Imagine being charged for a crime based off of an inaccurate eyewitness testimony. Not only charged for the crime, but it was also decided that you would face capital punishment because of it. Knowing you had nothing to do with the crime, but still the stress of being on death row ate you to pieces. After years of being on death row, fearing and stressing when your day would come, you are finally exonerated after more careful and accurate investigation has been done. Thankfully, neither I or anyone I know had to go through this, but there are many that do. This scenario refers to the term wrongful conviction. The term wrongful conviction means, a conviction of a person who are in fact innocent, but who have been wrongly convicted by a jury or other courts of law. Researchers found that 149 people were cleared in 2015 for crimes they didn’t commit, in comparison to 139 people who were exonerated in 2014. (Garrett, 2008) The increase number of exonerations shines light on the doubts of the accuracy and fairness of the criminal justice system. The three main factors that wrongful convictions come about are eyewitness identification, forensic science error or misconduct, and false confessions. People should not be convicted for any of the misconduct and inaccuracy of these factors. Throughout this critical analysis paper, I will explore these factors of wrongful convictions and reforms that can decrease the number of wrongful convictions.
History of Wrongful Convictions
Wrongful convictions began well before the 1900s, however not many paid any interest or attention to these cases. However in 1913, Edwin Borchard’s article opened the eyes of observers to the world of wrongful convictions by describing European approaches to righting the wrongs of erroneous convictions. In the 1970s, some cognitive psychologists conducted eyewitness experiments which led to a lot of information portraying that eyewitnesses were often inaccurate and the procedure of a lineup or show up could make or break the eyewitness accuracy. Jumping to 1987, Hugo Bedau and Michael Radelet published their study in the Stanford Law Review, which brought light to 350 people who had been wrongly convicted in potentially capital cases over much of the twentieth century. In 1989 the first DNA exoneration took place in the United States and showed how DNA could twist up a innocent persons life up. (Huff, Rattner, Sagarin, 1996) This caused many prisoners to petition for DNA testing that knew they had nothing to do with the crime they were convicted of. Wrongful convictions also tie into the controversy of the capital punishment topic. Many of these exonerations support the position of eliminating capital punishment. Innocent lives are on death row, luckily enough some of those people are able to be exonerated. What about the ones who receive capital punishment who are actually innocent?
The Wrongful Conviction Problem
Wrongful convictions seem to be a controversial issue. Some believe that the amount of wrongful convictions are so small that it can be over looked. A study conducted by Professor Samuel Gross and colleagues that counted 340 known exonerations between 1989 and 2003 (Gross, Jacoby, Matheson, Montgomery, & Patil, 2005). In an article by Stephen Bright, he stated that , “over 100 people condemned to death in the last 30 years have been exonerated and realized after new evidence established their innocence.” Luckily enough this evidence came to surface before it was too late. Of course exonerations are more easy for murder and rape cases rather than robberies, assault and or burglary which have to rely mainly on eyewitness identification and circumstantial evidence which could be unreliable. Of course the exact number of the wrongly convicted is unknown, because there aren’t any agencies state or federal that keep track of them. The main factors that will be touched on in this paper are eyewitness identification, forensic science error or misconduct, and false confessions.
Eye Witness Identification
Inaccurate eyewitness identification is one of the main factors of wrongful convictions. Eyewitness identification was involved in 79% of the first 200 DNA exonerations. (Cutlet, B. L., & Penrod, 1995) Although there is not an exact number or rate for inaccurate eyewitness identifications, some researchers place it at a 25%. We are not video recorders, so some of our memories and information is a little inaccurate or strewed. Our environment and other things going on during the time can effect that. If there is a lot of stress or a weapon involved in the crime, most people will focus on that weapon and not notice the person at all with the weapon, let alone any physical features of them. If the crime is taken place at night, that will definitely play a role on our memory and eye sighting of the suspect. Also the speed of the crime plays a role. If there was high speed you are less likely to pick up on any physical features that could help identify the suspect. In addition to all these environmental factors that play a role in facial recall, unconscious transference plays a role. Unconscious transference can lead a witness to recall a face of someone previously observed, but not well known onto the memory of the perpetrator. Memory is dynamic and can change in a snap of a finger under the influence of suggestion. Police procedures can make eyewitness identification even more worse and flawed. Police have depended on “show ups,” which is the act of showing the suspect or the suspects picture alone to the witness without a line up. With all the environmental factors that played a role and the flaws of our memory, a show up can point the finger to an innocent person. A show up can inaccurately point the finger to someone based on weather the witness had a good view of the suspect, was able to give an accurate description, and viewed this show up shortly after the crime. If the witness was unable to complete any of these factors, an innocent person can be behind bars for a very long time.
