Premium Essay

False Convictions

Submitted By
Words 903
Pages 4
Convicted beyond a reasonable doubt is a phrase that is often thrown around within the courtroom of television dramas, however what about those who were convicted with reasonable doubt still in the air. Several movements such as the Innocence Project have now for 15 years been helping wrongfully convicted convicts regain freedom. A system that never originally accounted for the human error is now having light shone onto its discrepancies as we can never truly know to what rate people are wrongfully convicted. As stated by the National Academy of Sciences “There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place”(Gross, 2014). It is a sad day when a freeman is incarcerated for a crime that he did not commit, it is even worse that the true perpetrator is free to roam the street perhaps only to commit more crimes. Reasons for false convictions are very numerous and can range from being misidentified by an eyewitness to false confessions, however there seems to be a pattern in the way that false convictions occur, they have discrepancies within the court proceedings. One famous quote by William Blackstone reads “It is better that ten guilty persons …show more content…
We conclude that this is a conservative estimate of the proportion of false conviction among death sentences in the United States.” (Gross, 2014) a quote direct from the study which is considered a conservative estimate shows that far more than the 0.027% of convictions are potentially wrongful. Having what the public would consider such a high false conviction rate must cause headaches to new and old prosecutors and judges alike which is why I believe it is not widely known how many innocents still lay behind bars and their case behind closed

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Wrongful Convictions Examples

...Knowing how wrongful convictions happens research have shown there are quite a lot of ways to fix the problem. A lot of studies have shown that recording interrogations to reduce false confessions which are usually used during the trail of the wrongful convictions. Some other ways to reduce wrongful conviction would be to have a guide in which possible red flags that lead to the officers and prosecutors believing they have the wrong person, better training for the police officers and the prosecutors. For example when it comes to using the “jailhouse snitch” that can be lying just to get a better deal for him self. Another way to reduce wrongful conviction is to after the inmate have been exonerated letting the inmate know that the prosecutor will be getting disciplined and just given “hush money” in sense now that it was proven they were innocent. To avoid wrongful convictions from happen eyewitness testimonies, false DNA evidence, and other obstacles need to be examined by an unbiased eye. When researching ways to prevent wrongful convictions all the articles had the same thing about recording the interrogations, and doing the open file discovery. I thought all...

Words: 549 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Wrongful Convictions Research Paper

...Implications: There are many factors that lead to miscarriages of criminal justice. Few wrongful convictions are caused by eyewitness identification, forensic science errors, and false confessions. Mistaken eyewitness identification is the number one cause of wrongful convictions. Eyewitness “was a factor in 72% of post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in the U.S.” (Innocence Project, 2007). Studies show that the human mind does not record or obtain information like a video recorder; it does not keep the information as a short-term memory, but keeps the information in long-term memory. For this reason, witnesses cannot fully recall facial details, especially when they are under stress by the events of the crime. Also, memory is very flexible...

Words: 1294 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

The Innocence Project: Wrongful Convictions In America

...Wrongful Convictions in America There have been many people, innocent people, wrongfully convicted for heinous crimes. Many of the people who are innocent unfortunately either have to spend many years behind bars until they are taking to trial again or have to serve a sentence they didn’t deserve. On top of it being utterly wrong for someone to have to go through and serve time for something they didn’t do, a lot of times from spending time incarcerated these innocent people come out and become criminals. This also happened back during the Salem Witch Trails, they would wrongfully convicted and even murdered with no evidence! This happens all the time in the American justice system and unfortunately a lot of the innocent people who convicted never get the justice they deserve....

Words: 561 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Wrongfully Convictions

...Wrongfully Convictions 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. Although there aren’t any statistics kept by the Criminal Justice Department on the number of crimes that were recorded as wrongful convictions, research has estimated about 5% of the cases that are tried annual result in a false conviction. Since 1989, 1,241 people have been wrongfully convicted and later cleared of all charges based on evidence that they were innocent, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the law schools at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University (Clark 2013). The Michigan Innocence Clinic was the first clinic of its kind to work on non-DNA exonerations. Their work has revealed particular circumstances far too often seen in cases of wrongful conviction. These cases show us how...

Words: 2715 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Confidentiality and Alton Logan

...Course Name: Intro to Legal Ethics Instructor: Brent Halbleib Assignment: Unit 3 Confidentiality and Attorney/Client Privilege Name: Donna Marie Brown Date: July 26, 2015 Possible Points: 100 Confidentiality and Attorney- Client Privilege Donna Marie Brown Kaplan University Confidentiality and the Alton Logan Case “Sometimes trying to make wrongful conviction right, creates an ethical tension for civil and criminal attorneys. With any kind of practice, but mostly with criminal defense, a lawyer may learn from a client that they committed a crime ascribed to someone else. When an innocent person is faced with conviction, imprisonment, or in some cases, the death penalty, and the attorney is mindful of the injustice occurring to a third party, the lawyer is still bound by the rules of confidentiality to honor their commitment to their client.” (Strutin, 2015) And this begins the case with Mr. Alton Logan. In 1982, Alton Logan was convicted of killing a security guard at a Chicago-area McDonalds. Even though the testimony that Logan was at home when the murder happened, the jury still found him guilty of first degree murder And to top it off, the two attorneys, Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz, knew Logan was innocent. And how did this knowledge come about? Andrew Wilson, the attorneys’ client, admitted to the murder. The two attorneys who were representing Wilson, for killing two policemen, was told by Wilson that he was also guilty of killing the security guard at...

