Topic: Flaws in Evidence Leading to Wrongful Conviction (to be removed)
Wrongful conviction has been situation of concern due to recurring types of flawed evidence that has proved to be true by the forensic expert, prosecutors, police officers, jury and defense attorney. However, constitutional admissibility standards of evidence scrutiny had been questioned in regards to the various exoneration that occurred from wrongful conviction of innocent.
Evidence like eyewitness identification errors, false confessions, flawed forensic science, false jailhouse informant testimony, prosecutor and police misconduct are all recurring features of wrongful conviction in criminal justice system and these has called for susceptible correction within the law enforcement environment because the police officers and forensic analysts are the first contact to any inceptive evidence that would be presented in court.
Many people have been wrongly convicted due to invalid and reliable evidence presented to the jury for court processing. When dealing with high extent criminal cases, it is important for court jury, prosecutors, police officers and other forensic expert to ensure high scrutiny of evidence before forwarding it to court. Proper assessment of evidence prevents increase in wrongful convicted case while the perpetrators moves freely without being apprehended. The worst nightmare for anyone is for innocent person to be wrongfully convicted. However, the criminal justice system ensures high number of safeguard to avoid wrongful conviction but if there is little flaw in the evidence presented and testified in court it could lead to wrongful conviction of innocent.
Over the years, different public attention has focused on why the guilty are set free and the innocent being incarcerated. Some people question the criminal justice system, for example, whether the trade-off created by the exclusionary rule between the loss of probative evidence and the need to regulate police conduct is appropriate. Others argued that the courts are too stingy in admitting evidence of other misconduct by a criminal defendant (Furman, 2003). But, the truth is wrongful conviction has been great issues for the prosecutors, defense lawyers and police officers. However, law enforcement agents are creating every way possible to ensure that high validity and reliability of evidence are presented to the jury to reduce the increase rate of wrongful conviction.
The most leading cause of wrongful conviction is the admissibility of eyewitness identification testimony and hearsay evidence. These two type of evidence had threatened the criminal justice system in the wrongly conviction of innocent. It has been proven that many cases involving innocent convicted individuals has been victims of eyewitness identification testimony. Looking back at Cody Davis case who was wrongly convicted and exonerated after many years in prison due to DNA analysis. He was convicted following the testimony from two eyewitnesses, using traditional photo lineup methods, years after considerable social science research had shown that the procedures police used in his case were likely to create significant risks of misidentification. Despite abundant scientific research on better ways to conduct identification procedures, and extensive research demonstrating the prevalence of eyewitness error in wrongful conviction cases, police were still using old, unreliable identification procedures (Findley, 2015). However, this was not the only case that eyewitness identification testimony had led to wrongful conviction of innocent, but despite the fact the police are still utilizing the use of eyewitness evidence as a means of testimony in many cases. Hence, hearsay evidence has also proven to be false sometimes. Though it can be of great use and case breakthrough and it could also be highly valued by the police or jurors but it must abide by the evidence exception rule before it could be presented in court.
Following the increase in wrongful conviction researchers has placed interest in understanding the reasons why there are recurring causes of wrongful convictions. Applying different knowledge into improving the criminal justice system, it has been discovered that the growth of this system has lagged far behind. However, putting into consideration the interrogation techniques used that could cause false confessions has not been improved despite numerous research about the interrogation techniques to change the way police interrogate suspects, or the way courts approach admissibility of confession evidence. Although it is widely recognized that electronic recording of custodial interrogations is the single most important safeguard against false confessions, and that electronic recording is the future, most jurisdictions still do not require recording (Findley, 2015).
Forensic science evidence also plays a significant role in convicting the innocent though it could be clearly substantial. At the same time, DNA increase the exoneration rate of the innocent that has been wrongfully convicted for years. Studies has reviewed that 63% of the wrongful conviction and false or misleading testimony are caused by forensic science evidence. Research has proved that DNA and death row exoneration cases since 1986 are found to be in faulty crime lab work or testimony by forensic expert. The most recent study of two-hundread DNA exonerations found that forensic evidence (present in 57% of the cases) was the second leading type of evidence (after eyewitness identifications at 79%) used in wrongful conviction cases. Thus, the most embarrassing case was the one done from the FBI laboratory, where the metallurgist expert pleaded guilty for giving false testimony concerning bullet lead case (Gianneli, 2007). When FBI forensic expert could commit a crime of perjury, it won’t be surprising to witness other invalid evidence which had caused miscarriage of justice leading to wrongful conviction.
