Wrongful Conviction
It seems that even with the guidance of the 13th Amendment we still have the repeating error of wrongful conviction. Every 1 in 25 Americans that has been sentenced to death have been later proven of being innocent (Gross, 2015). To Resolve the problem of wrongful conviction in the prison and jail system the governor should lower the sentencing of minor crimes, strengthen the use of DNA and, review old cases often. The United States has been known of being very tough when it comes to implementing punishment, although some crimes are heinous and deserves punishment there’s also those who were convicted of petty crimes and were falsely identified and either facing a life sentence and or dead.
Government Misconduct
Wrongful …show more content…
Whether by perjury or eyewitness/victim error (Project, 2016). The criminal justice put more than necessary faith in eyewitness testimony. An eyewitness testimony is not a reliable source for the simple fact that only after innocence is proven is it made clear that eyewitness testimony was flawed. Many factors that can lead to eyewitness misidentification include but not limited to the witness lying and PTSD. It is not possible to know the number of wrongful convictions by mistaken identity, because many who are mistakenly identified will never have a chance to prove their innocence (Project, 2016) Moreover, the problem cannot be known because occasions when prosecutors drop the case or when people are acquitted after reversals on appeal. While appellate decisions are published and readily available online, the problem with trial acquittals or dropped cases, is that they are not systematically catalogued and made public. 68% of all DNA exonerations have been based in part on mistaken witness identification (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2014). Faulty eyewitness occurs more when there is a cash reward involved. More than half of eyewitnesses switch up their story from the beginning of the trail till the end but still ends up having a major role in the conviction of an innocent individual. Majority of these cases surrounds false rape allegation. For instance, Timothy Cole was a Texas Tech University student who was wrongly convicted in the 1985 rape of Michele Mallin. Cole was arrested and accused of being the Texas Tech rapist. The eyewitness account of one victim was all it took to get him imprisoned. Cole had never been in trouble with the law and didn’t match the description of the attacker a chain-smoking rapist. Cole was asthmatic and didn’t smoke cigarettes, the only connection was that Cole worked near where Mallin was raped. Police arrested Cole on that evidence alone. There was no physical
It seems that even with the guidance of the 13th Amendment we still have the repeating error of wrongful conviction. Every 1 in 25 Americans that has been sentenced to death have been later proven of being innocent (Gross, 2015). To Resolve the problem of wrongful conviction in the prison and jail system the governor should lower the sentencing of minor crimes, strengthen the use of DNA and, review old cases often. The United States has been known of being very tough when it comes to implementing punishment, although some crimes are heinous and deserves punishment there’s also those who were convicted of petty crimes and were falsely identified and either facing a life sentence and or dead.
Government Misconduct
Wrongful …show more content…
Whether by perjury or eyewitness/victim error (Project, 2016). The criminal justice put more than necessary faith in eyewitness testimony. An eyewitness testimony is not a reliable source for the simple fact that only after innocence is proven is it made clear that eyewitness testimony was flawed. Many factors that can lead to eyewitness misidentification include but not limited to the witness lying and PTSD. It is not possible to know the number of wrongful convictions by mistaken identity, because many who are mistakenly identified will never have a chance to prove their innocence (Project, 2016) Moreover, the problem cannot be known because occasions when prosecutors drop the case or when people are acquitted after reversals on appeal. While appellate decisions are published and readily available online, the problem with trial acquittals or dropped cases, is that they are not systematically catalogued and made public. 68% of all DNA exonerations have been based in part on mistaken witness identification (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2014). Faulty eyewitness occurs more when there is a cash reward involved. More than half of eyewitnesses switch up their story from the beginning of the trail till the end but still ends up having a major role in the conviction of an innocent individual. Majority of these cases surrounds false rape allegation. For instance, Timothy Cole was a Texas Tech University student who was wrongly convicted in the 1985 rape of Michele Mallin. Cole was arrested and accused of being the Texas Tech rapist. The eyewitness account of one victim was all it took to get him imprisoned. Cole had never been in trouble with the law and didn’t match the description of the attacker a chain-smoking rapist. Cole was asthmatic and didn’t smoke cigarettes, the only connection was that Cole worked near where Mallin was raped. Police arrested Cole on that evidence alone. There was no physical