Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.
Date: August 17, 2024 Sat
Time: 2:16 am
Time: 2:16 am
Results for judicial error
13 results foundAuthor: New York State Bar Association. Task Force on Wrongful Convictions Title: Final Report Summary: This report presents the results of the Task Forces' case studies in which 53 people were wrongfully convicted. It reveals that government practices, by police or prosecutors, were possible causes of the wrongful convictions in over 50 percent of the cases. The analysis and recommendations presented in the report reflect concern for the process principles in all cases - not just those that involve a wrongful conviction. Details: Albany: New York State Bar Association, 2009. 187p. Source: Internet Resource Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 115333 Keywords: False ImprisonmentJudicial ErrorWrongful Convictions (New York State) |
Author: Innocence Project Title: 250 Exonerated: Too Many Wrongfully Convicted Summary: This report details the background of 250 DNA exoneration cases and includes statistics on the common causes of the wrongful convictions. Details: New York: Innocence Project, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, 2010. 52p. Source: Internet Resource Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 118416 Keywords: DNA FingerprintingJudicial ErrorWrongful ConvictionsWrongful Imprisonment |
Author: Innocence Project Title: Making Up for Lost Time: What the Wrongfully Convicted Endure and How to Provide Fair Compensation Summary: This report shows that of the more than 240 people exonerated through DNA testing nationwide, 40% have not received any form of assistance after their release. Among those who have been compensated under state laws, the vast majority received very small amounts of money and no social services. While exonerees are stripped of their property, jobs, freedom and reputation, only 10 states include provisions for services within their compensation laws. The report underlines how each state should immediately provide the compassionate assistance necessary for exonerees to pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives. It details the specific obstacles that exonerees face, the lack of support they currently receive and how compensation statutes in many states have not done justice to the wrongfully convicted. It also presents solutions to these shortcomings and gives examples of how exonerees have used state compensation to find housing and meet other urgent needs, nurture talents, find success and get their bearings in the free world. Details: New York: Innocence Project, Benjamin N. Cardoza School of Law, Yeshiva University, 2010. 43p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 3, 2010 at: http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/Innocence_Project_Compensation_Report.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/Innocence_Project_Compensation_Report.pdf Shelf Number: 119738 Keywords: False ImprisonmentJudicial ErrorWrongful Convictions |
Author: Alesina, Alberto F. Title: A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing Summary: This paper proposes a test of racial bias in capital sentencing based upon patterns of judicial errors in lower courts. We model the behavior of the trial court as minimizing a weighted sum of the probability of sentencing an innocent and that of letting a guilty defendant free. We define racial bias as a situation where the relative weight on the two types of errors is a function of defendant and/or victim race. The key prediction of the model is that if the court is unbiased, ex post the error rate should be independent of the combination of defendant and victim race. We test this prediction using an original dataset that contains the race of the defendant and of the victim(s) for all capital appeals that became final between 1973 and 1995. We find robust evidence of bias against minority defendants who killed white victims: In Direct Appeal and Habeas Corpus the probability of error in these cases is 3 and 9 percentage points higher, respectively, than for minority defendants who killed minority victims. Details: Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011. 38p. Source: Internet Resource: NBER Working Paper Series; Working Paper 16981: Accessed May 3, 2011 at: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w16981 Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w16981 Shelf Number: 121584 Keywords: Capital PunishmentJudicial ErrorMinoritiesRacial BiasRacial DisparitiesSentencing |
Author: Canada. Federal/Provincial/Territorial Heads of Prosecutions Subcommittee on the Prevention of Wrongful Convictions Title: The Path to Justice: Preventing Wrongful Convictions Summary: In the fall of 2002, the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Heads of Prosecutions (HOP) Committee established a Working Group on the Prevention of Miscarriages of Justice in response to a number of wrongful convictions that had been identified and studied across the country. The mandate of the Working Group was to develop a list of best practices to assist prosecutors and police in better understanding the causes of wrongful convictions, and to recommend proactive policies, protocols and educational processes to guard against future miscarriages of justice. Two years later, the Working Group, composed of senior police and prosecutors from across the country, completed and presented the Report on the Prevention of Miscarriages of Justice (the “Report”). It was released to the public by Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers Responsible for Justice on January 25, 2005. The 165-page Report comprehensively explored common causes of wrongful conviction. In addition, the findings and recommendations made by