Crystal Buker
College Composition
Professor: Toby Roberts
September 29, 2014
Unit 9 Final Paper
Wrongful convictions are horrible. They can impact people in tremendous ways. There are several reasons for wrongful convictions. More than half of wrongful convictions can be blamed on police misconduct. Some convictions are because of false statement and mistaken identity. As government officials, it is important that the gross injustice of individuals wrongfully convicted does not occur in today’s society.
The outlook on wrongful convictions is that so many people are being convicted of crimes that he/she did not commit. These people never even get the chance to a fair trial. “There have been 318 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States; the first DNA exoneration took place in 1989, exonerations have been won in 38 states; …show more content…
There are several things that have effects on a case when an innocent person is behind bars. In one article two brothers; Henry McCollum and Leon Brown were convicted of raping and killing a young girl in 1983, which DNA evidence later freed them from death row. “McCollum and Brown spent 3 decades in prison, during those long years McCollum watched 42 men as he thought of like brothers make their last walk to the nearby death chambers to receive a lethal injection”, (Biesecker, 2014). If not for a series of lawsuits that had blocked any executions in North Carolina since 2006, McCollum said “he would have likely been put to death years ago”. (Biesecker, 2014) Innocent people convicted of crimes so many decades ago never have the chance to have his/her case looked at, unless there are attorney’s or lawyers willing to volunteer their
College Composition
Professor: Toby Roberts
September 29, 2014
Unit 9 Final Paper
Wrongful convictions are horrible. They can impact people in tremendous ways. There are several reasons for wrongful convictions. More than half of wrongful convictions can be blamed on police misconduct. Some convictions are because of false statement and mistaken identity. As government officials, it is important that the gross injustice of individuals wrongfully convicted does not occur in today’s society.
The outlook on wrongful convictions is that so many people are being convicted of crimes that he/she did not commit. These people never even get the chance to a fair trial. “There have been 318 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States; the first DNA exoneration took place in 1989, exonerations have been won in 38 states; …show more content…
There are several things that have effects on a case when an innocent person is behind bars. In one article two brothers; Henry McCollum and Leon Brown were convicted of raping and killing a young girl in 1983, which DNA evidence later freed them from death row. “McCollum and Brown spent 3 decades in prison, during those long years McCollum watched 42 men as he thought of like brothers make their last walk to the nearby death chambers to receive a lethal injection”, (Biesecker, 2014). If not for a series of lawsuits that had blocked any executions in North Carolina since 2006, McCollum said “he would have likely been put to death years ago”. (Biesecker, 2014) Innocent people convicted of crimes so many decades ago never have the chance to have his/her case looked at, unless there are attorney’s or lawyers willing to volunteer their