Wrongful Convictions Research Articles

Barred: Why the Innocent Can't Get out of Prison

For three decades, the innocence movement has focused on proving “factual innocence” with DNA evidence. Substance. But as Professor Medwed details, far more people are wrongly convicted than those who can rely on exculpatory DNA evidence. DNA has been crucial to exposing the many causes of wrongful convictions: faulty forensic evidence, police and prosecutor misconduct, mistaken eyewitnesses, unreliable informants, false confessions, and racism. DNA opens the doors to recognizing these other causes of wrongful convictions. But what next?
 Barred walks us through the procedural bars and barriers at each step a wrongly convicted person takes toward freedom. As Medwed describes it, “the rule regime is stacked against the innocent, contrary to the popular belief that the postconviction process is full of escape hatches from the prison cell, those imaginary ‘technicalities’ that let people loose…. You can have evidence of innocence – and no one willing to hear it.”
 Through the pages of Barred, Medwed turns us to procedure for the next stage of innocence work. If it is procedure that creates the bars, then it is those bars we must bend to free innocent people.

Innocence Mortality Tax: The Impact of Wrongful Conviction on Lifespan

The wrongful conviction of innocent individuals is a growing problem for those unjustly convicted and the integrity of our legal system, with exonerees often struggling post-exoneration. Yet, too little is known about the long-term impact of wrongful convictions on those unjustly convicted. Thus, we investigated the effect of wrongful conviction on mortality and lifespan—that is, we tested for the possibility of an “innocence mortality tax.” We found that more exonerees have passed than expected when compared to U.S. death rates, and that exonerees died 13.24 years earlier than expected, given their age, gender, race/ethnicity, and incarceration length. Finally, those exonerees whose cases involved a false confession or mistaken eyewitness identification died significantly sooner than their counterparts. Our results highlight the need for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to continue to find ways to mitigate the harm done to innocent individuals unjustly convicted.

Identifying How an Individual Becomes a Suspect

Flawed eyewitness testimony, faulty forensics, and police misconduct are common factors that may contribute to wrongful conviction. However, what brings someone over the threshold of suspicion where these factors are used to build the case against them? To answer that question, we built upon the limited number of previous studies examining how someone becomes a suspect in serious crimes (e.g., murder, rape). This exploratory study utilized Innocence Project materials pertaining to 232 exonerated clients and 75 individuals for whom post-conviction DNA testing was found to be an “inclusion” (i.e., supportive of the prosecution’s theory of guilt). Based on case files, we coded pathways to becoming a suspect. These pathways included tips, matched description, previous law enforcement encounters, physical evidence, and other scenarios; more than one pathway could be used for each individual. While several pathways were found to be similar in both groups, differences were seen in pathways related to physical evidence, officers putting individuals under duress during questioning, and proximity to the crime. This exploratory analysis provides a basis for designing future hypothesis-based research to further examine the observed associations and provide further insights into the investigative processes that can lead to wrongful convictions.

“The Jogger and the Wolfpack”: An Analysis of the TRANSITIVITY Patterns in the Global Media Coverage of the 1989 Central Park Five Case

Common causes of wrongful conviction include eyewitness misidentification, improper forensics, or false confessions (Garrett in Convicting the innocent: where criminal prosecutions go wrong, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2011; Innocence Canada, https://www.innocencecanada.com/causes-of-wrongful-convictions/); whilst none of these factors are in question in this paper, the notion put forward is that a more implicit factor is also at play; that is, the newspaper coverage of a criminal case during the lead up to trial. According to Felton Rosulek (Text Talk 28:529–550, 2008), “[…] linguistic choices conspire together […] and create a specific interpretation of reality”. Thus, this paper explores how the accused and the (alleged) criminal events pertaining to a high-profile case of the 1980s in New York are discursively framed in a range of press coverage across the USA and further afield. The corpus comprises newspaper articles reporting on the Central Park Jogger case, which resulted in the wrongful conviction and lost freedom of five innocent young men. Using corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis (CADS) (Partington and Marchi, in: Biber, Reppen (eds) The Cambridge handbook of English corpus linguistics, Cambridge University Press, 2015; Stubbs in Text and corpus analysis. Computer-assisted studies of language and culture. Blackwell, Oxford, 1996), the Transitivity patterns (Halliday and Matthiessen in Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar, Routledge, London, 2014) present in the press coverage are examined to gain insights into whether the portrayal of (1) the accused and (2) the victim at the centre of this case may have contributed to securing a wrongful conviction. Furthermore, this paper strives to (1) draw awareness to wrongful convictions more generally and (2) contribute to studies on Transitivity, which serve to highlight societal injustice and the power of printed news when determining the innocence or guilt of an accused individual. To acquire both quantitative and qualitative results, the UAM Corpus Tool (O’Donnell in UAM Corpus Tool, http://www.corpustool.com/) was also employed here.