commissions of inquiries into wrongful convictions throughout Canada and internationally were collected and examined. Most importantly, the Report provided clear, comprehensive and practical recommendations for improvements to the criminal justice system which were designed to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions. The Ministers lauded the strong collaboration that produced the Report, viewing it as “a clear signal that prosecutors and police take the issue of wrongful convictions seriously.” The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) issued a news release welcoming the Report and asking all police agencies to review their policies and procedures to ensure consistency with the Report’s recommendations. Then CACP President Edgar Macleod stated: It is important that all players in the justice system – police, prosecutors, the judiciary and defence bar – work together and thereby effectively reduce the risk of wrongful convictions. Following release of the Report, each prosecution service (federal and provincial) conducted an in-depth review of its policies to assure compliance with the recommendations. Several services are now adding separate chapters in their policy manuals on preventing wrongful convictions. Similarly, many police forces conducted in-depth reviews of the recommendations. As a result, a number of police departments have developed training modules that focus on the common causes of wrongful convictions and the best practices to prevent them in the conduct of criminal investigations. Nationally, the Report has been cited at all levels of Court, including the Supreme Court of Canada. The National Criminal Justice Section of the Canadian Bar Association appreciated the Report’s “many practical suggestions” and commended the Working Group on its recommendations. It has been studied at conferences in several countries, and is now part of the curriculum in several law school courses dedicated to the study of wrongful convictions. In short, the Report has had a significant influence and has been an important catalyst in shedding light on the causes and circumstances leading to wrongful convictions. While such cases are mercifully infrequent, the troubling number of Canadians convicted of crimes of which they are factually innocent has heightened the urgent need for implementation of the Report’s recommendations. The 2005 Report suggested that its recommendations be continually reviewed and updated in order to incorporate developments in the law and technology and recommendations made by subsequent commissions of inquiry. It was recommended that, at a minimum, a full review should take place five years after the Report’s publication. Even before the Report was released by Ministers, the HOP Committee did indeed establish a permanent committee on the prevention of wrongful convictions. The Subcommittee generally meets twice a year to share information and best practices, and the latest developments, educational activities, cases and emerging issues. It reports to the HOP Committee at each of its twice-yearly meetings. Thus, there now exists an established network of senior police and prosecution officials with expertise in these issues, which meets regularly to discuss best practices on the prevention and detection of wrongful convictions. One of the Subcommittee’s major projects has been the completion of this updated Report. As will be seen in this update, the prevention of miscarriages of justice remains an overarching goal in criminal justice. The format of this update mirrors the original report: it provides a summary of developments in the law and reports on efforts to implement the 2005 recommendations. Those recommendations are re-examined in light of events over the past six years and, where appropriate, modifications are suggested. It also highlights international developments since 2005 and summarizes the key findings of Canadian commissions of inquiry held since the 2005 Report. Details: Ottawa: The Committee, 2011. 233p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 20, 2011 at: http://www.ppsc-sppc.gc.ca/eng/pub/ptj-spj/ptj-spj-eng.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Canada URL: http://www.ppsc-sppc.gc.ca/eng/pub/ptj-spj/ptj-spj-eng.pdf Shelf Number: 122789 Keywords: Judicial ErrorMiscarriages of JusticeWrongful Convictions (Canada) |
Author: Cribb, Chermaine Title: An Insight into the Wrongly Convicted: Going beyond the Perceptions and Beliefs of the Causes Summary: This study examined the number of wrongful convictions that were exonerated from January 1, 2004 to September 1, 2012. Four hundred forty seven exoneration cases were examined to obtain the factors that contributed to wrongful convictions, the most common offenses related to wrongful convictions, the evidence that led to a new trial, and the outcome of the exoneration based on dismissal of charges, acquittal, or pardons. Interviews were conducted to obtain exoneration case representation criteria, challenges faced in handling exonerations, and the factors found that contributed to wrongful conviction cases worked on. This study revealed that the most common offenses related to wrongful convictions were murder, sexual assault, child sex abuse, and robbery. The factors that contributed to wrongful convictions were mistaken witness identification, false confession, perjury or false accusation, false or misleading forensic evidence, official misconduct, and inadequate legal defense. The most common outcome for wrongful convictions that were exonerated from January 1, 2004 to September 1, 2012 was that the charges were dismissed and the exoneree was acquitted. Benefits of identifying the factors that have contributed to wrongful convictions can be useful in developing policies and legislation. Details: Kennesaw, GA: Kennesaw State University, 2012. 98p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects. Paper 532: Accessed January 30, 2013 at: http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1532&context=etd Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1532&context=etd Shelf Number: 127454 Keywords: False ImprisonmentJudicial ErrorMiscarriage of JusticeWrongful Convictions |
