The Innocence Project: False Imprisonment

False Imprisonment Imagine walking down the street and being stopped by the police and then forcefully and wrongfully being arrested based on skin color, gender, race, or because you “look” like someone they’re looking for. As a result of fitting whatever criteria it takes for them to stop you and falsely arrest you, you end up falsely imprisoned. 1 False imprisonment is commonly defined as being arrested against ones will, the unlawful restraint of another, and being imprisoned without legal justification. False imprisonment is an intentional tort. An intentional tort is a wrongful act that results in the harm of another. This harm can be physical, psychological, or result in the damage of property. False arrest is closely related to false

13 It was created to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through the use of DNA testing. More than 300 people in the U.S. 12 have been exonerated by the use of DNA testing, to date. Twenty people who have served time on death row were exonerated. These people together have served an average of 4,606 years in prison. 14 The innocence project aims to exonerate the innocent, improve the law, reform through the courts, and support the exonerated. 15 “The Innocence Project’s groundbreaking use of DNA technology to free innocent people has provided irrefutable proof that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events but instead from systemic defects” (Innocence Project). 16 There have been 337 DNA exonerations in the United States. Of the exonerees, the average age at the time of their wrongful convictions was 26.5. 17 The leading causes of wrongful convictions are eyewitness misidentification testimony, invalidated or improper forensic science, false confessions and incriminating statements, and informants. 18 “Since 1989, there have been tens of thousands of cases where prime suspects were identified and pursued—until DNA testing (prior to conviction) proved that they were wrongly accused” (Innocence Project). There may be thousands of other innocent people in prison who are wrongfully