After Exoneration: An Investigation of Stigma and Wrongfully Convicted Persons

Abstract

ABSTRACT (1) To date, the Innocence Project has worked to exonerate over 280 individuals who were wrongfully convicted. (2) As the population of exonerees grows, there is a need to examine the social consequences of wrongful conviction. Previous research has demonstrated that individuals who are paroled from prison are discriminated against and stigmatized, and this research has suggested that exonerees may be stigmatized in a similar manner. (3) Using correspondence bias as a theoretical framework, we examined this possibility through two separate studies. In Study One, participants read a newspaper article about either an exoneree or a guilty individual. (4) In Study Two, participants read a newspaper article about either an exoneree, guilty, or average individual. (5) We found that the guilty individual was generally stigmatized more than the exonerated. However, the exonerated were rated at or near the midpoint of the scale on some measures of stigma in Study One, indicating they may experience some stigma. In Study Two, we found the exonerated individual was stigmatized relative to the average individual on most measures of personal characteristics. However, the exonerated individual was not stigmatized on other measures relative to the average individual. The implications of these results, future directions for research, and policy recommendations are discussed below. I. AFTER EXONERATION: AN INVESTIGATION OF STIGMA AND WRONGFULLY CONVICTED PERSONS In 1989, Gary Dotson became the first person to be exonerated in the United States through the use of DNA evidence. (6) Dotson was incarcerated for more than a decade prior to his exoneration (7) and with his case, a new innocence movement was born. (8) In the years since Dotson's exoneration, DNA evidence has exonerated over 280 individuals of crimes they did not commit. (9) Seventeen of these exonerated individuals had been convicted of first-degree murder and were sentenced to death. (10) Others were exonerated of violent crimes such as rape and assault. (11) These exonerations may represent only a small proportion of all wrongful convictions, which some scholars have estimated to be in the tens of thousands. (12) Other scholars suggest that wrongful convictions occur in between one and fifteen percent of all cases. (13) To date, most research dealing with wrongful conviction has examined why these mistakes occur (14) and how to compensate those who have been wrongfully convicted. (15) Other research has investigated the psychological effects of wrongful conviction from the perspective of the exonerated, (16) but to date, only one study has examined the social consequences exonerees may experience as a result of their wrongful convictions by examining societal perceptions of the exonerated. (17) The present research expands the literature on the stigma of wrongful conviction by examining how people perceive exonerees after release. Using social psychological theory on attribution to inform our research, we consider the stigma levied upon exonerees as compared to that upon parolees, and introduce crime type as a possible moderator of stigma. II. INITIAL EVIDENCE FOR EXONEREE STIGMATIZATION Though little research to date has examined exoneree stigma through an empirical lens, there has been considerably more work that explores exoneree stigma through an anecdotal framework. Some accounts suggest that people may be uncomfortable working alongside exonerees. (18) One exoneree reports that the women at his workplace told their supervisor they were uncomfortable working alongside him because he had been convicted, albeit exonerated, of rape. (19) Other anecdotal evidence suggests that community members are not willing to readily accept exonerees back into the communities from which they were originally arrested. (20) Another exoneree reported that upon returning to his hometown he was harassed and ridiculed, and once found the words child killer etched into the dirt on his truck. …