...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...
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...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...
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...Wrongful conviction, often referred to as miscarriages of justice, can be defined as those who have been arrested on criminal charges, who have either pleaded guilty to the charges or have been found guilty, and, notwithstanding, their guilty plea or verdict, are actually innocent (Huff & Killias, 2010).While it may say like these situations are very rare, in fact there are many cases where innocent people are incarcerated, or even executed, because of errors in the criminal justice system. For example, as Dr. Michael Naughton, founder of the Innocence Project, which a non-profit advocacy group that works to free the wrongly convicted, said, “People think that miscarriages of justice are rare and exceptional . . . But every single day, people...
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...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...
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...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...
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...Dear Sara, After speaking with you a few weeks ago and talking about your career in criminal justice, and discussing wrongful conviction cases. How many cases are there of wrongful conviction and can any lessons be learn from each case? I am sure there are many different responses that you could give me to those questions because I am sure there are new cases every day that are added. I had been reading different articles lately about wrongful convictions and how (Radelet)”old evidence is being used to exonerate inmates, and clear their name”. I find it very difficult to hear about victims that have been in prison for many years and had absolutely nothing to do with the case they are being charged with. In the articles I have been reading...
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...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...
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...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....
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...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...
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...My unit 6 draft essay derive from the article “Addressing the Impact of Wrongful Convictions on Crime Victims”, written by Seri Irazola, Emily Niedzwiecki, Erin Williamson and Julie Stricker. This article could be found in the NIJ Journal No. 274 posted in October 2014. Retrieved from http://www.nij.gov/journals/274/pages/victim-impact-wrongful-convictions.aspx. There are many reasons why cases get exonerated leaving the victims of the crimes emotionally depressed or feeling let down by the justice system. How can we protect the victims from public or family harassment? How can we help the victims cope with the exoneration of cases? Keeping the victim name or case confidential and away from the media may help with the backlash that victims...
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...Wrongful Convictions A man who was caught in a crime scene at the wrong time, is now serving 25 years to life, for a crime he did not commit, this is an example of a wrongful conviction. Wrongful convictions occur when innocent defendants are found guilty in criminal trials, or when defendants feel forced to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit in order to avoid the death penalty or very long prison sentences. In some instances, the law runs into convictions before getting complete facts, which is very unfair in the criminal justice system. Also, in the United States about 10,000 people may be wrongfully convicted of serious crimes each year according to Ohio states. This shows that it’s a major issue that needs to be solved; therefore,...
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...Wrongful Convictions Author: Balko, Radley After carefully reading the article “Wrongful Convictions” by Radley Balko (Reason. Jul2011, Vol. 43 Issue 3, p20-33 14p.) I have learned how our technology has advanced greatly in the last 2 decades as far as DNA testing and Forensic Science is concerned. Though still suggests all possible mistakes and errors made in a wrongful conviction case. This article has also shed light on the ignorance and indolence of our government and all other parties involved in these wrongly convicted cases such as our law enforcement, members of the bar, judges, forensic analysts, and many more. As well as pointing out the trials and tribulations of the wrongly convicted from the first initial interrogation to the conviction and then on to what may or may not lead to their cases being overturned and those accused of being “guilty” proven innocent and being set free. Their main example used in this article pertaining to the wrongfully convicted cases in the United States was a man named Paul House. The first exoneration took place in 1989 thanks to the advancement of DNA testing. Since then 268 convicts have been exonerated and set free. On average most of those had already served 13 years in prison as well as waiting on death row. It has been found that 17 convicts that have already been sentenced to death were wrongfully convicted. Now since the onset of DNA testing in the year 2000 it has added great pressure for those awaiting the death penalty...
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...The public relies on the justice system to provide safety and to ensure that criminals are put in their place so justice can be served. However, there have been many cases where the justice system has failed to put the correct person in jail. Wrongful convictions occur when an innocent person is arrested and charged with a criminal act. “Two thirds of all wrongful convictions are related either to rape or assault” (Ramsey, 2007). The case of Guy Paul Morin is an ideal example of wrongful convictions. This paper will first address the case of Guy Paul Morin, showing where the justice system went wrong. Later, lead on to the ways this problem can be solved and remedies that should be available to people who have become a victim of wrongful convictions. The case of Guy Paul Morin occurred between the 1980’s and the 1990’s. “Morin was accused with the rape and murder of his eight year old neighbour, Christine Jessop, and was convicted in 1992 in Ontario ” (Kaufman, 2001). “He was charged due to the evidence of hair and fibre found on the body of the victim” (Denov & Campbell, 2005). This indicated that there was direct contact between the victim, Jessop, and Morin. This is where the whole situation takes a turn. The forensic scientists that were put to investigate made some mistakes that had a huge impact on the case. “They failed to report that the fibre and hair found on Jessop was contaminated” (Macfarlane, 2006). This now creates the possibility that there was no physical...
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...Lessons of Wrongful Convictions Stephanie Worthington CM107: Professor Kosse The Lessons of Wrongful Convictions When we think of someone going to prison for a crime, we do not think about whether or not they are actually guilty. That is the job of the court to decide that. When evidence is presented to the jury, we like to think that they research all pieces of evidence thoroughly before rendering a judgment. That is not always the case unfortunately. There are more times than most people are aware of, of people being wrongfully convicted. The issue of this, is that DNA evidence is not always present in these cases. With the implantation of DNA in these criminal cases, there would be more innocent people walking the streets instead of behind bars. There are many reasons that a person is wrongfully convicted. Some reasons are due to eyewitness identification errors, inadequate evidence or lack thereof. There are so many more factors that play into this issue. The number one reason that someone is wrongfully convicted, is due to Eyewitness misidentification. In fact, that was that factor played in 72 percent of the post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States. At least forty percent of the eyewitness misidentifications involve cross racial identification. Studies show that people are less likely to be able to recognize the faces of a different race, rather than that of their own. (search.proquest.lib.kaplan.edu/docview) ( innocenceproject.com) The first DNA...
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...A Case of Wrongful Conviction - Mark Scheme A01 (max 5 marks) Anxiety and misleading information both stated as possible factors in affecting EWT in this case. Inconsistency in EWT identified – brown hair or blond hair in first interviews. Interviewing in a group stated as less good than interviewing individually. EW’s may mislead each other by being interviewed in a group. Third interview conducted three weeks after first interview / final line-up was several months after the crime SO recall less likely to be accurate after this time lag compared to immediately after the event. Mixed EW certainty over ID from the photo - two bystanders were sure of the perpetrator’s ID from the photo, but the main victim (cashier) and other bystander were not. Cognitive interviews (CI) would be better than standard interviews for better recall detail and accuracy. Link to research showing CI are better. A02 (max 5 marks) Fewer inconsistencies in second interview may have been due to first interview being a group interview – EW s may have been misled or guided by others’ statements. Appropriately made research link e.g. Loftus (1975) / Loftus (1978) or Loftus and Palmer (1974), with brief outline of the research study. Research e.g. Christianson and Hubinette (1993) or Yuille and Cutshall (1986) shows main victim of / those closest to centre of violent crimes usually most accurate with recall of events. Since the cashier was initially unsure of James Taylor (from photo) being...
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