About Michael Ayele (a.k.a) W December 30th 2013 and Chanel Miller January 18th 2015 - #Miscarriage of Justice and Wrongful Convictions on the Basis of Racial Background in the United States of America (U.S.A)

About Michael Ayele (a.k.a) W December 30th 2013 and Chanel Miller January 18th 2015 - #Miscarriage of Justice and Wrongful Convictions on the Basis of Racial Background in the United States of America (U.S.A)

The Logic and Value of the Presumption of Doli Incapax (Failing That, an Incapacity Defence).

Children who do not understand the serious wrongness of their actions lack criminal capacity and cannot be convicted. At common law, children under seven are deemed to lack criminal capacity, children over 14 possess full capacity and children between seven and 14 are rebuttably presumed to lack capacity; the prosecution must prove capacity beyond reasonable doubt. Australia has increased the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) to 10 and is considering a further increase. England & Wales and Northern Ireland have raised the MACR to 10 but have abolished the rebuttable presumption: at age 10, all children are assigned full criminal capacity. This article agrees with international calls for the MACR to be raised but argues that it is more important that the rebuttable presumption should be retained and extended. Children's brains and decision-making capacities continue to develop throughout their teenage years at different rates. The rebuttable presumption provides individualised justice for children facing developmental difficulties. To wrongfully convict a child who lacks capacity will unjustly damage their life chances. Where a child does have capacity, a variety of evidence may be available to the prosecution to prove it. If the prosecution fails to discharge the burden, the child should be acquitted. The acquittal may be mistaken, but this error is far less harmful than a wrongful conviction.

Remarks on Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights

The following are remarks from a panel discussion co-hosted by the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law and the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law on the book Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights.

Google Android: Behavioural Theories of Harm in the Light of New Judgments and Regulatory Tools

This contribution takes a look at the recent Google Android judgement of the General Court as a case study of antitrust informed by behavioural economics – the study of not fully rational economic agents. It contrasts the General Court’s pragmatic approach to economic evidence to the U.S. Supreme Court’s willingness to delve into economic theory, where the latter can prove more of an obstacle to the development of behavioural antitrust. It further concedes that cases relying on behavioural theories of harm can prove to be less predictable from a legal standpoint. This, nevertheless, does not obviate older legal tests, which might just need to be reformulated as requiring an analysis of effects, in line with the General Court’s rhetoric on the necessity to avoid false convictions in such cases. Lastly, the contribution argues that the relevance of behavioural antitrust will not fade in its entirety with new regulatory tools addressing similar issues.

Experiences of criminal justice: Perspectives from Wales on a system in crisis By D.Newman, R.Dehaghani, Bristol: Bristol University Press. 2023. pp. 270. £80.00 (hbk); £26.99 (pbk); £26.99 (ebk). ISBN: 9781529214222; 9781529214239; 978152914246

Experiences of criminal justice: Perspectives from Wales on a system in crisis By D.Newman, R.Dehaghani, Bristol: Bristol University Press. 2023. pp. 270. £80.00 (hbk); £26.99 (pbk); £26.99 (ebk). ISBN: 9781529214222; 9781529214239; 978152914246

“We can’t, sorry, but we can’t do it’: how wrongful convictions impact employment and education throughout the life-course”

Attention given to wrongful convictions typically focuses on those experiences leading up to release and less on community reentry post-release. The current study contributes to existing conversations regarding community reintegration of wrongfully convicted individuals by focusing on employment. Using qualitative interviews with 19 individuals who were wrongfully convicted, I examine how wrongful convictions impact employment and education throughout one’s life-course. Findings reveal that wrongful convictions cause disruption to educational and career trajectories. While wrongfully incarcerated, programs are not provided to successfully reenter the community upon release. Finally, participants experience a multitude of barriers when trying to gain employment post-release. Policy implications, limitations, and directions for future research are also discussed.

