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The Pros And Cons Of Wrongful Conviction

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With millions of criminal convictions a year, more than two million people may end up behind bars(Gross). According to Samuel Gross reporter for The Washington Post, writes that also “even one percent amounts to tens of thousands of tragic [wrongful conviction] errors”(Gross). Citizens who are wrongfully convicted are incarcerated for a crime he or she did not commit. Many police officers, prosecutors, and judges are responsible for the verdict that puts innocents into prison. To be able to get exonerated many wait over a decade just to get there case looked at, not many are able to have the opportunity of getting out. People plead guilty for crimes that are not committed by them to avoid trial, but by doing so the right decision wasn’t made. …show more content…

When citizens are wrongfully …show more content…

“ 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 or sh did it, many were exonerated and the real perpetrators were arrested. This shows that those who go through the process have go through many hardships to get out of

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I feel like after the courts made these errors over a certain amount of time that they would come up with some type of procedures to try and minimize wrongful convictions. Also I feel like it is crazy for there to be and obvious wrongful conviction. By obvious wrongful conviction I mean like in the case of State v. Dedge where half of the evidence that was pending against him wasn’t strong enough to convict some one or the witnesses used had past history of being wrong in court. I don’t understand how the court system wouldn’t take the time to help someone that was sentenced to life in prison when all evidence proves his or her

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Wrongful convictions are not usually thought of but there is a numerous amount of people that have been wrongly convicted throughout the years. Within the US there is about 2 million people behind bars meaning that 1% or 20,000 people are in for a crime they did not commit. But however, in 2015 only 149 people were cleared of a crime they didn’t not commit. Also, recent studies have said 1 out of 25 people on death row is likely innocent. One good website that has a list and the stories of people that were wrongly convicted is innocence project.

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John Louis Evans, half of a well known criminal duo, committed over forty crimes while on parole with his partner, Wayne Ritter. Included in those many incidents were robberies, kidnappings, and extortion schemes. Eventually, these crimes turned deadly when the pair killed a pawn shop owner in the midst of a robbery. After only fifteen minutes in court for the murder, Evans was sentenced to be put to death by electric chair. Evans was put to death on April 22, 1983 in Yellow Mama, an electric chair built by a convict six decades before, and had not been used in over two.

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If you were blamed for a crime you didn’t do, would you let that accusation go and let it tarnish your reputation? Would you let it fly by and have others judge from every angle? No, right? Normally people who get accused of crimes demand justice as they know they did not commit the crime and only justice can give them the freedom they deserve. But let’s look at Steve Harmon, the main character from the book Monster by Walter Dean Myers who was on trial for murder.

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Because of the way this case was investigated, Avery was sentenced to a 32 year prison sentence for a crime that he did not commit, which could have been completely

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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).

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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.

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A defense lawyer who has a heavy workload may persuade the criminal defendant to take the plea, which gives up an important constitutional right, a right to trial, in order to close many cases that he or she may be currently handling as swiftly as possible. Plea bargaining can also stir up ethical issues since criminal defendants can get off too easily with deductions in sentencing. Once a bargain for a reduced sentence is given, the victim may not be too fond of this adjustment from the original charge. The victim and their family could feel as if the justice system failed them, especially if the criminal defendant did not receive the punishment that they

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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)

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Even if murderers committed a crime, they are still human beings and they are innocent if proven guilty, so

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Introduction Did you know “About 10,000 people in the United States may be wrongfully convicted of serious crimes each year, a new study suggests (Spring & Huff, n.d.). ” The results are based on a survey of 188 judges. Can you imagine being incarcerated for a crime you had nothing to do with?

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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,

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Wrongful Conviction 11 Every year there is 2 million people convicted for a crime 1 percent of those people are wrongfully convicted which would mean 20,000 people a year have a chance being innocent. Despite the growing number of people who go through this not many people would believe the convicted when they claim their innocent. There is a problem that does continue to grow, but should the wrongfully convicted be compensated, how would the amount be decided, should all states part take. When wrongful conviction comes to mind no one thinks about how big of a problem it has come to become. Many of the people who were apart of this were in many cases left for a jury to decide based on evidence provided.

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The main reasons for exonerations are pardons, new evidence, acquittals, and posthumous knowledge that a person was  innocent ( ). The National Registry of Exonerations defines exonerations as “any case in which a wrongfully convicted person is later officially cleared based on evidence” ( ).  Some data from the NRE that compares the exonerations of males and females include the fact that “women were disproportionately represented in the ‘no crime’ category” with 65% for women versus 21% for men ( ). Another analysis of the data shows that “women’s exonerations were more likely to include property, drug, and other offenses” and most of the women’s convictions were crimes involving people they knew and whereas half of the male exonerees involved

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Today our justice system has a multitude of options when dealing with those who are convicted of offenses. However, many argue that retributive justice is the only real justice there is. This is mainly because its advantage is that it gives criminals the appropriate punishment that they deserve. The goals of this approach are clear and direct. In his book The Little Book of Restorative Justice, Zehr Howard (2002), illustrates that the central focus of retributive justice is offenders getting what they deserve (p. 30).

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