Words: 1005 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Economics

...The president releases his speech about the economic improvement, where in fact, our economy is continuously abating. There are fiddles everywhere. As a leader, he should overflow the practice and mentality of a leader. He should be the one starting the engagement and implementation of improvements to aggrandize the economy, rather than being one of the reasons why our economy is encountering a spontaneous decline. The issue about Disaster Awareness Funds (DAF) is on its continuous peak not because of its agonizing and untruthful trend, but because of the fact that there are no evidences shown that it exists and being used by the government for its people. Moreover, the pork barrel scam is still unresolved. It is evident that the government officials involved already made their heads up with regards to the issue, but in conclusion, the case is still unresolved. To analyze the case, according to Republic Act 7080, also known as an Act Defining and Penalizing the Crime of Plunder, any public officer who, by himself or in connivance with members of his family, relatives by affinity or consanguinity, business associates, subordinates or other persons, amasses, accumulates or acquires ill-gotten wealth through a combination of series of overt or criminal acts, hereof in the aggregate amount or total value of at least Fifty million pesos (P50,000,000.00), shall be punished by reclusion perpetua to death. (Sec.2, R.A. 7080) For the purposes of establishing the crime of plunder...

Words: 404 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Wrongful Convictions Research Paper

...Wrongful convictions can be described as a miscarriage of justice or an unfair decision in a court of law or as a conviction of a person accused of a crime which, in the result of a subsequent investigation, proves erroneous. Police misconduct refers to ill-appropriated conduct and illegal action taken by police regarding their official duties or any action performed by a law enforcement officer that is unethical, against established employment guidelines, unconstitutional, or criminal in nature. Official misconduct is more commonly caused by law enforcement officials and prosecutors in a number of ways. The knowledge we have about wrongful convictions and official misconduct comes mainly from studies of cases ending in exonerations. According...

Words: 421 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Summary Of Wrongful Convictions By Radley Balko

...Wrongful Convictions In this article "Wrongful Convictions” Radley Balko discusses a case where a man by the name of Paul House was wrongful convicted in 1986 and was sentenced to death for a murder that happened in 1985 that he did not do. Paul House was released in 2006 after being behind bars for 22 years for a crime that he was not guilty of committing. This article raised the attention to how many innocent people are behind bars for convictions that they did not do (183). Forensic evidence helped to reveal Paul House innocence due to DNA testing of semen that was not a match of House blood type but matched the husband DNA of the woman killed. Even though rape was never part of the case against Paul House (186), it was used to be a conceivable...

Words: 347 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Forensic Misconduct

...utilizing scientific methodologies to clarify judicial inquiries. The field of forensic science contains a broad range of disciplines and has become a vital aspect of criminal investigations. Some forensic disciplines are laboratory-based; while others are based on an analyst’s interpretation of observable patterns (Kourtsounis, 2009). According to the Innocence project’s website; in greater than fifty percent of wrongful convictions, the use of invalidated or improper forensic techniques played a role in cases; which were later overturned by DNA testing. Unlike other forensic methods, serology has been subjected to rigorous scientific testing to achieve validation. Even still, these methods can be inaccurately conducted or counterfactually conveyed during the trial (Innocence Project, 2012). Since the evidence presented during a trial can be the difference between freedom, and incarceration in many cases and death in some cases, misconduct in the forensic field is not tolerated. Some types of forensic misconduct include exaggeration of statistics, false testimony and laboratory fraud. Evidence offered by forensic scientists is often called “expert testimony”. Nevertheless, what is an expert? Is it someone who has gone to school and earned an undergraduate, graduate or doctoral degree? Alternatively, could it be someone whom has many years of “on the job training”? The answer depends on whom you ask. Regardless of who is asked, the testimony given by forensic scientists...

Words: 1626 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Manager

...NOTES ON COMPLETING THE APPLICATION FORM PAGE THREE… ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IN SUPPORT OF YOUR APPLICATION Please refer to the Person Specification when completing this part of the application form. This is the most important section as it gives you the opportunity to sell yourself as being the right person for the job. When filling this in, don’t just repeat your work history, instead try and provide evidence using examples where appropriate, that you have the skills, abilities, knowledge and experience asked for. The Person Specification lists the attributes required to undertake the duties and responsibilities of the post and is designed to assess your suitability for the job. Therefore you should ensure that you address each of the criteria listed, providing evidence, by examples where possible, that you have the skills, abilities, knowledge and experience required. You should also demonstrate an understanding and commitment to equal opportunities. When you provide information relating to skills and experience, don’t forget to mention any part-time or voluntary work you have done that may be relevant. It may also be helpful to mention any activities you take part in outside work, for example: organising social or community events or committee membership. If you have had a break between jobs, please show how you used this time. Overall, to be shortlisted you will have to demonstrate on the application form that you meet the requirements outlined in the Person Specification...