Author: Batts, Anthony W. Title: Policing and Wrongful Convictions Summary: Few events subject the criminal justice system to as intense scrutiny from policymakers, elected officials, the media and the general public as the exoneration of a wrongfully convicted defendant. The multimillion-dollar settlement recently announced by New York City in the notorious case of the Central Park Five has once again brought the injustice of wrongful convictions and the corollary injustice of failing to convict the real assailant to the forefront of the national consciousness. (In that case, five black and Latino teenagers were convicted on the basis of false confessions of the brutal - and widely publicized - rape of a young woman jogging in Central Park. All were tried as adults and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, then exonerated years later when the real perpetrator confessed to the crime - a confession corroborated by DNA evidence.) As this and other high-profile wrongful convictions continue to spark controversy, a dispassionate, thoughtful examination of the systemic causes of wrongful convictions and their potential solutions can benefit all components of the criminal justice system and the community at large. Details: Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kennedy School, Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, 2014. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: New Perspectives in Policing: Accessed September 29, 2014 at: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/var/ezp_site/storage/fckeditor/file/pdfs/centers-programs/programs/criminal-justice/ExecSessionPolicing/PolicingWrongfulConvictions.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/var/ezp_site/storage/fckeditor/file/pdfs/centers-programs/programs/criminal-justice/ExecSessionPolicing/PolicingWrongfulConvictions.pdf Shelf Number: 133475 Keywords: ExonerationInnocenceJudicial ErrorWrongful Convictions (U.S.)Wrongful Imprisonment |
Author: Gross, Samuel R. Title: Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States Summary: African Americans are only 13% of the American population but a majority of innocent defendants wrongfully convicted of crimes and later exonerated. They constitute 47% of the 1,900 exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations (as of October 2016), and the great majority of more than 1,800 additional innocent defendants who were framed and convicted of crimes in 15 large-scale police scandals and later cleared in "group exonerations." We see this racial disparity for all major crime categories, but we examine it in this report in the context of the three types of crime that produce the largest numbers of exonerations in the Registry: murder, sexual assault, and drug crimes. I. Murder • Judging from exonerations, innocent black people are about seven times more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people. A major cause of the high number of black murder exonerations is the high homicide rate in the black community—a tragedy that kills many African Americans and sends many others to prison. Innocent defendants who are falsely convicted and exonerated do not contribute to this high homicide rate. They— like the families of victims who are killed—are deeply harmed by murders committed by others. • African-American prisoners who are convicted of murder are about 50% more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers. Part of that disparity is tied to the race of the victim. African Americans imprisoned for murder are more likely to be innocent if they were convicted of killing white victims. Only about 15% of murders by African Americans have white victims, but 31% of innocent African-American murder exonerees were convicted of killing white people. • The convictions that led to murder exonerations with black defendants were 22% more likely to include misconduct by police officers than those with white defendants. In addition, on average black murder exonerees spent three years longer in prison before release than white murder exonerees, and those sentenced to death spent four years longer. • Many of the convictions of African-American murder exonerees were affected by a wide range of types of racial discrimination, from unconscious bias and institutional discrimination to explicit racism. • Most wrongful convictions are never discovered. We have no direct measure of the number of all convictions of innocent murder defendants, but our best estimate suggests that they outnumber those we know about many times over. Judging from exonerations, half of those innocent murder defendants are African Americans. II. Sexual Assault • Judging from exonerations, a black prisoner serving time for sexual assault is threeand-a-half times more likely to be innocent than a white sexual assault convict. The major cause for this huge racial disparity appears to be the high danger of mistaken eyewitness identification by white victims in violent crimes with black assailants. • Assaults on white women by African-American men are a small minority of all sexual assaults in the United States, but they constitute half of sexual assaults with eyewitness misidentifications that led to exoneration. (The unreliability of cross-racial eyewitness identification also appears to have contributed to racial disparities in false convictions for other crimes, but to a