Essay On Wrongful Convictions

Wrongful convictions are an atrocious act; wrongfully stripping an individual of his God given freedom for majority of his or her life and attempting to compensate them with monetary settlements cannot rectify such a heinous situation. Eyewitness misidentification is the greatest contributing factor to wrongful convictions proven by DNA testing, playing a role in more than 70% of convictions overturned through DNA testing nationwide. Ronald Cotton is a prime example of how unreliable eyewitness testimonies are. In 1995, Ronald Cotton was exonerated after spending over 10 years in prison for crimes he did not commit. His convictions were based largely on an eyewitness misidentification made by one of the victims, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino. Jury and officers alike completely ignored his alibi and when he was placed on the line with other suspects …show more content…
The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission recommended the case of Joseph Sledge for judicial review after newly discovered evidence cast doubt on whether he had anything to do with the killings of Josephine Davis, 74, and Ailene Davis, 53, in their Elizabethtown home.
DNA testing has exonerated over 200 convicts, some of whom were on death row. Studies show that a substantial number of these miscarriages of justice involved scientific fraud or junk science. The failures of crime labs and some forensic techniques, such as microscopic hair comparison and bullet lead analysis. Some cases involved incompetence and sloppy procedures, while others entailed deceit, but the extent of the derelictions - the number of episodes and the duration of some of the abuses, covering decades in several instances - demonstrates that the problems are