Wrongful Conviction
Wrongful convictions can result in innocent people spending decades in prison for crimes they did not commit. Thanks to advances in DNA forensics many prisoners have a second chance to prove their innocence. As of today 280 prisoners and counting have been exonerated because of DNA evidence, and 138 of these prisoners were on death row. We can only infer from these numbers that the justice system has wrongly accused and killed tens if not hundreds of innocent people throughout the years, so how does this happen and how do we stop it?
Wrongful convictions are usually the result of a number of errors. These can include:
-Mistaken eyewitness identification: 190 out of 280 exonerees were misidentified, that’s 67 percent. 78 percent of these cases were contaminated by police misconduct including biased lineups and suggestive remarks.
-Coerced confessions: 16% of exonerees falsely confessed guilty, that is almost 1 out of 5 people. False confessions can be the result of endless hours of questioning and feeding of false information from the police. By law police are allowed to use false phrases such as “we found your wallet at the crime scene” or “your neighbor confessed you did it” to try and tease the truth out of offenders. However these tactics can insight extreme feelings of hopelessness in the innocent and convince them that no matter what they say they will be sentenced to prison because false evidence points directly to them. In these situations the innocent are pressured to lie and confess guilty in hopes of receiving a shorter sentence for a crime they never committed.
-Unreliable forensics work: For roughly 50% of exonerees, invalid or improper forensic science contributed to their wrongful conviction. In 2006 the National Academy of Science (NAS) received funding from congress to investigate the accuracy of widely used forensic science methods. The bottom line, “With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis… no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainly, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source.” (NAS Report, page 7) This means there are currently hundreds of potentially innocent people in our prisons due to the use of faulty forensic evidence including bite-mark comparisons, blood type comparisons, and bullet comparisons.
So what can you do to help? Fight for exoneree compensation. For exonerees, errors in our justice system deprived them of years of their lives for doing nothing wrong. It is hard to imagine something so terrible happening, but what if this was your relative or friend? Exonerees also suffer from the lost education and years of job experience. It is exceedingly difficult for exonerees to find jobs and even housing because they lack money, credit, education and job experience. Providing compensation for the time they lost in prison is a small act of reparation but it is our moral obligation.
Find out if your state offers exoneree compensation and if so how much. (State policy) Write to your congressman demanding exoneree compensation be available in your state. (Find your state congressman here) Tell your friends and family about what you have learned and ask them to send out letters or emails too. Even if you and your friends do not take an active role in fighting for exoneree compensation being aware of the issue and popularizing it is essential for inciting change.
Media Interest:
-Picking Cotton: Our memoir of Injustice and Redemption, By Ronald Cotton, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Erin Torneo
Wrongful convictions are usually the result of a number of errors. These can include:
-Mistaken eyewitness identification: 190 out of 280 exonerees were misidentified, that’s 67 percent. 78 percent of these cases were contaminated by police misconduct including biased lineups and suggestive remarks.
-Coerced confessions: 16% of exonerees falsely confessed guilty, that is almost 1 out of 5 people. False confessions can be the result of endless hours of questioning and feeding of false information from the police. By law police are allowed to use false phrases such as “we found your wallet at the crime scene” or “your neighbor confessed you did it” to try and tease the truth out of offenders. However these tactics can insight extreme feelings of hopelessness in the innocent and convince them that no matter what they say they will be sentenced to prison because false evidence points directly to them. In these situations the innocent are pressured to lie and confess guilty in hopes of receiving a shorter sentence for a crime they never committed.
-Unreliable forensics work: For roughly 50% of exonerees, invalid or improper forensic science contributed to their wrongful conviction. In 2006 the National Academy of Science (NAS) received funding from congress to investigate the accuracy of widely used forensic science methods. The bottom line, “With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis… no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainly, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source.” (NAS Report, page 7) This means there are currently hundreds of potentially innocent people in our prisons due to the use of faulty forensic evidence including bite-mark comparisons, blood type comparisons, and bullet comparisons.
So what can you do to help? Fight for exoneree compensation. For exonerees, errors in our justice system deprived them of years of their lives for doing nothing wrong. It is hard to imagine something so terrible happening, but what if this was your relative or friend? Exonerees also suffer from the lost education and years of job experience. It is exceedingly difficult for exonerees to find jobs and even housing because they lack money, credit, education and job experience. Providing compensation for the time they lost in prison is a small act of reparation but it is our moral obligation.
Find out if your state offers exoneree compensation and if so how much. (State policy) Write to your congressman demanding exoneree compensation be available in your state. (Find your state congressman here) Tell your friends and family about what you have learned and ask them to send out letters or emails too. Even if you and your friends do not take an active role in fighting for exoneree compensation being aware of the issue and popularizing it is essential for inciting change.
Media Interest:
-Picking Cotton: Our memoir of Injustice and Redemption, By Ronald Cotton, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Erin Torneo
-The innocence project: "A national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent further injustice
-Center on Wrongful Conviction, Northwestern Law. Clip quote "Somebody has to notice that the legal system is not working, that wrongfully convicted people are not being released...some are being executed and its is so important the message of this gets out...because until it touches you...its "oh ya there they are again those liberal people"...but remember we were the conservative republicans who said this can happen to anybody..."