lesser extent.) • Eyewitness misidentifications do not completely explain the racial disparity in sexual assault exonerations. Some misidentifications themselves are in part the products of racial bias, and other convictions that led to sexual assault exonerations were marred by implicit biases, racially tainted official misconduct and, in some cases, explicit racism. • African-American sexual assault exonerees received much longer prison sentences than white sexual assault exonerees, and they spent on average almost four-and-a-half years longer in prison before exoneration. It appears that innocent black sexual assault defendants receive harsher sentences than whites if they are convicted, and then face greater resistance to exoneration even in cases in which they are ultimately released. III. Drug Crimes • The best national evidence on drug use shows that African Americans and whites use illegal drugs at about the same rate. Nonetheless, African Americans are about five times as likely to go to prison for drug possession as whites—and judging from exonerations, innocent black people are about 12 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than innocent white people. • In general, very few ordinary, low-level drug convictions result in exoneration, regardless of innocence, because the stakes are too low. In Harris County, Texas, however, there have been 133 exonerations in ordinary drug possession cases in the last few years. These are cases in which defendants pled guilty, and were exonerated after routine lab tests showed they were not carrying illegal drugs. Sixty-two percent of the Harris County drugcrime guilty plea exonerees were African American in a county with 20% black residents. • The main reason for this racial disproportion in convictions of innocent drug defendants is that police enforce drug laws more vigorously against African Americans than against members of the white majority, despite strong evidence that both groups use drugs at equivalent rates. African Americans are more frequently stopped, searched, arrested, and convicted—including in cases in which they are innocent. The extreme form of this practice is systematic racial profiling in drug-law enforcement. • Since 1989, more than 1,800 defendants have been cleared in “group exonerations” that followed 15 large-scale police scandals in which officers systematically framed innocent defendants. The great majority were African-American defendants who were framed for drug crimes that never occurred. There are almost certainly many more such cases that remain hidden. • Why do police officers who conduct these outrageous programs of framing innocent drug defendants concentrate on African Americans? The simple answer: Because that's what they do in all aspects of drug-law enforcement. Guilty or innocent, they always focus disproportionately on African Americans. Of the many costs that the War on Drugs inflicts on the black community, the practice of deliberately charging innocent defendants with fabricated crimes may be the most shameful. Details: Irvine, CA: National Registry of Exonerations, Newkirk Center for Science and Society, University of California Irvine, 2017. 37p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 7, 2017 at: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf Shelf Number: 146414 Keywords: ExonerationsFalse ImprisonmentJudicial ErrorMiscarriage of JusticeRacial DisparitiesWrongful Conviction |
Author: Mungan, Murat C. Title: Optimal Preventive Law Enforcement and Intervention Standards with Endogenous Non-Preventive Law Enforcement Probabilities Summary: I propose a simple model of law enforcement where offenders can be prevented from completing their offenses ex-ante or may be caught and punished subsequent to completing their offenses. The former method of law enforcement increases social welfare by preventing the infliction of criminal harm, but produces inconvenience costs to the general public, because it requires interfering with the acts of innocents as well as attempters. The magnitude of these inconvenience costs, and therefore the optimal frequency with which preventive enforcement ought to be used, depend on the responsiveness of potential criminals to punishment; the proportion of potential criminals in the population; the intervention techniques employed; and the harm from crime. I also show that weak intervention standards can be used in conjunction with more frequent monitoring to increase the frequency of prevention, and that these two methods are complements. These observations provide rationales for why preventive enforcement sometimes takes place through random (or suspicionless) interventions, and in other cases through stops based on reasonable suspicion. Details: Tallahassee: Florida State University, 2016. 34p. Source: Internet Resource: FSU College of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 701: Accessed May 10, 2017 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2481367 Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2481367 Shelf Number: 145398 Keywords: DeterrenceJudicial ErrorWrongful Convictions |
