Criminal Justice
1- Advances in DNA technology have raised public awareness of the problem of wrongful convictions. Although many wrongful convictions have come to light in recent years, including the exonerations of many inmates on death row facing execution, the actual scope of the problem remains unknown and largely unknowable. Estimates vary widely depending on who you ask and what their agendas are. The Innocence Project in New York City spawned a nationwide effort to investigate cases of potential wrongful convictions. The Arizona Justice Project
https://www.azjusticeproject.org/project
(Links to an external site.), housed at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Conner School of Law is one such “project.”
While we still do not know the scope of the problem, we are gaining insight, and hard data, on the major causes. For example, we know that eyewitness misidentifications are the leading cause, and false confessions and bad forensic science are significant contributing factors.
* Review the following:
1- Eyewitness misidentification
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQdHOsGoTOg)
2- Eyewitness Testimony Part 1 (Links to an external site.)
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-SBTRLoPuo )
3- https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/getting-criminal-justice-right.
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4- False Confessions
Frontline: The Confessions
( https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-confessions/ )
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5- Junk Science
One for Ten Pilot Film – Ray Krone – Expert Witness Testimony
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXwYi_338jk )
( https://www.azjusticeproject.org/manifest-injustice-profiles/ray-krone )
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*****For this paper, discuss the phenomenon of wrongful convictions.
Grading rubric
1- Writing Quality: Primarily concerns fundamentals like grammar, syntax, usage, vocabulary, and spelling, but also considers clarity of expression and logical structure. 15 points.
2- Demonstrated Understanding: Does the paper demonstrate a solid understanding of the topic under consideration? Are any positions addressed or endorsed well supported? 10 points.
3- Organization: Is the paper structured in a coherent, comprehensible, and logical manner? 10 points.
4- Sources: Are useful, credible sources used? Are all sources used clearly cited? 5 points.
ANSWER
Wrongful Convictions
Introduction
The capability of the criminal justice system depends on its accurateness and the capacity to clear the innocent and convict the guilty. However, for the past three decades, wrongful convictions have been on the rise. Wrongful convictions have been considered the miscarriage of justice that stems from the court’s decision but inconsistent with the substantive rights of the individual (Garrett, 2020). This leads to an innocent person being wrongfully convicted through a legal system decision. This paper will focus on the phenomenon of wrongful conviction and the factors that lead to individuals being wrongfully convicted. Fake confessions, simple misconducts, misidentification of the victims and junk science are some of the variables that lead to wrongful convictions. The criminal justice system should be a system that provides justice to the criminals, who are the actual people that commit the crimes.
Wrongful Convictions
A conviction may be considered wrongful due to the person being convicted being factually innocent for the charges and procedural errors that dishonored the convicted individual’s rights. Over the years, it has been difficult to examine the wrongful conviction trend and explore the growth recession of the issue. This remains an unavoidable fact that wrongful convictions can be explicitly known to have occurred if the offender has been consequently acquitted by the same justice system responsible for the initial error. Research indicates that wrongful convictions were inconsistent until the book Convicting the innocent documented 65 wrongful conviction cases and shown the legal causes of miscarriages (Garrett, 2020). Various case studies have offered findings that have affirmed that wrongful verdicts are a systematic issue within the American criminal justice system.
Every action or consequence that is negative affects every good action when it comes to its outcome. This has been experienced in the justice system since wrongful convictions have impacted the justice system in various ways. Considerably, the main role of the justice system is to ensure that the offenders of the law are punished. However, when an individual is punished and wrongfully convicted, they harm the wrong person and allows the actual defender to roam free (Bishop and Osler, 2015). Wrongful convictions arise when the defence attorneys are incompetent ad have no significant proof.
Every individual in the United States is accorded their constitutional rights and that the due process of law has to prove that a defendant is guilty of a particular crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The justice system was constructed to protect the innocent and convict criminals. However, under such an impartial system, the judicial process has been plagued by improper and unfound forensic science, eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, governmental misconduct and substandard lawyering, which leads to myriad wrongful criminal convictions (Bishop and Osler, 2015).
Eye Witness Misidentification
Eye witness misidentification has been the major cause of wrongful convictions. A high percentage of DINA exonerations have been linked to eyewitness misidentification make this the case of most wrongful convictions. The innocence project has exposed the improperly conducted search and police lineups that have led to eyewitness misidentification (Duncan, 2019). For instance, the police rely on investigative techniques that present suspects that are misleading. When a police officer knows which individual the perpetrator is in a lineup, he may offer subtle clues as to which witness to choose.
Cross-race biases have also been evident in witness identification, where individuals tend to choose individuals from races linked with crime. Certain details of appearances such as faces, hair, color, height, weight are overlooked since the human mind can’t take in and recall every event. For instance, eyewitnesses are presented with photographs and live lineups that include suspect and non-suspect. The witness has to identify one perpetrator who committed the crime by making relative judgements.
