Jessica Scott Mr. Malgeri Forensic Science September 28, 2016 Ronald Cotton It started in July 1984, when a attacker broke into Jennifer Thompson-Cannino's apartment and sexually assaulted her while she was held at knife point. Jennifer stated that when it was happening she just wanted to memorize his face so that if she lived through the horrible crime she would be able to identify him. Later on, Jennifer chose Ronald Cotton, a black restaurant dish washer, out of a photo lineup as the assailant. And chose Cotton in a live line up a second time.…
The Triangle Factory Fire Trial: Blanck and Harris go Free After the devastating Triangle Waist Company fire, 146 workers out of the 500 working that day perished in the raging fire. Workers died left and right due to panic, confusion, and chaos. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris were blamed for the deaths of the many workers. Many people believed that they locked doors and that their fire safety precautions were almost nonexistent. They were taken to court on charges of manslaughter and were found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter (Christianson).…
State v. Rusk, 424 A.2d 720 289 (Md. Ct. App. 1981) On September 1, 1977, Pat and Edward Rusk met at a bar. The two became acquainted while having drinks.…
Holtzclaw did admit to coming into contact with some of the women while working and even arresting some of them. Holtzclaw's attorney questioned the credibility of several of the accusers during this trial. They also described parts of the trial and what the victims said Holtzclaw did to them. The 17-year-old alleged victim testified that Holtzclaw searched her for drugs and then later raped her.…
As is commonly known, a portion of today’s trials that take place are accusing the wrong person. But how long has this been a problem? There have been multiple trials in the past that have had the same thing occur, and many individuals are tried for crimes they did not commit. A large portion of those people are even found guilty and wrongfully thrown in jail. Unfortunately, Eddie Joe Lloyd was one of those people.…
There was no physical evidence connecting Bloodsworth to the crime, however, he was sentenced to death row because of his conviction of rape and murder. Bloodsworth’s conviction was overturned by the appellate court…
Foster v. Chatman Late 1980s a young man named Timothy Tyrone Foster, age 18 black African-Americans was charged with the murder of a white elderly woman named Queen White. During the court-martial, the persecuting attorney decided to use his Peremptory Strikes to remove all four black jurors. The prosecutor violates the race-neutral acts, the members of the jury pool used extreme strategy against the race matching of the defendant. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Batson v. Kentucky, it does not let to use an unconditional attack that defines as a racial discrimination, but they remove any burden they may affect the case so they can give him a fair trial by using legal racially biased jury selection method. At the end, Tyrone Foster was sentenced to the death penalty for the murder he convicted by all the white jury.…
On March 26, 1968, the city of Chicago had adopted an ordinance that prohibited protesting within 150 feet of a school during school hours with an exception for peaceful labor protest that would go into effect on April 5, 1968. A man by the name of Earl Mosley had been protesting against black discrimination on the sidewalk beside Jones Commercial High School for seven months prior to the enactment of the ordinance. After seeing the announcement in the newspaper, Mosley had contacted the Chicago Police Department to find out how the ordinance would affect him. The police department informed him saying that if the protesting continued they would arrest him. On April 4, 1968, the day before the ordinance would be enacted, Mosely had ceased…
Eventually, the criminals were figured out and caught. Due to security cameras in the bank their crime was captured on film. Douglas O. Linder explains how they were caught by the security camera in Patty Hearst Trial (1976). The criminals were caught by a security camera in the bank. After figuring out who was part of the crime some were caught specifically Patricia Heart a few months after the crime.…
In 1933 one of the women that initially accused the boys of rape admitted to the event never happening when a judge went to the medical examiner the second testimony was proven true. In 1995 new trials were again once again ordered due to the unfair jury where 4 of the men were let free and the other four were sentenced to…
DNA evidence could not be presented as the physical evidence had been destroyed. However, the Innocence Project investigators found that less sophisticated forensic testing used in 1982 showed that Swift did not commit the crime, but the jury never heard this evidence. The victim picking out the seven other suspects before selecting Swift, was never presented to the defense attorneys or prosecutors. On top of everything else, Lawrence R. Greene, Swift’s court-appointed trial attorney, failed to follow up on the identification process during trial and did not present the clear forensic evidence. Greene was later suspended from practicing law several times based on misconduct and unethical representation in other cases.…
A Case of Mistaken Identity In July of 1984 in the state of California, a woman named Jennifer Thompson she was raped in her apartment after someone broke in, but she was not the only one another woman was raped that same night. Ronald was a man accused of committing those crimes. It was then up to the jury to decide whether Ronald Cotton was the man who committed those crimes. In the end, Ronald Cotton was a man wrongly convicted of two counts of rape and burglary.…
Ron Cotton didn 't even fit the height description of the criminal. The worse part I think happened to him is the police stated several times that the women were raped by the same guy, so why would he be taken back to court and convicted with a second life sentence for the rape of Mary 's rape. When Ron 's blood type does not match the blood found at the second crime scene. Mary could not even Identify her attacker. So the only evidence linking Ron to the second rape was speculation and same MO.…
Judicial murder made by inequity legal system In the month after “Making a Murderer” premiered on Netflix, more than 129,000 Americans signed a petition to pardon Avery and Dassey for their convictions to the murder of Halbach and in the book ‘in cold blood’ written by Truman Capote, the two murderers were treated by ignoring the mental problem influence of theirs, they stayed in prison for five years and were finally performed death penalty. After reading the book and watching the TV show, I think these crimes sufficiently prove that there is a fundamental inequity at work in countless branches of legal system. Making a Murderer tells a story about the life of Steven Avery, who was convicted of rape in 1985 and imprisoned for 18 years, despite…
In the book “Ordinary Injustice” by Amy Bach, chapter four titled “Show Trial”, describes a number of different cases showing wrongful convictions being processed through the criminal justice system based off of false confessions. In Chicago, there was a nine-year-old girl named Lisa Cabassa was found raped and killed in the back of an alley a couple miles from her home. Two months after the rape and murder of Lisa, a witness named Judy called the police to give her testimony on the crime. Her statement consisted of her telling the police the people involved with the crime were named Michael Evans and Paul Terry, whom were teenagers from the neighborhood. She spotted them with Lisa that night.…