Author: Cousino, Meghan Title: Exonerations in the United States Before 1989 Summary: The National Registry of Exonerations searches for, investigates, and reports every exoneration in the United States that we can find that occurred after the beginning of 1989. This year we have added stories and data about 369 earlier exonerations, from 1820 through 1988. We will continue to add such cases, but will not attempt to locate every possible exoneration from before 1989. Our pre-1989 database is different from the Registry itself in two important respects: (i) The list of cases is less complete and less representative of all exonerations in its time period than our list of 2,180 exonerations since 1989, and (ii) We have less information on exonerations before 1989. Both differences reflect the difficulty of studying cases that are more than 30 years old. Almost all the pre-1989 exonerations occurred in the twentieth century, most of them since 1950. Some of them are historically important cases that had substantial impacts on criminal justice policy, including the "Scottsboro Boys" exonerations (starting in 1937), and the exonerations of Clarence Gideon in 1963 and George Whitmore, Jr. in 1973. In many respects, the pre-1989 exonerations are similar to those that happened later. There are, however, several differences, including: - The pre-1989 exonerees we list were cleared more quickly than those who were exonerated later, 5.9 years after conviction on average, compared to 10.5 years. - More exonerations before 1989 were homicide cases-60% compared to 40% for those since 1989-mostly because of a large difference for homicides that resulted in death sentences, 21% to 6%. - Many fewer of the pre-1989 exonerations were for sexual assaults (8% vs. 26%), probably because DNA technology was not available to identify the true criminals, and more of the pre-1989 exonerations were for robberies (18% to 5%). - We know of no drug crime exonerations before 1989 and very few exonerations for child sex abuse, possibly because there were far fewer prosecutions for those crimes; on the other hand, there were more exonerations for forgery and counterfeiting. - Fewer exonerations before 1989 were for convictions known to be tainted by official misconduct, 34% compared to 52% for exonerations since 1989. Details: Irvine, CA: National Registry of Exonerations, University of California, Irvine, 2018. 21p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 16, 2018 at: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/ExonerationsBefore1989.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/ExonerationsBefore1989.pdf Shelf Number: 149493 Keywords: ExonerationsFalse ImprisonmentJudicial ErrorMiscarriage of JusticeWrongful Convictions |
Author: National Registry of Exonerations Title: Exonerations in 2017 Summary: The National Registry of Exonerations has recorded 139 exonerations in 2017. In total, the National Registry of Exonerations has recorded 2,161 exonerations in the United States from 1989 through the end of 2017. - Ninety-eight of the exonerations in 2017 involved Violent Felonies, including 51 homicides, 16 child sex abuse convictions, and 13 sexual assaults of adults. Four of the homicide exonerees had been sentenced to death; - Sixteen exonerations in 2017 involved Drug Crimes; - Seventeen 2017 exonerations were based in whole or in part on DNA evidence; - Sixty-six exonerations were cases in which No Crime was actually committed; - Eighty-four cases included Misconduct by Government Officials; - Thirty-six exonerations were for convictions based on Guilty Pleas; - Thirty-seven cases involved Mistaken Eyewitness Identification; - Twenty-nine cases involved a False Confession; - Eighty-seven cases included Perjury or a False Accusation; and - Eighty exonerations in 2017 were the result of work by prosecutorial Conviction Integrity Units or Innocence Organizations, or both. In addition, in 2017, there were at least 96 individuals whose convictions were vacated and charges dismissed as part of group exonerations in Chicago, and 80 or more in Baltimore. Details: Irvine, CA: National Registry of Exonerations, University of California, Irvine, 2018. 22p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 16, 2018 at: http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/ExonerationsIn2017.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/ExonerationsIn2017.pdf Shelf Number: 149494 Keywords: ExonerationsFalse ImprisonmentJudicial ErrorMiscarriage of JusticeWrongful Convictions |
Author: Center for Death Penalty Litigation Title: On Trial for Their Lives: The Hidden Costs of Wrongful Capital Prosecutions in North Carolina Summary: Prosecutors and lawmakers insist that the death penalty is necessary to punish "the worst of the worst," in cases where evidence of the defendant's guilt is overwhelming and the circumstances of the crime are more heinous than most. Yet, the reality is that the death penalty in North Carolina is used indiscriminately and with little regard for the strength of the evidence. While police and prosecutors may not intend to convict the innocent, they often face enormous pressure to solve and prosecute crimes. In that environment, they rely on the threat of the death penalty to solicit information and confessions from suspects, or to pressure suspects to accept plea bargains. The frequency with which state officials use the death penalty in this manner makes it inevitable that innocent people get caught up in the capital punishment system. For the first time in North Carolina, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation (CDPL) has conducted a study of cases in which people were accused of capital murder but never convicted, which we refer to in this report as wrongful capital prosecutions. We wanted to explore why people were prosecuted capitally when the state did not have enough evidence to convict, as well as determine the harm caused by such cases. This group of people has been largely ignored, even as North Carolina has seen several high-profile exonerations of death row inmates. There is no registry that tracks the cases of those wrongly charged with capital murder, and no group that advocates for them. We know of no other study in the United States that has asked these questions or tracked this group. We pored over case files, court records and news reports, contacted attorneys, and interviewed the accused to find cases during the period from 1989 to 