a doubt, this issue has shocked society, due to the fact we rely on the system for pure justice. Within my findings, it is apparent that victims of wrongful convictions suffer numerous affects when

When questioning witnesses of a crime, detectives may choose a specific technique; one technique is the Reid Technique. The Reid Technique is a multi-step questioning method that pressures the witnesses or the accused to admit to the crime. It is used in North America. According to Professor Brent Snook, a psychologist at the Memorial University in Newfoundland, the Reid Technique is “Starsky and Hutch”, where two hot head detectives “beat up” their suspects to encourage them confess (http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/25/youre-guilty-now-confess-false-admissions-put-polices-favourite-interrogation-tactic-under-scrutiny/). This paper will examine the steps of the Reid Technique, as well as reveal substantial evidence that this technique should be banned. This technique has led to false confessions. Not only does this mean that someone has been punished that isn’t guilty, but it also means the real criminal has not been found and punished. The arguments against the use of this technique are the following:

The United States prides itself on having robust, deeply entrenched measures implemented across its core agencies, including the police and criminal justice system, to safeguard against wrongfully convicting people who, after further reflection, are factually found to be innocent. As citizens, we have been educated to trust, among other things, that our systems protect the notions that one is innocent until proven guilty and that prosecution must prove any charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet, wrongful convictions are more prevalent than we might think. In particular, the publicity of hundreds of cases over the last few decades has put a spotlight on this indisputable

I will also utilize Professor Natapoff who has served as a clerk for the Honorable David S. Tatel from the U.S. Court of Appeals and for Paul Friedman, U.S. District, Washington D.C. She is widely thought of as an expert on snitching in the criminal justice system. She recently served as an assistant public defender in Baltimore, Maryland. Professor Natapoff received an Open Society Institute Community Fellowship.

“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.

Melissa Calusinski, Sabrina Butler, Beverly Monroe, and Nicole Harris. Each a different example of the many cases of an alleged miscarriage of justice. Each a woman who claims she was wrongfully convicted of a crime she did not commit. Despite a court system’s greatest effort to protect the innocent and punish the guilty, mistakes are made; and innocent people go to prison. Some are even executed. The justice system is not perfect, as it is the product and under the control of human beings, who by nature are far from perfect. There are certain patterns in the wrongful convictions of certain individuals and their efforts to get exonerated from their false sentences. According to the data in the National Registry of Exonerations some researchers have concluded that there exists a discrepancy in the amount of women who are exonerated from their sentences, compared to those of men who were convicted. Proposed reasons for this discrepancy include the types of crimes that women statistically tend to be convicted of, the factors that lead to wrongful convictions--official misconduct, inadequate legal defense, types of evidence, and

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.

Since 1923, when Judge Learned Hand said that the American judicial system “has always been haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted,” the issue of wrongful conviction has been acknowledged to man (Halstead, 1992; Huff, Rattner, Sagarin, & MacNamara, 1986). After the judge made his innocuous statements, serious study of this phenomenon began. Contrary to the statement the judge made, time and technology have revealed that an unquantifiable number of wrongfully convicted persons have served prison terms and even been executed for crimes they did not commit and some that did not even occur. Research into wrongful conviction was virtually nonexistent until Professor Edward Brochard of Yale University published his book Convicting the Innocent in 1932. This book documented 65 such cases, addressed the legal causes of miscarriage, and offered suggestions to reform. Subsequently, numerous other researchers began conducting case studies and publishing findings that affirmed that wrongful conviction represents a systematic problem within the American judicial process (Huff, 2002).

Since no system created by humans is perfect, some individuals are convicted and punished for a crime they did not commit. This is known as a wrongful conviction or a miscarriage of justice. The adversarial trial attempts to prevent this outcome by requiring that the guilt of the accused is proved beyond reasonable doubt. For every single individual affected, every miscarriage of justice is a very serious matter, but for the legal system as a whole they only make up a very small amount of all the criminal law judgements. Factors like false accusations or confessions, misleading or inadequate police investigation, flaws in the trial process and problems of appeal all lead to miscarriages of justice.

Have you ever been grounded or punished by your parent’s for something you honestly didn’t do? Maybe your sibling or friend stole something or hurt someone and the blame and the “horrible” consequences were put on you. No phone, no TV, no friends over, confined to your room. Straight tortures and a feeling of betrayal and dishonesty from everyone around you. Now, imagine being an adult wrongfully accused of a major crime such as an armed robbery or murder, which they didn’t commit, except it isn’t being grounded or their parents they 're worried about, its sitting behind bars, no longer a free citizen, fighting for their freedom with most likely one of the following things happened such as an eyewitness identified the wrong individual, false confessions, Perjury, maybe even forensic science error. Imagine as a child how you felt being grounded in the comfort of our own home. Just picture how an individual would feel wrongfully convicted in a cold, 10x10 box with a cold cot to sleep on! The injustice of being convicted and imprisoned for a crime one did not commit is intuitively apparent. I would take being grounded over a jail cell any day.

Prosecutorial misconduct is something that rarely gets brought to the light. Mainly because prosecutors seldom get punished for their misconduct. Prosecutors are held to a higher moral standard than the average person because of their knowledge of the law. However, some prosecutors use this as an excuse to cut corners and think that he or she is untouchable. The job of a prosecutor is to find justice, but some prosecutors just want to get a conviction every time. Some prosecutors are willing to do whatever it takes to do so, even if it means breaking the rules.