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Evidence and forensic investigation
Evidence and forensic investigation
Evidence and forensic investigation
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Evidence and forensic investigation
Evidence and forensic investigation
Evidence and forensic investigation
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the State of Texas v. Cameron Todd Willingham case, smalltown Todd Willingham was convicted and put on death row after being unjustly convicted of setting his house with arson and murder. The police’s preconceived opinions of him played its role in this case. However, when clouded judgment is involved mistakes are made. In this case, the results may have been an innocent man's life was destroyed and he ultimately died because of it. Police took his lack of injuries and the fact that he never tried to re-enter the house to save his kids as evidence in their case against him.
When evidence is collected it should be preserved so that it may be used if needed in the future. Also if a witness feels that the sketch is not exactly what the witness sees in their mind they should tell the sketch artist to fix it so that it does look like the person they have in mind. Larry Youngblood was one of the lucky ones and was exonerated with advanced technology allowing them to test the semen samples found in the clothing of David (Innocence Project
In the Adnan Syed case, the state of Baltimore and the prosecutors failed to disclose key evidence that could help his case. His team was described as “horribly negligent” as they chose not to dive deeper or ignore key evidence that could have given Adnan a second standing to his innocence. The team mostly relied on cell phone towers as key evidence to conduct any sort of prosecution against Adan Syed. Jay Wilds, a supposed witness in Adnan’s case, gave statements which were then interpreted as the cell phone towers and pings around the supposed area that Adnan and Jay were driving by after committing the crime. The problem with this is that not a single call or text pinged to one of the phone towers where Jay says he and Adnan were driving.
Another famous case I researched was the Wayne Williams case in which Wayne Williams was convicted on physical evidence of fibers as well as a witness for the murder of two adults, Nathaniel Carter (age 27) and Jimmy Ray Payne (21). He was suspected for more than 20 murders on a 98% certainty but further conviction was prevented based on the 2% uncertainty. A similar case was the Richard Ramirez case, or better known as the “Night Stalker”. In the span of a two-year period, he raped and tortured more than 25 victims as well as killed over a dozen other victims. Ramirez’s final attack led the police to find fingerprints on a stolen car that led to a positive identification.
The suspect I will be talking about is Lydell Grant. Lydell Grant, a Houston man, was wrongfully convicted in 2012 for the murder of Aaron Scheerhoorn, who was fatally stabbed outside a Houston bar in 2010. Despite Grant's consistent claims of innocence and the lack of physical evidence linking him to the crime, six eyewitnesses identified him as the murderer, leading to his conviction and a life sentence. On December 10, 2010 Police were called to a club called Club Blur. Once police arrived at the club they found Aaron Scheerhoorn dead after being stabbed seven different times.
In the trial of the four Norfolk sailors, the main reason why they were all convicted was not the proclaimed evidence that wasn’t on the scene, but was the confessions that they were coerced to say during the interrogations. There was virtually no evidence against the four sailors, but the jury sided that they were all guilty. The major problem during the trial was that no evidence was found at the crime scene and the prosecution only badgered the four sailors based on confessions that they were threatened to say or else they
The cases of O.J. Simpson and Lizzie Borden are two court cases in American history that are 100 years apart, conversely are very parallel. On both occasions the verdict comes to be the same: not guilty. Circumstantial evidence, which is defined as evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion or fact, was heavily utilized in the process of prosecuting both subjects. Both Orenthal James Simpson and Lizzie Borden should be found guilty of murder due to the continuous number of things that prove their guilt.
Have you ever thought if a criminal could be falsely accused? Perhaps you would think the judges or police would have good evidence to contradict the criminal. Well there 's a law, guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which means that the accused is the only logical person who could have done the crime even if hard evidence is lacking. On January 13, 1999 Hae Min Lee a senior at Woodlawn high school had disappeared. she was suppose to pick up her cousin after school but never showed up.
Throughout his sentence Ruiz continued to assert his innocence, interesting the Innocence Project. After taking on his case, the Innocence Project used the DNA originally found at the crime to clear him of his convictions. In court cases, such as Mr. Ruiz’s eyewitness testimonies, tend to be seen as the most credible and therefore persuasive form of evidence. However, human memory is fallible and recollection is often inaccurate. Due to the unreliability of human memory, many innocent people like Mr.Ruiz are convicted every year and sentenced to prison for crimes they did not commit.
Individuals can often mistake objects or others for something else. Moreover, crimes are committed without notice, so people may remember them incorrectly due to the sudden nature of said offense. Additionally, the conditions of the environment can have a massive effect on a person's perception of a situation (Albright 2017). For instance, in Matthews' case the witness, “Cheramie identified Johnson, [Ryan Matthews], as the gunman,” even though DNA evidence proves he was not the person that shot Vanhoose (University of Michigan Law School
Wrongful convictions are a problem that most government officials won’t admit. The United States and other countries such as Australia have been susceptible to these miscarriages of justice. This can arise from a snowball effect of scenarios such as witness misidentification, perjured testimonies, coercive methods of interrogation, prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective counsel. These are some of the reasons that can potentially lead innocent people to be convicted of crimes they did not commit. The thousands of exonerations in the United States has caused concern for other nations to reevaluate their criminal justice system.
Innocent until proven guilty is a phrase the United States justice system says we abide by but in many cases this seems to falter from true. Due to various factors such as tunnel vision, faulty forensics, false confessions, improper identification, missing evidence and the list could go on; all of these reasons can lead to a biased trial and ultimately lead to a wrongful conviction. Julie Rea was a single mom convicted of the murder of her ten year old son Joel Kirkpatrick on October 13th, 1997. This twenty-eight year old mom and her son lived in a rural area in Lawrence, Illinois that was referred to as a quaint little town that very rarely saw any crime so when the news of sweet little Joel Kirkpatrick being murdered got out it sent the
One of the most well known and often read plays is Twelve Angry Men, which follows the story of twelve jurors presiding over the case of a young boy who has been accused of murdering his father with a switch knife. These jurors go back and forth arguing over the innocence of the boy throughout the play, but by the end of the play, they reach a unanimous verdict of not guilty. In the play Twelve Angry Men, the final verdict the jurors made, although some may disagree, is the only correct conclusion. This verdict is the only correct decision due to all the discrepancies in evidence and testimonies against the defendant, and the fact that there is almost no proper evidence remaining against the defendant by the end of the play. For those reasons, the defendant is not guilty.
Back in 1975, there was a major case called, Payton V. New York. Theodore Payton was suspected of murdering a gas station manager, they found evidence within his home that connected him with the crime. What caused the problem was the fact New York had a law that allowed unwarranted searches if the person was a suspect. Based off the oral argument presented by Oyez, the police said it didn't count as the evidence because it was in public view when entering the home. It had to be appealed before it was determined as unconstitutional.
Today, modern standards require the burden of proof be brought forth by the plaintiff, or prosecution in criminal cases. This means that the accused no longer has to prove they did not commit the crime, but the prosecution has to prove that all the evidence proves the accused did in fact commit the crime in question. Circumstantial evidence is not enough, but physical evidence, or forensic evidence is now required in modern courts for a conviction. Additionally, the modern standard when considering evidence, and for conviction is “beyond a reasonable doubt.”