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.
Background and Justification 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).
The contemporary innocence revolution
This essay will explore how prosecutorial misconduct causes wrongful convictions in both the United States and Australia. This essay will also argue that rehabilitation and compensation should be provided by the state. A major flaw in the criminal justice system not only in the United States but also in Australia, is the failure to set forth a plan for the people who were exonerated to be accepted back into society. The lack of a plan for rehabilitation for the exonerated poses a problem for society since some might find it easier to find a job in prison then in the real world, this process makes it immensely difficult for prisoners to get acclimated back into society. The Australian Law Review Committee is an entity which evaluates and gives
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
Almost every day, we hear about justice being served upon criminals and we, as a society, feel a sense of relief that another threat to the public has been sentenced to a term in prison, where they will no longer pose a risk to the world at large. However, there are very rare occasions where the integrity of the justice system gets skewed and people who should not have been convicted are made to serve heavy prison sentences. When word of this judicial misstep reaches the public, there is social outcry, and we begin to question the judicial system for committing such a serious faux pas.
Everyday, people are arrested for crimes they have committed. However, the justice system, in some cases, has failed to convict and arrest the right person. Innocent people have been sent to jail based upon the deliberate misidentification of suspects. Throughout U.S history, there have been several famous wrongful convictions such as the Scottsboro Boys and Ed Johnson (Grimsley). Their convictions were based on race due to the racial strife from the Jim Crow era. Base on David Love’s article, many convictions after the Jim Crow era were still being caused by misleading identification from eyewitness claims of the suspects being African Americans. Due to the advancement of forensic and DNA technology, lack of evidence from previous convictions
Wrongful Canada(Wrongful Convictions) A wrongful conviction is when somebody is accused and convicted of a crime in which they didn’t commit. There have been many cases of people being wrongfully convicted and having to spend years in jail before they finally be released, and sometimes not. There have been cases where people have been wrongfully convicted, spent their whole life in jail and eventually receive the death penalty and get killed for a crime that they didn’t commit.
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
For the most part, wrongful convictions remain a topic full of questions and disagreements. Research clearly and concisely indicates that laws may
This past legislative session saw a major win for the wrongly convicted with H.B. 48. H.B. 48 creates a commission to review convictions after exoneration and aims to prevent wrongful conviction. This bill is a supported across the political spectrum on the part of author Ruth Jones McClendon (D) and Sen. Rodney Ellis (D) along with joint authors Rep. Jeff Leach (R), Rep. David Simpson (R), Rep. Abel Herrero (D), Rep. Joe Moody (D) and The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for Effective Justice.
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
“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.
Alcindor, Y. (2014, May 05). Many wrongfully convicted are simply on their own. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/04/wrongfully-convicted-suffer-long-after-release/8480237/
The causes of wrongful convictions are easy to identify: irregularities and incompetence at the investigatory, pre-trial, trial and appellate stages of the criminal justice system. More particularly, Kaiser identifies the following contributory factors, among others: false accusations, misleading police investigative work, inept defense counsel, misperceptions by Crown prosecutors of their role, factual assumption of an accuser’s guilt by actors in the criminal justice system, community pressure for a conviction, inadequate identification evidence, perjury, false confessions, inadequate or misinterpreted forensic evidence, judicial bias, poor presentation of an appellate case, and difficulty in having fresh evidence admitted at the appellate stage. Each instance of determined wrongful conviction illustrates a different combination of failures in the criminal justice system that has
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.