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Why Do People Convicted When They Only Have Circumstantial Evidence

606 Words3 Pages

Why are people always convicted on something they only have circumstantial evidence on? I believe that there is many more ways for a jury to find out if a person is guilty or not and circumstantial evidence is one of the main things they use. Most of the time people get blamed for something they didn’t do and they don’t even have all the evidence to prove that one is guilty. So then they end up going to jail for a crime they did not commit. I don’t believe a person should be convicted of a crime based only on circumstantial evidence because I don’t think it’s fair for the victim. The victim might not have all the evidence of what happened to them but they know that it really happened or maybe there isn’t any witnesses but the victim.
For example, in Los Angeles on January 18, 1991 a man named Donald Sarpy who was putting his …show more content…

He was a very talented football player who had just accepted a four-year scholarship to play football in the University of Southern California. He had gone out of class to use the telephone and he saw Wanetta Gibson a girl he knew since middle school. They got into an elevator and went to a secluded area of the school that was known as the “makeout” spot. When they went back to their classes Wanettas teacher criticized her for taking long. So she passed a note to her friend saying she had gotten raped by Banks and that she was no longer a virgin. They then reported what happened, later on that night Banks was arrested. On January 3, 2002 they charged Banks with two counts of forcible rape and one count of sodomy with a special circumstance of kidnapping. Banks was facing a potential prison term of 41 years to life, he pleaded no contest on July 8,2003. He was then only sentenced to 6 years. In 2006 Banks filed a petition on how there was no biological evidence that he had raped her. The petition was denied as

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