There should be reformation and increase in high scrutiny of evidence in our legal system. Though DNA analysis has enhanced the rate of exoneration in the society, but it also has its own flaws. If DNA testing is not properly carried out or there are some sorts of mistakes that could lead to transfer of DNA from one person to another or an object. If such situation occur innocent would be wrongfully convicted while the perpetrator moves freely in our society without proper justice. Though forensic science had advanced compare to the olden days but there are still flaws in the usage of forensic science evidence. Reviewing Dotson’s case, he was wrongfully convicted through invalid forensic science evidence for many years, while scientific advances had also led to his exoneration (Garrrett & Neufeld, 2009).
Independent oversight like increase in investigation and audits are provided for most of the crime laboratories due to numerous scandals that has risen from faulty evidence provided by those labs that led to increase in high rate of exoneration. Thus, scientist, legislators, and lawyers have questioned the validity and reliability of certain forensic evidence provided in court for justice. The utmost reformation that could be done to reduce flawed evidence is for the government to provide high defense against the collection of evidence during criminal investigation and prosecution. This gives the defendant rights to due process under the constitution. This duty should preserve and scrutinize the evidence once any state or federal officer has gathered and taken possession of the legal evidence as part of their investigation.
The accuracy of evidence is not a concerned shared by the government, law enforcement agent or the defense lawyer alone, but its paramount issue for the public safety as well. Perjurious witnesses, over-reliance on circumstantial evidence, and overzealous prosecution were deemed the other most frequent causes of wrongful convictions (Furman, 2003). Testimony from informants or accomplices, with incentives to lie, false confession, and guilty pleas, suppression of exculpatory evidence, ineffective assistance of counsel, and proper investigative measures are other factors that mostly lead to wrongful conviction of innocent. Limited access to qualified defense attorney for protection against wrongful conviction with proper investigation of the evidence against their client makes all the factors listed put innocent defendants at risk of wrongful conviction (The Justice Project, 2009).
Flaws in the admissibility of expert evidence has led to exoneration of wrongfully convicted person. Due to increase rate in exoneration the court had provided broad discretion to reject opinions of expert if they are not fully scrutinized and supported by the court standard data. Expert evidence or witness plays major part in the correlation process to validate and make an evidence reliable while presented in court. An expert witness had been described as ‘one who has made the subject upon which he speaks a matter of particular study, practice or observation: and he must have a particular and special knowledge of the subject’ (Dole v Johnson, 50 N Hamp 454). The expert testifies in court per their area of specialization and they help evaluate the validity of evidence due to their years of experience, knowledge, educational achievement and research they might have done in their chosen field. All this are accessed by the court before an expert could testify in the court but it’s unfortunate that with all the scrutiny they could still provide flawed evidence in court which would lead to wrongful conviction.
The flaws in evidence has revealed the loop hole in our criminal justice system. It’s embarrassing that the Supreme court’s due process test has failed in their efficiency to provide meaningful protection against suggestive police practices or otherwise use of unreliable evidence. State Supreme Courts are, of course, free to depart from the federal standard in interpreting their State Constitutions, and they possess other powers to supervise the administration of justice and control the admission of evidence (Thompson, 2010).
Reformation is needed in the criminal justice system to stand against flawed evidence presentation. And this must start with the police, they are the first contact to any legal evidence to confirm the crime situation. Their confirmation would lead to the reliability of the evidence which would be reported to the defense attorney and the jurors. However, if there are mistake during the gathering and confirmation of evidence it would affect the court judgement and public safety as well. The Supreme court should place affirmation on its decision that every evidence attained must follow the constitutional doctrine to screen for the reliability and validity, there would be greater enhancement to the rules that govern the assurance of evidence and it will improve the accuracy off trial outcome to avoid the wrongful conviction of innocent.
There must be fair trial process of all the race. Numerous problem involved eyewitness misidentification because the accused was of different race. Studies had reviewed that people of all races are less accurate in identifying strangers of a different race than their own (Thompson, 2010). It has been researched that eyewitness evidence is highly susceptible to contamination if it is not confirmed in relation to the evidence exception rule for collecting and using of eyewitness identification. However, eyewitness identification is one of the widest spread and powerful forms of evidence in our criminal justice system that has led to enormous rate of wrongful conviction (The Justice Project, 2009).
