ipl-logo

Miguel Roman Jailhouse Arguments

566 Words3 Pages

A record 149 people were exonerated for crimes they did not commit in 2015. How were these people convicted for these crimes? Three ways innocent people are convicted is from prosecution screw ups, Jailhouse informants testifying against innocent people, and a lack of technology to test DNA. In the case of Miguel Roman, the prosecution made many mistakes in their argument against Roman. The prosecution knew it wasn’t Miguel’s DNA on Lopez yet they still convicted Miguel (Owens and Dempsey). This show how the prosecution disregarded the DNA evidence at the time of the investigation. Secondly, the prosecution believed the fetus inside the victim was Roman’s but after DNA testing they found it was not his (Owens and Dempsey). The authors …show more content…

Another prisoner at the jail said Miguel confessed to him and he testified for a reduced sentence (Cameron). This shows the prisoner lied to get a reduced sentence. 15% of wrongful convictions had another prisoner confessed against the victim (Cameron). The author states this to show how prisoners will lie for reduced sentences and plea deals. In the modern era of the death penalty, Around half of the death row inmates who have been wrongfully convicted have been convicted by prison informants (Balko). This shows prisoners disregard of innocent people’s lives for their …show more content…

Works Cited Balko, Radley. “End the Use of Jailhouse Informants.” Washington Pose [Washington D.C.], 8 May 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/05/08/end-the-use-of-jailhouse-informants/?utm_term=.0d794e3729b8. Accessed 3 Feb. 2017. Cameron, David R. “Man Freed by DNA Deserves Compensation.” Hartford Courant [Hartford], 26 July 2011. ProQuest Newsstand. Accessed 27 Jan. 2017. Ferner, Matt. “A Record Number of People Were Exonerated in 2015 for Crimes They Didn’t Commit.” Huffington Post, 3 Feb. 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/exonerations-2015_us_56ac0374e4b00b033aaf3da9. Accessed 7 Feb. 2017. Owens, David, and Christine Dempsey. “Miguel Roman Gains His Freedom After 20 Years In Prison.” McClatchy - Tribune Business News [Washington], 20 Dec. 2008. ProQuest Newsstand. Accessed 27 Jan. 2017. ---. “Stepping into Freedom: After 20 Years in Prison, Roman Is Allowed to Go Home; Innocence Project.” Hartford Courant, 20 Dec. 2008. ProQuest Newsstand. Accessed 27 Jan.

Show More
Related
1667 Words | 7 Pages

This book relates to death penalty cases where there are overzealous police and prosecutors who get tunnel vision about

Read More
825 Words | 4 Pages

Final Essay America, the home of the free, but how free are we really? Incarceration rates over the past 30 years have soared, and currently 25% of all inmates in the world lie behind the bars of American prisons. (Approximately 716 per 100,000 peoples). Whether justified or not, our country locks up more people per year than any other country. Cases such as that of Tamir Rice, and Steven Avery exemplify both spectrums of the exploitation of our judiciary system.

Read More
409 Words | 2 Pages

I am 21 and for as long as I can remember I have heard many stories about innocent people being accused of and being punished for crimes they did not commit. On Monday, March 20th of this year, I met Anthony Ray Hinton and learned about his story. Arrested on suspicion of two capital murders at age 29. He was convicted and sentenced to death despite having a reliable alibi and passing a polygraph test. It was only after repeated efforts by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) team that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned his conviction based on his attorney’s deficient representation and he was eventually exonerated after 30 years in solitary confinement on Friday, April 3rd, 2015.

Read More
119 Words | 1 Pages

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.

Read More
1533 Words | 7 Pages

Wrongful convictions are one of the major problems that the justice system faces. Much worse is that there are people whom the judicial system has sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. A wrongful conviction is a terrible injustice that is magnified when an innocent person spends years in prison or death row. The number of exonerated ex-offenders is steadily rising, however growing awareness of the injustices occur every day in American courts, it helps raise profound doubts about the accuracy and fairness of the criminal justice system. Cheryle (Hayes)

Read More
545 Words | 3 Pages

In 1711, most of those accused were exonerated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and compensation was paid to survivors and their families. News of the trials was put to rest until 1957 when the state of Massachusetts finally formally apologized to the public for the trials. However, it was not until 2001 that the last eleven victims were exonerated. As a result of the brutality of the trials, court procedures were changed in the United States. Accused personnel now have the right to legal representation during their trial.