Commonalities in false guilty plea cases

ABSTRACT False guilty pleas, when innocent people are wrongfully convicted by pleading guilty, have beset criminal legal systems since the time guilty pleas came into existence. Today, of the nearly 3,300 exoneration cases catalogued by the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE), about 25% are wrongful convictions via guilty plea, with the remaining 75% by trial. In the present study, we code the known population of wrongful plea convictions, comparing them to the known population of wrongful trial convictions on numerous factors (e.g. dispositional and situational risk factors) to identify defining characteristics of false guilty plea cases. Overall, we found many notable differences. False guilty plea cases are four times more likely to involve a false confession and be the ‘no-crime’ type of wrongful conviction than trial cases. In contrast, trial cases were significantly more likely to involve eyewitness misidentification, forensic science errors, perjury or false accusations, and documented ineffective assistance of counsel claims than false guilty plea cases. Results shed much-needed light on the factors that associate with false guilty pleas.

IMPLICATIONS OF BAD TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TERMS ON A JUDICIAL CASE: PERSPECTIVES OF ARABIC TRANSLATORS

The question of translation accuracy is at the core of the field of translation studies. Despite the abundance of tools for evaluating translation quality, hardly anything is understood about the consequences of a poorly done translation. Students of translation often find the legal system to be one of the most complex. The translation of judicial documents from English to Arabic and from Arabic to English is particularly challenging due to the differences in linguistic system, legal permutations, and cultural variety between the two cultures. Equally, practitioners of translation use various methods for coping with these challenges. The purpose of this research was to look at the obstacles and issues that Arabic translators have while working on statutory documents and the methods they employ to overcome them. In addition, the story of a wrongful conviction Mazhar Hussain in Pakistan brought about by the inaccurate translation of legal concepts is presented in the paper. This survey gathered the opinions of Arabic translators. Over 70 Arabic translators took part in the survey, which was distributed online. According to the results, the most difficult aspects of translating legal contracts into Arabic are the use of binominal phrases and paralleled structures, the construction of legal sentences, the handling of numerous negatives, and the arrangement of legal texts. Poor translation of legal precepts has far-reaching consequences, as shown by the reported instance of wrongful conviction in Pakistan. The study's findings have significant implications for those working in the field of translation education, as well as for those developing curricula for it. As a result, it's clear that those who translate legal codes require education in the nuances of different legal systems, the influence of other cultures, and the wider repercussions of doing things wrong.

Secrecy and Impunity: The Role of Law Societies in Canadian Wrongful Convictions

Secrecy and Impunity: The Role of Law Societies in Canadian Wrongful Convictions

Stuck in the Middle: Crimmigration and the Asian American Community

“Crimmigration,” coined in 2006 by Professor Juliet Stumpf, refers to the merging ofcriminal and immigration law in the United States, particularly after 1980. Crimmigrationincludes both immigration-related punishments for non-American citizens convicted of crimesand immigration enforcement’s growing resemblance to criminal law enforcement. This paperexplores the historical development of crimmigration through laws such as the 1996Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and Illegal Immigration Reform and ImmigrantResponsibility Act, as well as the massive expansion in ICE detention in recent decades. Itargues that Asian Americans have been disproportionately impacted by crimmigration due totheir historical marginalization at the intersection of non-citizen status, poverty, and violence.“Stuck in the middle” of the criminalization of immigration and unjust punishment ofimmigrants with criminal convictions, Asian American communities are uniquely impacted by acrimmigration system that marginalizes those seen as foreign and “other.”

COMPENSATION FOR WRONGFUL CONVICTION IN SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) without reservations. Article 14(6) of this treaty requires South Africa to put measures in place to compensate people who have suffered miscarriages of justice (wrongful convictions). However, the right to be compensated for wrongful conviction is not provided for in South African law. This is so although case law shows that many people have been wrongfully convicted. A person who has been wrongfully convicted has to institute a civil case (delictual claim) or to apply for a free pardon. In this article, the author argues that these two options do not comply with what is required of South Africa under article 14(6) of the ICCPR. The author suggests ways in which South Africa could comply with its obligation under article 14(6) of the ICCPR. The author also suggests ways in which the common law (actio iniuriarum) could be developed to compensate people who have been wrongfully convicted.

Evidence-based suspicion and the prior probability of guilt in police interrogations.