2015 in which a person was charged with capital murder and was eventually acquitted or had all charges related to the crimes dismissed. We identified 56 cases in which the state abused its power in seeking a death sentence, because prosecutors did not have enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty. This means that over the past 26 years, an average of two people each year have been targeted for the death penalty even though there was very little evidence of guilt, let alone evidence that they were worthy of the state's harshest punishment. The database of cases presented in this report is reliable but not comprehensive, because there is no centralized tracking of such cases. Doubtless, there are cases we did not find. Our research uncovered the same types of errors and misconduct in these cases that have been uncovered in cases where innocents were convicted and sent to death row. We found cases in which state actors hid exculpatory evidence, relied on junk science, and pressured witnesses to implicate suspects. In several cases, there was no physical evidence and charges were based solely on the testimony of highly unreliable witnesses, such as jail inmates, co-defendants who were given lighter sentences in return for cooperation, and paid informants. Reliance on such witnesses was a factor in more than 60 percent of the cases we studied. The state incarcerated these people, who were never convicted of any crime, for an average of two years each. All told, the 56 defendants spent a total of more than 112 years in jail. Gregory Chapman in Duplin County served the longest jail term: nearly seven years. Those who are indicted on capital charges and later cleared are not eligible for compensation, even though many of them spend years in jail, lose their jobs, and are bankrupted by legal expenses. In addition to leaving many in financial ruin, the state does not even do these exonorees the favor of clearing their criminal histories. They must request a court order to expunge their criminal records, an expensive and lengthy process. Those who were already living at the margins of society often struggled to find jobs, and some fell into homelessness after they were released from jail. Details: Durham, NC: he Center for Death Penalty Litigation, 2015. 56p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 16, 2018 at: http://www.cdpl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/INTERACTIVE-CDPL-REPORT.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://www.cdpl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/INTERACTIVE-CDPL-REPORT.pdf Shelf Number: 150893 Keywords: Capital PunishmentDeath PenaltyExonerationsFalse ImprisonmentJudicial ErrorMiscarriage of JusticeWrongful Convictions |
Author: Bazelon, Lara Title: Ending Innocence Denying Summary: Prosecutors, the most powerful actors in the criminal justice system, also have the most difficult job: they must be "ministers of justice." A prosecutor's core mission is to vindicate the truth, rather than strive to "win" by accumulating a track record of convictions. When evidence comes to light suggesting that a wrongful conviction has occurred, a prosecutor's ethical obligation requires admitting to a terrible mistake and working to undo it. Many conscientious prosecutors accept this responsibility and confess to their errors. But too many do not. They insist, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that wrongfully convicted people are in fact guilty. These prosecutors actively work to delay justice. Some are so committed to adhering to the original mistake that they fail to prosecute the actual perpetrators. Much has been written about how to change the culture that leads to prosecutors' reflexive doubling-down on wrongful convictions: public shaming in judicial opinions, more rigorous ethical training in law school and on the job, and sharper oversight by state bars. These measures are necessary, but they are insufficient. To curtail innocence-denying, the narrative must change about what it means to be a "good prosecutor," historically defined as a tough-on- crime fighter whose overriding goal is to obtain and preserve convictions. This mindset pits a prosecutor's self-interest in getting and preserving guilty verdicts against his or her ethical obligations, which require confessing error and reversing course where credible evidence of innocence exists. The explosion of interest in wrongful conviction cases, narrated as true crime stories in podcasts, documentaries, and other media, has begun to erode the power of traditional narrative. The public is now better informed about the ethical obligations of prosecutors and the consequences of violating these obligations. This, in turn, has led to important, to the election of reform-minded candidates who defeated innocence-denying incumbents by running on progressive platforms, including a commitment to revisiting wrongful conviction cases. In this article, I argue that these "good prosecutor" stories can be woven into a coherent and compelling meta-narrative that can help put an end to innocence denying. When the new exoneration narrative becomes predominant, prosecutors who embrace their ethical obligations and correct miscarriages of justice will have everything to gain because the voters will see them as courageous and just. Innocence deniers by contrast, will be rendered unelectable. Details: San Francisco: University of San Francisco School of Law, 2018. 95p. Source: Internet Resource: University of San Francisco Law Research Paper No. 2018-11: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3235834 Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3235834 Shelf Number: 151692 Keywords: False Imprisonment Judicial ErrorMiscarriages of Justice Prosecutors Wrongful Conviction |