Wrongful CONVICTIONS

Capital punishment

• The U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment

expressly prohibits “cruel and unusual

punishment.”

• What is cruel and unusual punishment?

Capital Punishment

• The Supreme Court: “ Punishments are cruel when they involve torture or lingering death; but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution. It implies there is something inhuman and barbarous, something more than the mere extinguishment of life.”

• The Supreme Court has never found the death penalty itself unconstitutional.

Furman v. Georgia

• 1972 Supreme Court Case

• The Court decided that the death penalty, as it was

being carried out at the time, was unconstitutional.

• “no meaningful basis for distinguishing the few

cases in which the death penalty is imposed from

the many cases in which it is not.

• Halted executions and emptied death rows across

the country

Furman v. georgia

• Invalidated death penalty statutes in 39 states- most

states responded by enacting new laws aimed at

curbing discretion of judges and jurors.

• New statutes were of two varieties:

• Some provided for death penalty in cases of first-

degree murder

• Some provided for death penalty in several

offenses based on the presence of aggravating or

mitigating circumstances.

Guided discretion laws were favored by the Court

Wrongful Convictions

“error of justice”

• A term used to describe the many types of mistakes

the criminal justice system can make.

• “An error of justice occurs when an innocent person

is harassed, detained or sanctioned, or when a

culpable offender receives a sanction that is either

more or less than optimal- one that minimizes social

cost- or escapes sanctioning all together…an error

of justice is any departure from optimal out come of

justice for a criminal case.”

Innocence movement

• In the 1980s DNA testing entered the mainstream

• Today, DNA testing can provide as close to certain evidence of guilt or innocence as anything

• When DNA testing first became popular, certain tests has higher margins of error than others.

• Some tests had an error rate of 1/100, others 1/1,000,000

• Other potential causes of error:

• Sample mix up

• Sample contamination

• DNA degradation- must be kept cold and dry

• Bad data analysis

Innocence projects

• The Innocence Project- the original

• Innocence Network- coordinates innocence efforts

throughout the different states. A series of

organizations that provide free legal and

investigation services to individuals seeking to prove

their innocence and overturn wrongful convictions.

• Actual Innocence Awareness Database- maintained

by the University of Texas at Austin, a database that

contains a wealth of information on the subject of

wrongful convictions.

The Innocence Project

• In 1992, Barry Sheck (former member of

O.J. Simpson’s defense team) and Peter

Neufeld, both attorneys, formed the

Innocence Project.

• In collaboration with the Cardozo Law

School in New York, the Innocence Project’s

mission is to exonerate wrongfully convicted

persons through DNA testing.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Reforms as a result

• State-by-state innocence commissions

• Crime lab oversight committees

• Improved witness identification procedures (to minimize the possibility of mistaken identifications)

• Separation of crime labs from law enforcement organizations

• Compensation for those wrongfully convicted

• Improved evidence preservation

• Recording of police interrogations

• State laws permitting post conviction access to DNA testing

Prosecutors

• While prosecutors are usually in the

business of convicting criminals, many

have taken a strong position that

wrongful convictions must be avoided

at all costs.

Exonerations

• An exoneration occurs when a person is wrongfully

convicted and later declared not guilty.

• Exonerations occur through one of four means:

• A Governor issues a pardon based on new

evidence of the convicted’s innocence.

• Charges are dismissed by the court after new

evidence of innocence is discovered.

• There is an acquittal at a retrial

• There is a posthumous (after death)

acknowledgement of innocence.

Exoneration

• The number of exonerations has increased in recent

years. According to one study, there were 12 per

year in 1989, and an average of 42 per year by

2000.

• According to the National Registry of Exonerations,

1,067 individuals have been exonerated as of the

date of the writing of your text book (2015).

• Explanations: Growing ability of DNA testing

technology, the newsworthy nature of exoneration

cases, and more resources having been devoted to

the issue of wrongful convictions.

Leading causes of

exonerations

• Eyewitness misidentification

• Unvalidated/improper forensics

• False confessions/admissions

• Informants/snitches