False confessions are prevalent in wrongful convictions, and much research has examined investigation factors and interrogation methods that can contribute to false confessions. However, not all these factors are under the control of the legal system, and improving the effectiveness of interrogation methods has a limited effect on evaluating the veracity of confessions. We suggest incorporating an important but often-neglected factor in interrogations: suspects' prior probability of guilt ("the prior," a Bayesian term meaning suspects' likelihood of being guilty before police conduct an interrogation). By connecting interrogation practices to probability concepts, we discuss a gap in the literature between questions traditionally answered by lab research and a distinct question faced by the legal system. On the basis of our analysis, we argue that police should increase priors by collecting additional evidence to satisfy an evidence-based suspicion of guilt before interrogating suspects. Implementing the evidence-based suspicion practice can help police reduce false confessions, reallocate investigation time and resources, and assist prosecutors in building strong cases for trial. Likewise, researchers should expand the empirical and legal questions they ask and incorporate priors into their interrogation experiments to improve the generalizability of findings to the criminal justice system. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Identifying a “Miscarriage of Justice”: Factors Influencing a Successful Appeal Against a Guilty Plea Conviction in Australia

While the difficulties in appealing a guilty plea conviction are widely acknowledged, little research has investigated how appellate courts handle guilty plea convictions. This study addresses this gap by examining Australian appellate court judgments in which a guilty plea conviction was contested, comparing successful appeals where a guilty plea conviction was overturned ( n = 193) against unsuccessful appeals where a guilty plea conviction remained ( n = 375). Hierarchical multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that, independent of other case characteristics, legal representation on appeal and support from legal actors significantly predicted a successful appeal, while significant predictors of an unsuccessful appeal included male defendants, defendants who received a term of imprisonment, and those who argued they were pressured to plead guilty. The findings highlight the significant influence of legal and extra-legal factors on appellate decision-making beyond the grounds of appeal raised by the defendant, raising important policy implications for the post-conviction process.

CJS: Pre-Conviction Detention and Question of Double Jeopardy. A Critical Study of the Legal Status of the Death Penalty in Pakistan

The individual right to personal security in any State should include those guarantees which enable a person to live his daily life and plan his future without the threat of arrest and imprisonment or the fear of severe and unjust punishment. Due to various reasons, the People of Pakistan do not trust the Criminal Justice System of Pakistan. In the criminal cases covering the death penalty accused persons are kept in prisons for years and on completion of trial they are convicted for capital punishment which is also executed. This article discusses whether the death punishment awarded and executed to a person after keeping him for many years in custody amounts to double jeopardy.

Wrongful convictions and claims of false or misleading forensic evidence

The results are reported of a study to examine case factors associated with 732 wrongful convictions classified by the National Registry of Exonerations as being associated with "False or Misleading Forensic Evidence." A forensic error typology has been developed to provide a structure for the categorization and coding of factors relating to misstatements in forensic science reports; errors of individualization or classification; testimony errors; issues relating to trials and officers of the court; and evidence handling and reporting issues. This study, which included the analysis of 1391 forensic examinations, demonstrates that most errors related to forensic evidence are not identification or classification errors by forensic scientists. When such errors are made, they are frequently associated with incompetent or fraudulent examiners, disciplines with an inadequate scientific foundation, or organizational deficiencies in training, management, governance, or resources. More often, forensic reports or testimony miscommunicate results, do not conform to established standards, or fail to provide appropriate limiting information. Just as importantly, actors within the broader criminal justice system-but not under the purview of any forensic science organization-may contribute to errors that may be related to the forensic evidence. System issues include reliance on presumptive tests without confirmation by a forensic laboratory, use of independent experts outside the administrative control of public laboratories, inadequate defense, and suppression or misrepresentation of forensic evidence by investigators or prosecutors. In approximately half of wrongful convictions analyzed, improved technology, testimony standards, or practice standards may have prevented a wrongful conviction at the time of trial.

The Ultimate Injustice: States' Failure to Take Steps to Prevent Wrongful Convictions and, when Wrongful Convictions are Exposed, to Provide Adequate Assistance to Exonerees

Among the many rights guaranteed by the Constitution are the rights to a presumption of innocence, equal protection, due process, a speedy trial, a trial by jury, and legal counsel, if indigent and charged with a serious crime. But those rights do not ensure that the justice system succeeds every time. The United States has exonerated over 3,000 individuals since 1989. The exonerees have collectedly lost over 26,700 years of their lives. Each exoneration has provided insight into the causes of wrongful convictions, the issues with current compensation laws, and even the changes that need to be implemented to avoid further injustice. Additionally, there are thousands of individuals still incarcerated today for wrongful convictions. Therefore, it calls into question what America is doing to prevent wrongful convictions and to compensate its victims as they transition back into the community. The answer is not enough.