Term Paper on "Wrongful Convictions"

Term Paper 7 pages (2640 words) Sources: 6 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Wrongful Convictions

Within the past decades in the U.S., about 183 people have been absolved basing on the new evidence because of DNA testing. This reality gives unquestionable scientific testimony that the protection American jurisprudence has accorded to ensure equivalent safeguards and justifiable process of law to those charged or crime are not sufficient to check guiltless people from wrongful conviction. Undeniably wrongful convictions are neither isolated nor rare events. This realization has since become an important cause in bettering the functioning of the American criminal justice system. Exhaustive evaluation of each of the wrongful convictions that has been proved by DNA testing following the conviction provides us data which is able to cure the problems that resulted to the wrongful convictions primarily. (Rutberg, 8)

Even though sometimes a person who is wrongfully convicted is competent to demonstrate his innocence by means of other types of fresh evidence, it is the DNA clearance, founded on unquestionable scientific evidence of innocence which evinced the strongest evidence on the deficiencies of the criminal justice system. These cases give the scope to undertake an examination and locate all the causes that were responsible for the wrongful conviction. (Rutberg, 8) Thesis Statement: It is only through proper identification of the wrongdoing during various stages such as investigatory, pre-trial, trial and appellate phases of the criminal justice statement that cases of wrongful convictions can be reduced.

The state of wrongful convictions:

In Massachusetts, a district attorney once claimed that innocent men are never convicted. The attorney was influenced by the famous legal scholar of the period, the Honorable Learned Hand. It was believed by Hand that the ghost of the innocent man convicted continues to be an unreal dream. Taking these types of sentiments into considerations, it is hardly surprising that among the most common American myths is the consideration that innocent people are never convicted of crimes which they have never committed. Regrettably, the physically impossible and the unreal dream have time and again disclosed itself in the regular reality of the criminal justice system. Because of leaps in forensic science, especially DNA technology- the American public is viewing Judge Hand's unreal dream. It happens to be a usual happening to go through a wrongfully convicted person being absolved by the DNA proof. (Stack; Warden, 212)

While appreciating that America's criminal justice system builds considerable risk that innocent persons will be systematically convicted and the criminal justice system is not imperfect, is one thing, and forcing state and federal government to admit responsibility for their performance in producing wrongful convictions is a different issue. Only sixteen jurisdictions have been approved where indemnifications statutes to recompense the wrongly convicted. Thirty six states have not yet framed indemnification laws. Just a 37% of the wrongfully convicted people are given relief which is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. (Stack; Warden, 212)

Of late, wrongful convictions have rightly received a lot of attention. The use of DNA proof together with the remarkable contribution of several innocence projects has demonstrated that regardless of all the procedural safeguards dovetailed into the criminal system, juries and judges are at times certain beyond a rational doubt that of a fact that is false. The response to these wrongful convictions has been multifaceted. Part of the reaction has been a solace that a miscarriage of justice was found out, even though at a later stage. Another constituent is the one which is yet to be explored happens to be the concern that wrongful convictions which we are aware constitute a miniscule part of a larger problem. It has been observed that the majority of the clemency till the present era has been in situations concerning murder and rape in which DNA evidence is especially of help. However majority of the primary reasons of erroneous convictions are not restricted to those crimes. Wrong eyewitness identification, witness perjury, lack of effective counsel and errors in forensic systems can happen in nearly any kind of case. One more part of the reaction has been to put the blame. (Leipold, 1141)

Major part of the error has been allocated at the threshold of the police and prosecutors for failure to rightly investigate the case, or for depending upon doubtful or compromised proof. Prosecutors have barely assisted themselves by obstinately protecting their decisions, inclusive of the convictions themselves in the countenance of absolute proof of error. Besides, juries have also been criticized albeit in an indirect fashion whoa are believed to be accord a great deal of conviction in scientific evidence and to miscalculate the ability of the witnesses to perceive and remember. Pre-trial criminal process is another candidate for wrongful convictions that, even when it is operating in a proper fashion, is able to distort the collection & presentation of exculpatory substantiation. (Leipold, 1141)

Reasons behind wrongful convictions:

Delving deep into the problem of wrongful conviction, the reasons behind wrongful convictions are (i) investigative misconduct: Wrongful convictions outcome from biased investigations, since the moment police take to custody an individual, they consider that they have cleared the issue of guilt or innocence and sidestep evidence which might challenge their belief in a suspect's fault. Police investigations in the U.S. are generally designed to substantiate that the police suspect is the criminal. The judicial restrictions accorded on police investigations are extensive, abstract and doubtful. Consequently, it is less possible that the doubtful police strategies generating untrustworthy proof will be unearthed or revealed. For instance, alleged confessions, not insisting on counsel and the waiver of the privilege to stay silent must be willful. Besides, substantiating that confession was unintentional is very intricate. In the U.S., it is mistaken identity which is responsible for higher number of wrongful convictions compared to false convictions. Regardless of the accepted fallibility of identification evidence, the safeguards of preventing wrongful identifications are unclear as well as very restricted. This gives the police to apply any category of identification system that does not infringe upon the general principles of reasonable procedures. (Griffin, 1273) ii) suppression of exculpatory evidence: In the U.S., prosecutorial suppression of exculpatory evidence has been a leading and persisting cause of wrongful conviction cases. The attention has been on the failure of the prosecutor to reveal instead of on the police as the courts have accorded the responsibility of disclosure on the prosecutor. The U.S. law enforcement authorities do not have any duty to protect, record, or keep exculpatory evidence, much less to give it to the prosecution. The disclosure compulsions in the U.S. prosecution are also rather unimportant. The U.S. prosecution does not have any general obligation to reveal the proof it plans to use in order to prove guilt. As regards exculpatory evidence, the Due Process clause of the Constitution only permits the disclosure of material exculpatory evidence. The "materiality" of evidence is described exclusively by whether there are substantial chances that the lack of disclosure impacted the result. Evidently the greater the exculpatory evidence which is concealed, the higher the chances of wrongful conviction. (Griffin, 1273) iii) flaws in the screening processes: The initial decision regarding the person to be charged and the quantum of charge is made by the prosecutors and not the law enforcement agents. To be certain screening processes like a grand jury and a preliminary hearing are required. But they render only outward protection. In federal cases, the Fifth Amendment to the American Constitution mandates that a penalty charge be brought by an accusation by a grand jury. This prerequisite possesses scanty actual significance, since the grand jury functions in secret and is completely regulated by the prosecution. For instance when the prosecutor shows his evidence before the grand jury; the defense counsel, defendant, or the court is qualified to be present. Normally the prosecutor makes responsible the jury in the law. The rules of evidence are not applicable and locating of a possible reason is enough to select an accusation. (Griffin, 1274) iv) improper performance by the defense counsel: Improper defense representations is prevalent in the U.S. criminal justice system. In the U.S., majority of the defense representation is featured by making a routine of the criminal cases, an absence of investigation by the defense, assumption of the wrongdoing of the defendant, abridged interview of the defendant, the lack of useful relationship between the attorney and the client, little counseling of a defendant, and heavy drive in the direction of guilty pleas. In the first place, defense counsel hardly takes interviews of the counsel. They faced them during the first occasion in the courtroom. The absence of sufficient discussion deprived the defense counsel the scope of going deep into the background of the defendant of his previous particulars, delayed the development of the defense of a rational theory of the case, and provided the defendant almost no scope in the plea bargaining process. (Griffin, 1274) v) prosecutorial misconduct. U.S. prosecutors, with some exceptions, who possess the double responsibility of "minister of justice" and adversary, very often are available in a culture of… READ MORE

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