Misconduct or Forensic Science Error
Issues with expert evidence presented by forensic examiners or scientist is the second leading factor of wrongful convictions, as the reason for 57% of the first 200 DNA exonerations. Although defined in many ways and different forms, Forensic error and misconduct include, problems inherent in the method, incompetent or untruthful experts, and insufficient forensic labs. A story that really stuck with me that reflects this is a story of a man named Clifford Jones. He served nearly 30 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit, but because of new DNA evidence he was set free in 2016. He was convicted solely because of a lineup ID by the victim who was a heroin addict. Finally in 2016, Clifford Jones hairs were tested and did match the hairs that were left on a baseball cap left by the perpetrator. At the time of the case it was said the there were not enough hairs on the baseball cap left by the perpetrator to test for DNA. Yes, Clifford Jones was not sentenced to death, but was an innocent man who spent 30 years in jail so this is a good example. It took only 30 years for the hair on a baseball cap left at the scene to be tested. What if the baseball cap was never tested. An innocent man would still be behind bars. Risinger (as cited in Gross, O’Brien, & Kennedy, 2014) found that, “ had biological samples been available for testing in all cases, 3.3% of defendants sentenced to death between 1982 and 1989 for murders that included rape would have been exonerated by DNA evidence through February 2006.” That does not seem like a lot of people wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death based off of insubstantial evidence, but just think of the false conviction rate that is outside of that study period.
False Confessions
Its hard to believe as to why someone who is innocent with falsely confess. However in an article by Saul Kassin, “False confessions were a contributing factor in over 25% of case in the United States, all involving rapes and murders—the crimes for which DNA evidence typically is found and in the broader population of wrongful convictions identified by the National Registry of Exonerations, which includes non‐DNA cases and a more diverse sample of crimes, false confessions have contributed to 13% of wrongful convictions.” Is the police interrogation process that intimidating? The process obviously is trying to get a confession from a guilty person that is trying hard to not confess. Focusing on personality traits, Gould (2008) has found that individuals who are prone to compliance in social situations are especially vulnerable because of their eagerness to please others and a desire to avoid confrontation, particularly with those in authority. However, confessing to something you had absolutely no part of is still really mind blowing. Thoughts It uses strong psychological techniques to get suspects to confess which sometimes messes it up for innocent people. Usually when a interrogation is taken place, its in a small isolated room which is uncomfortable. Which can also play a role in false confession which could make a person nervous than they already are. False confessions also come about when a person is tortured into confessing. Some techniques of torturing during questioning can include waterboarding, force feeding, fingernail pulling, whipping, confinement, and a lot of other ways as well. Now who wouldn’t confess to make these painful tactics stop?
Reducing the Number of Wrongful Convictions
There will always be wrongful convictions in our criminal justice system. However, there are some reforms that could reduce the number of them. There are many different root causes of wrongful convictions, but the ones I did touch on can be addressed to reduce the number that wrongful convictions take place. As far as eyewitness identification goes, there can be different procedures and policies to improve the accuracy of them. Police should inform witnesses that during a line up or show up that the suspect may not be present to make the witness feel less pressured to just pick someone because they believe that they are out there. The line up and show up should not only be don’t in photos, but maybe also live as well too see all physical features. Instead of picking people that are similar to perpetrator, the fillers of the line up or show up should be identical to what the witness describes to the officers of what they believe the suspect looks like. The line up should also be done in a reasonable time after following the crime, the memory of the witness only can recall the suspect in a reasonable time. To decrease misconduct and or forensic science attributing to wrongful convictions, crime labs and examiners should be well up to date with certification and testing to make sure they are up to date on any procedure and policies. As well as everyone on the legal side should be educated on forensic evidence and procedures. Keeping funds up to make sure if a piece of evidence needs to be retested, money should not be an issue. To reduce the false confessions, the way interrogations are done could be tighten up. If interrogations were video taped from beginning to end, as soon as both interrogator and suspect stepped into the room. If interrogations were actually played for the pretrial judges, this would allow them to see if a false confession came about because of the way the interrogation was done. On the other hand this would also benefit the police offers because the confessions by the guilty would be good evidence in court actually having it on video.
Conclusion
Wrongful convictions were first not much paid attention to. However, wrongful convictions are a big talk about problem in criminal justice.