Innocence Project Report On The Case Of Jennifer Moore Case

Innocence Project Report on the

Case of Curtis Jasper Moore

Tommy Warrick

Drake University According to the Innocence Project one of the greatest causes of wrongful conviction is due to eyewitness misidentification. They state that 72% of cases where defendants have been exonerated eyewitness misidentification played a role. Even though eyewitness testimony has been proven inaccurate numerous times, it can still be the decisive evidence in a court of law. This is because the law views the human memory as a camcorder which can record and repeat whatever it sees. In reality the memory can be affected by numerous outside stimuli and previous beliefs. Due to television, one of the most well know detective tactics in the police arsenal is forensic

Nothing materialized until April 21, 1980 when U.S. District Judge Robert Merhige, Jr. ordered the conviction to be set aside and the confession suppressed, as Moore had an improper interrogation. He had discovered that the police had not read Moore his Miranda rights until at least four had passed in the interrogation, as well as the fact there was no proof that Moore had a coherent understanding of his Miranda rights. The ruling was affirmed on August 20, 1981, by a U.S. Court of Appeals who released Moore pending a new trial. They then dismissed all of the charges facing Moore, after three years of imprisonment. In 2005 the crime lab file was discovered and the testing of biological evidence was ordered by former Governor Mark Warner. Three years later, through the newfound DNA evidence Moore was exonerated and a match was made to Thomas Pope Jr. who had prior convictions of abduction and forced sodomy from 1991 and had received parole in 2003. He was convicted for both charges on March 24, 2010 at the age of 55 for a sentence of life in prison. Sadly, Moore didn’t live to see his own exoneration due to his death on April 25, 2006. Due to the fact his exoneration was post-mortem he did not receive compensation for his wrongful

This is the main reform recommended by the Innocence Project. In order for this reform to be effective the entire interrogation must be recorded or else it will be pointless as corrupt interrogation techniques could be hidden by not recording them. Just recording the confession also avoids showing the events that led up to the confession preventing analysis of its validity. A full recording will help prove the authenticity and credibility of confessions and show the reliability of testimonies. The recording can also show whether information was unintentionally given to a suspect during questioning by the interrogators and was then repeated back to the interrogator by the suspect making them seem guilty. This also protects the interrogators as it protects them from allegations of violence towards a suspect or corruption as their entire interrogation will be recorded so any allegations can be investigated thoroughly. This reform has actually been put into use by many police departments in the United States. The Innocence Project reports that over 850 jurisdictions nationwide have put the reform into place and that police departments are pleased with the reform. This is helped by the fact that the states of Alaska, Minnesota, and Illinois have some form of requirement in their constitutions for interrogations to be recorded. This reform would have helped free Curtis Jasper Moore even