Wrongful Convictions And The Court System

False confessions in incarceration rates are a current flaw in the justice system. Just in one state there has been hundred of false confessions. " A study in the North Carolina Law Review documenting 125 false confessions" (Why the innocents confess).The number continues to grow as time continues on even when the evidence says otherwise. DNA has exonerated 175 people, 1/5 of the people confessed to the crimes. But most people use confessions as a way to sentence someone instead of using DNA (why the innocents confess). Even though DNA is present most people will still use a confession to determine of someone is guilty or not.

“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.

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,

This article is about a sexual assault bill that is being considered and that according to supporters would prevent wrongful convictions. It would require victims to corroborate their testimony only if the defendant doesn’t have a prior conviction. Since this could be a very controversial issue a forensic psychologist could be hired to clarify the nature of the problem; to either prove that the bill could help prevent wrongful convictions by using logic and evidence or that it would make those cases where evidence simply doesn’t exist harder. A forensic psychologist could argue, for example, that victims are not always able of providing a reliable story; that it is possible for them to miss a prominent characteristic because it has happened

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.

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

We do not now how many innocent individuals are currently imprisoned, but we have an idea of the number of people who have been exonerated of crimes for which they were convicted. The National Registry of Exonerations has identified 1491 men and women who have been exonerated from state facilities since 1989 in the United States (University of Michigan Law School, 2015). From 2005 to 2014, there was an average of 64 exonerations from state facilities per year, with exonerees serving an average of twelve years. The Innocence Project (2015), which takes cases in which DNA analysis can be used to prove a prisoner is innocent, has secured 329 post-conviction DNA exonerations and is actively working on 250-300 cases.

In his 2008 Columbia Law Review Article “Judging Innocence,” Brandon L. Garrett claims that there are four major factors responsible for a majority of wrongful convictions, all of which I will discuss in detail. In short, however, these four factors are: (a) false confessions, (b) testimony of informants (or “snitches”), (c) improper use of forensics, and (d) witness misidentification (p. 55). Through Garrett’s (2008) study of the first 200 DNA exonerees in the U.S., we see a breakdown of the percentage of cases in which these four types of evidence may be used to secure a confession: 79% of the 200 cases involved witness identification of the subject, 57% involved forensic evidence, 18% were convicted with the aid of informant testimony, and 16% of exonerees had given a false confession that was ultimately presented at trial (p. 76). Some of these exonerees were even sentenced to death (p. 75).

In addition, the government, police, etc, may be corrupted and the criminal justice may just all turn out to be fraud and no way to gain freedom back. There has been DNA exoneration nationwide. According to the Innocence Project, there have been 317 post-conviction DNA exonerations in United States history. These stories are becoming more familiar as more innocent people gain their freedom through post conviction testing. They are not proof; however, that our system is righting itself. The first DNA exoneration took place in 1989. Exonerations have been won in 38 states; since 2000, there have been 250 exonerations.18 of the 317 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row. Another 16 were charged with capital crimes but not sentenced to death. The average length of time served by exonerees is 13.5 years. The total number of years served is approximately 4,249.The average age of exonerees at the time of their wrongful convictions was 27. Of the 317 exonerees, there were 199 African

Introduction: Each year, many people that are innocent are dished out short or long term prison term for crimes that they did not commit. These innocent people have been “wrongfully convicted”. Sometimes these wrongfully convicted charges are unbeknownst to the judge and or jury; other times, they are just wrongfully convicted due to corrupt law enforcement officers. This corrupt issue is very wrong and should be done away with immediately, which is my reason my choosing this topic. In this research paper, I plan to find reasons for wrongful convictions, the actual number, statistics, of individuals that have been wrongful convicted, and those individuals who have stepped up to make a difference in this dilemma.

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)

False memory can be defined as a person believing they remember something that did not actually happen (Loftus, 1997). It is a common misconception that human memories are accurate and reliable (Poston, 2014), though many studies have revealed the reconstructive nature of memory and its vulnerability to distortion (e.g., Frenda, Nichols, & Loftus, 2011; Nash & Wade, 2008). This misconception forms an integral part of the modern justice system. Judges, attournies and juries are all prone to believe testimony from a confident eyewitness (Van Wallendael et al., 2007) and legal confessions are considered among the most compelling forms of evidence (e.g., Cutler, 2012; Kassin, Bogart, & Kerner, 2012). But what happens when these legal statements are based on false memories?

There are a variety of mishaps that can result in a wrongful conviction. Innocence Project website (2013) contains a vast amount of information that deals with confessions and their effect in court cases. A confession is a vital piece of evidence that can be used to make or break a case. However, if the confession is not correctly given or produced, proper justice can be skewed. Aspects that surround a confession include the interrogation room, the persons involved in the confession, how the confession is produced, the fear surrounding the possible sentence, and the consistency or inconsistency of the information provided in the confession. A false confession is an admittance of guilt in a crime where