miscarriage of justice essay

Eye-ID. One type of variables is “estimator variables” which are incontrollable factors by the criminal justice system. Examples of estimator variables are environmental factors (e.g., lighting and distance) when the crime occurred, racial factors, and psychological factors (e.g., severity of trauma)1. The other type of variable is “system variables” which is controllable by the criminal justice system. These variables are within the procedure of attaining evidences. For instance, post-identification

Case Summary Penny Ann Beernsten, a thirty-six year old small business co-owner and physical fitness instructor, went through a traumatic experience on the afternoon of July 29, 1985. She jogged at a stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline in Wisconsin. She was planning on meeting with her father at the beach at 4:00 PM and she started the jog at 3:50 PM, but was grabbed and taken to the woods where she was raped and deprived her of oxygen by suffocation until she passed out. When she woke up, she walked

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

Around midnight on August 9th, 1984, police officers pounded on Kirk Bloodsworth’s door and arrested him for the rape and murder of Dawn Hamilton, a 9-year-old girl. At trial, though there was absolutely no physical evidence against him, five eyewitnesses identified him. After the jury deliberated, for fewer than three hours, he was sentenced to death row (Junkin). It may have seemed like a clear verdict, but nine years later, he was found innocent and pardoned, the first man ever to be released

Wrongful Conviction in the American Judicial Process: History, Scope, and Analysis Abstract This paper addresses the historical, current, and anticipated extent of wrongful convictions in the legal procedure of the United States. Thus, various examination studies are checked on with a specific end goal to distinguish the pattern of this issue, focus its inception, and propose arrangements. In particular, the paper addresses the implications of the growing American custodial system and the decrease

then eleven year-old Holly Staker, who at the time was babysitting her two siblings (University of Michigan Law School). His wrongful conviction was the result of failures by not only the public, but also law enforcement personnel and the criminal justice system, as we will further examine. According to the University of Michigan’s Law School, Juan Rivera’s initial arrest came on October 26th after Lake County Police received a tip from an informant. Rivera was then questioned for four days and

As research shows, eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in 72% of convictions overturned through DNA testing. In this paper, I am going to revisit two cases that were affected by this striking procedure of eyewitness misidentification, efforts currently being made to address this problem, and my personal recommendations to minimize cases surrounding the topic illustrated in this paper. Although eyewitness testimony can be significant

1. What information did you learn about the organization after exploring this website? I saw how many cases the innocence project, has over turned. One case that I looked at was the Randolph Arledge. Randolph was charged for a stabbing/rape that happened August 30, 1981. The victim was Carolyn Armstrong, she was 21 years old. Carolyn’s body was found on a road off of Highway 22 in Navarro County. She was undressed from the waist down, and had over 40 stab wounds to the neck and chest. Later police

The criminal justice system plays an important role in this society, it is meant to protect and serve. This “system” is also meant to maintain the peace and enforce the laws set by the government. However, the criminal justice system is not even close to perfect. It has many flaws, some of which are: police brutality, death penalty, mass incarceration, gun violence, and especially wrongful convictions. A majority of the flaws that the system has can be easily fixed and can be set straight. For example

In the criminal justice system innocent people are being wrongfully convicted of crimes that they had no part of. This defies the very purpose of having a criminal justice system. The following research addresses the reasons for wrongful convictions in relation to being represented by public defenders. This is important because once it is determined why wrongful convictions occur when represented by a public defender; reform within the public defense council can be implemented. The average time a