False Confessions
False confessions are perceived or real intimidation of suspect by the law enforcers. False confessions have been the major contributors to wrongful convictions. Countless numbers of innocent individuals have been convicted wrongfully, imprisoned and convicted after they confess a crime they never committed. False confessions can occur under various circumstances when the interrogation processes are mentally and physically exhausting, torturous and seemingly unending when they confuse the defendant (Bishop and Osler, 2015). For instance, external pressure from the police leads to false confessions. An innocent defendant can accept to have committed a crime due to disability, mental impairment, intoxication and drug use, long prison sentence and fear of violence. The innocent project has indicated that 25 per cent of wrongful convictions have involved a false confession.
Official Misconduct
The most egregious cases have involved official misconduct. Official misconduct has damages the seeking truth. Hiding evidence favorable to the defendants has been one of the major misconducts (Irazola, Williamson, Stricker and Niedzwiecki, 2013). Actions such as planting drugs on an innocent individual, racial injustice, destroying evidence, and law officers’ improper influence of witnesses. Police have relied on informants who greatly lead to wrongful verdicts. The police informers are considered criminals who are keen to carry on anything to stay out of prison. This leads to police failing to depend on individuals with accurate data but afraid of coming forward. The government has also been involved in misconducts such as offering incendiary, witness coaching, and inappropriate closing and failing to disclose the accurate evidence.
False Forensic Evidence
Forensic evidence is used by criminal investigations and assumed to have some links to the criminal act and the ability to support the restructuring of related occurrences. DNA analysis has enabled exoneration and identifies the guilty globally. However, the utilization of rapid DNA analysis in a forensic lab may fail to rectify since the sample is destroyed. Misapplied science might face challenges in proving innocence due to high evidentiary standards and time limitations (LaPorte, 2018). Some state courts have failed to discredit scientific evidence as wrongful conviction.
Extensive forensic science research such as bite mark comparison, hair microscopy, firearm tool mark, and shoe print comparisons. Forensic techniques such as blood typing have been improperly conducted, thus resulting in wrongful convictions. 24% of forensic evidence has contributed to all wrongful convictions (Hamer and Edmond, 2019). This includes even mistakes that practitioners conduct.
Junk and misleading science lead to misperceptions concerning wrongful convictions. Practitioners sometimes contaminate and confuse sample has led to uncertainties in much forensic analysis. Inadequate validation of a method has also led to wrongful convictions. For instance, the analysis of shoeprints is not sufficiently validated since it fails to include various information essential in analysis.
DNA Technology
Over the last two decades, technological and scientific advances have revolutionized law enforcement, society, and the criminal justice system. DNA technologies play an essential role in the justice system within various regions in the United States and globally. DNA technologies have supported information collection that enables criminal investigation and offer great value in the judicial process (Medwed, 2017). Identification of criminals and non-offenders using DNA profiles has been considered vital in discovering suspects and protecting civil rights.
Post-conviction DNA testing has been a leading contributor to the discovery of increased convictions. DNA technology has increased the chances for DNA testing. For instance, degraded analysis of aged, compromised and limited biological evidence has improved due to DNA testing, which has generated more comprehensive results. DNA technology in forensic science investigation involves differentiated spaces and multiple professionals within a framework considered as a chain of custody that focuses on the crime scene and observations to collect and identify biologicals that are essential in identifying criminals (Medwed, 2017). The application of DNA technology such as DNA fingerprinting has enabled law enforcement personnel to relate the suspects and biological evidence from crime scenes. The DNA profiling advances have allowed law enforcement to exonerate individuals who have wrongfully been convicted for crimes they never committed.
Conclusion
The innocent project research has confirmed contributing causes confirmed the factors of wrongful convictions, including official misconducts, false forensic evidence, false confessions and eye witness misidentification. Procedural errors have led to violation of convicted individual’s right. DNA technology and advances in DNA profiling have effectively improved conditions that contribute to meaningful conviction. Wrongful conviction is the failure of a criminal justice system that needs to be corrected through guidelines and policies that strive for accuracy in conviction.
References
Duncan, C. (2019). Justifying Justice: Six Factors of Wrongful Convictions and Their Solutions. Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science, 7(1), 6.
Irazola, S., Williamson, E., Stricker, J., & Niedzwiecki, E. (2013). Study of victim experiences of wrongful conviction. ICF International.
Bishop, J., & Osler, M. (2015). Prosecutors and victims: why wrongful convictions matter. J. Crim. L. & Criminology, 105, 1031.
LaPorte, G. (2018). Wrongful convictions and DNA exonerations: Understanding the role of forensic science. National Institute Justice (NIJ) Journal, 279.
Garrett, B. L. (2020). Wrongful Convictions. Annual Review of Criminology, 3, 245-259.
Hamer, D., & Edmond, G. (2019). Forensic science evidence, wrongful convictions and adversarial process. U. Queensland LJ, 38, 185.
Medwed, D. S. (Ed.). (2017). Wrongful Convictions and the DNA Revolution. Cambridge University Press.