All evidences are important and must be reliable and valid enough to be use in justification of any case after undergoing thorough process of scrutinizing. This is because many flawed evidences had been confirmed to be incorrect, incomplete, biased after many years of wrongful conviction of innocent. Even though the person is exonerated, after serving time in prison such individual’s life can never be balance and the criminal justice system as no compensation to offer. Also, friends and family might be nowhere to be found and low chance of getting any work because such person’s life has been hindered with criminal record and a chance at living happy has been lost due to flawed evidence (New York City Bar, 2010).
CASE STUDY
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ANDRE DAVIS, Defendant-Appellant
No. 16995
Appellate Court of Illinois, Fourth District
105 Ill. App. 3d 549; 433 N.E.2d 1376; 1982 Ill. App. LEXIS 1697; 61 Ill. Dec. 48
April 8, 1982, Filed
SUBSEQUENT HISTORY: Post-conviction relief granted at People v. Davis, 2012 Ill. App. LEXIS 146, 2012 IL App (4th) 110305 (2012)
PRIOR HISTORY: Appeal from the Circuit Court of Champaign County; the Hon. ROBERT J. STEIGMANN, Judge, presiding.
DISPOSITION: Reversed and remanded.
CASE SUMMARY
PROCEDURAL POSTURE: Defendant challenged a judgment of the Circuit Court of Champaign County (Illinois), which convicted him of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment after a trial in which the jury gave a general verdict of guilty and was recalled to deliberate on sentencing, aggravation and mitigation, and the death penalty, giving three verdicts. He claimed that it was error for a bailiff to fail to communicate to the trial judge an inquiry from the jury.
OVERVIEW: Defendant allegedly raped and killed a three-year-old girl in a room in the house of his friends, which was next door to her home. A police officer who responded to a call was given an anonymous tip about defendant’s location and arrested him; he refused to sign a Miranda form and shook his head when his rights were read to him. Officers spoke to him and claimed that he never indicated he did not wish to speak; he told them he did not rape her. On review, the court found that it was error for a bailiff to not inform the trial judge of the jury’s request for a transcript at the start of its sentencing deliberations the day after they returned the general verdict; that the jury had requested only one item and not a complete transcript; and that the acts of the bailiff were wrong as an officer of the court subject to its direct supervision and instruction. The court reversed and found that the trial court had lost control of the verdict after the jury separated and that juries were not permitted to redeliberate. The court ruled that he was to be retried, that a charge of kidnapping was not used as an enhancement to the sentence, and that the State did not hide a witness’s conviction.
OUTCOME: The court reversed the judgment and remanded for a new trial.
OPINION
This man was wrongfully convicted for many years due to the flawed evidence that was used against him at the court. He spent over 31 years in prison for rape and murder he did not commit. The first testimony used against him was the defendant’s evidence. He testified that he changed his blue jeans to red pants before leaving the house where the murder occurred. A small boy also testified that he saw a man coming out of the crime scene location on the day of the murder and he further stated that the man he saw was acting strangely. Though the boy was unable to identify the man he saw. One of his friend also testified that when she arrived at his house he was wearing red pants. All the evidence was eyewitness identification testimony which was used against him. The defendant filed a law suit claiming that the court used aggravating factors found by the jury based upon the flawed evidence at the trial without any additional evidence which enhanced the punishment to life imprisonment. The defendant argued that the proper evidence was not available to established beyond reasonable doubt for him kidnapping the victim and therefore he could not have found guilty of aggravated kidnapping. The admissibility of the evidence was mishandled by the jury without following the right standard regarding the reliability of the evidence. The defendant further stated that he was deprived of fair trial and the judgement giving to him must be reversed.
Eyewitness identification testimony has ruined many lives and led to wrongful conviction like Davis. The jury didn’t help in the accessing the reliability and validity of the evidence that was presented in court. The was an error right from the police, because they are the first contact to the crime scene and they gathered the evidence without proper scrutiny. It is the right of the law enforcement agent to preserve, evaluate, investigate evidence to ensure its genuine reliability, since most jurisdiction has the rules and constitution that governs the reliability of evidence under the Due Process Clause. The government failed in their duty to protect the defendant’s rights to due process and fair trial under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment constitution.
Davis was later exonerated after serving 31 years in prison. He was free after DNA test that established that two other men committed the crime which he was wrongfully convicted. There was a law suit charged against the federal civil rights and state law for conspiracy among the police officers at the Illinois Department of Law Enforcement officers and the doctor who testified and fabricate coercing and false evidence against him which led to wrongful conviction of Davis spending more than half of his life in prison.