Wrongful Conviction

The surprising number of pardons involving DNA evidence has proven that the criminal justice system often time makes serious mistakes. Those mistakes have a very real and devastating impact on everyone involved- from the innocent person who has been disregarded for years in prison, to past and future victims of the real criminal who remains free to commit other crimes.

Despite all of these costs, the prisoners who can be pardoned are the lucky ones. In most of cases, DNA evidence is not available to conclusively prove a prisoner’s innocence, either because the case did not involve DNA evidence or because the evidence was destroyed.

The most common causes of wrongful convictions are: 1. Inadequate Defense Counsel
2. False Confessions 3. Lab fraud 4. Snitch 5. Police or Prosecutorial misconduct

Last but not least;  Mistaken Eyewitness identifications.

Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing.

While eyewitness testimony can be persuasive evidence before a judge or jury, 30 years of strong social science research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated.

Remember it can happen to anyone, even YOU!!