Read More
1186 Words | 5 Pages

There have been 1,982 exonerations of those wrongfully committed of crimes they didn’t commit (The National). There are two people in specific that have been affected immensely due to being wrongfully convicted. They were charged of various crimes and have had their lives changed due to their convictions. Danny Brown and Nathan Brown were both convicted of crimes, such as rape and murder, that they didn’t commit, proven through DNA testing, and have been affected immensely, by not getting compensation post jail-time, after serving their sentence. To start, there were many accusations about the crimes committed in the Danny Brown case.

Read More
786 Words | 4 Pages

“Since 1973, more than 155 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. (Staff Report, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil & Constitutional Rights, 1993, with updates by DPIC). From 1973-1999, there was an average of 3 exonerations per year. From 2000-2011, there was an average of 5 exonerations per year” (Facts). These numbers are astonishing considering the fact that Americans trust the judicial system to put the guilty people in prison, not the innocent ones.

Read More
1462 Words | 6 Pages

Wrongful conviction is often caused by mistaken eyewitness identity, civil misconduct, and has even lead to the creation of a television series called Vindicated. In a nationwide, 23 year long research report, University of

Read More
778 Words | 4 Pages

The United States leads the entire world in the number of incarcerations, there are approximately 2 million people behind bars at this time, that means that a wrongful conviction rate of 1% would translate to 20,000. Though we do not have a steady percentage of falsely accused individuals, simply 1% is still a large amount of innocent citizens. The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and hopes to adjust the criminal justice system to prevent future cases of injustice. Their website contains hundreds unethical incarcerations and convictions, including Cathy Woods and Kathy Gonzalez, two of the only women in their entire database.

Read More
949 Words | 4 Pages

“ Those who have been exonerated each spent an average of 14 years in prison, and some even up to 35 or more years...but they also usually have to wait a few more years if and before they are exonerated (Innocence Project).” This Explains that to be able to become free you have to still be in for years . The perpetrators and or suspects who were caught, “148: True suspects and/or perpetrators identified. Those actual perpetrators went on to be convicted of 146 additional violent crimes, including 77 sexual assaults, 34 murders, and 35 other violent crimes while the innocent sat behind bars for their earlier offenses(Innocence Project).” DNA statistics, and no evidence that showed he

Read More
1227 Words | 5 Pages

Since the founding of our judicial system there have always been individuals claiming innocence to a crime that they have been found guilty of, traditionally, after their sentencing no matter how innocent they may or may not be would have to serve, live and possibly die by the decision of their peers. The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck alongside Peter J. Neufeld faces this issue by challenging the sentencing of convicted individuals who claim their innocence and have factual ground to stand upon. The Innocence Project uses the recent advances in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing to prove their client’s innocence by using methods that were not available, too primitive or not provided to their clients during their investigation,

Read More
1242 Words | 5 Pages

Wrongful convictions Unfortunately, wrongful convictions are a part of our society today and have been for a very long time. It seems as technology and science advances, more and more individuals are discovered to be wrongfully convicted. There are many things that can be done to prevent such a tragic act from happening because not only does it impact the individual, but it impacts an entire society. This paper will discuss several approaches and changes to be made within the criminal justice system to combat this major problem.

Read More
857 Words | 4 Pages

Yet more and more people are being wrongfully convicted. Execution is irreversible, since 1973 more than 190 Americans have been released from death row with proof of innocence. The Scottsboro Boys case is a prime example of this. The Scottsboro case is the case of nine African-American teenage boys accused of raping two white women in Scottsboro, America, in 1931. They were sentenced to death, even though no evidence was given to prove them guilty.

Read More
586 Words | 3 Pages

Innocent people have been convicted and executed. Their has been a large number of death row in the United States of America since 1973, all death row exonerees were non-white. The most common causes of wrongful convictions are; eyewitness error, government misconduct, or false confessions. “If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed” (Justice Sandra Day O’Connor). About 156 individuals have been exonerated from death row which

Read More

More about Miguel Roman Jailhouse Arguments

Related Topics

Open Document