Words: 1429 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Suman

...Print Application Summary - Suman Chowdhury - X12/E/RMOH/L (CHRISTMAS CASUAL - ROMFORD OUTHOUSE - LATES) Personal Details |Email Address |smart07rohan@gmail.com |Mail Type |Email | |Title |Mr. |First Name |Suman | |Surname |Chowdhury | | | |Address1 |198 Campbell Road | | | |Town/City |LONDON | | ...

Words: 1664 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

No Paper

...Material Corrections Scenario Ethical Issue: Corrections The husband eventually is convicted of driving while under the influence following a jury trial. It turns out to be his third conviction. A judge orders that a presentence investigation report be prepared. In the course of the investigation, the probation officer discovers that the husband had served in the U.S. military in Somalia. His military records indicate that while there, his duties involved collecting the dead and the injured to be taken to the hospital. In the course of this assignment, he was captured by enemy soldiers and placed into a black metal box the size of a coffin where he remained for the better part of 6 weeks. Medical and psychiatric records confirm that the husband suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has regressed to the level of a 10-year-old because of his imprisonment in Somalia. In the opinion of his treating psychiatrists, any prolonged confinement, even for a few hours, could cause even further regression and could trigger explosive outbursts and traumatic flashbacks. Although the sentencing range for this offense could fall anywhere between zero to 365 days in jail, the standard sentence for a third time offense usually begins at a minimum of 90 days in custody. His prior convictions occurred before his military service in Somalia and he served a total of 60 days custody on those, without incident. What should the probation officer recommend? The probation officer...

Words: 265 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Examples Of Damon Thibodeaux's Wrongful Conviction

...Numerous people attribute to Damon Thibodeaux's wrongful conviction. To begin with, the police department's interrogation was not very effective. As trained law enforcement officers and detectives, they could have been more tried to focus on other possible suspects and not focus all their time and attention on Thibodeaux. After 35 hours of no sleep, food and feeling physically tired, Mr.Thibodeaux confessed just to get these three things back. His confession was never conclusive with the details of the crime, in fact everything he confessed was details given to him by the police about the crime. At the end the police department's findings were also incorrect. Further investigation showed Ms.Champagne was killed by the result of being hit with...

Words: 252 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

What Is the History of Stem Call Research Legislation in the Us?

...through argument of science can cure diseases or help heal individuals who suffer from debilitating conditions such as spinal cord injuries, strokes, heart conditions, and burns to name a few. (Reaves, 2001) The argument for stem cell research proves to be one of both moral hazard and religious conviction. (G.Fischbach, 2004) On the moral side, the idea to use terminated pregnancies in order for gain or just their cells is unfathomable. The religious conviction is that individuals who terminated their pregnancies because of the assumed small value they placed on human life only made these cells available. However, these cells before they form human life are cells that have not generated into existing diseases or degenerative conditions. (NIH, 2009) Stem Cell research can be looked at in many ways, but it personally should be viewed a progression to better lives ruined by diseases and catastrophe, not regression and immoral in the eyes of deities and those superior. In the U.S. states funding for stem cell research was prominent in early part of the 21st century by both members of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. However, because of religious convictions of George W. Bush, the bill was vetoed after passing both the Senate and the House in both 2001 and in 2007. (Babaington, 2006) In doing so it showed that even higher members of government, had not their own political agendas to uphold, but also those of their own personal religious beliefs. Yet...

Words: 1311 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Wrongful Conviction

...Wrongful Convictions Benny Maize Pro Seminar in Criminal Justice AIU Whilst the speed of DNA exemptions has developed in the United States lately, unjust convictions have unmasked troubling fractures and tendencies within our criminal justice system. Collectively, these instances display all people and how our criminal justice process is faulty. This system must be fixed immediately. We must focus on the system's failures. In each event wherever DNA has established virtue beyond uncertainty, there’s a covering variety of triggers has surfaced from mishaps to misconduct to facets of nationality and social standing. Individuals absolved by DNA screening are not the only people who have been wrongly sentenced in latest decades. For each situation that requires DNA, you will find thousands of cases in which it was never used. Just a portion of criminal cases require scientific evidence which can be exposed through DNA screening, and even though such proof exists, it's usually missing or damaged after following a conviction. Because they do not have the use of a conclusive check like DNA, several wrongly convicted individuals have a thin possibility of actually showing that they are innocent. There is also the problem of Eyewitness misidentification, which could be the more likely reason behind wrongful convictions nationally, vying a position in more than 70% of convictions invalidated utilizing a DNA test. Whilst eyewitness testimony may be persuasive...

Words: 844 - Pages: 4