Wrongful Convictions

Implications from wrongful convictions cause greater harm among the society in which the offense happened. Law enforcement and criminal justice agencies suffer burdens of errors with correcting errors that were caused toward the legal processes. Wrongful convictions according to Mark Handler are the most serious of all miscarriages of justice. (p. 30) Due to the fact that individuals should not be put through the complications of being incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. Such an action violates their rights and causes humiliation and suffering to the family. Even after exoneration the long term problems do not disappear and result in a lifetime of burdens such as financial suffering, emotional stress, and psychological problems become catastrophic. Criminal justice resources are also wasted due to trials and invalid incarceration of an innocent inmate. Additionally while the wrong person in jail the real assailant is free causing additional crimes within the community. This results in the criminal justice system becoming demoralized. Not only can an innocent person be sentenced to jail but some can be put on death row which can result in the killing of an innocent person. Although these types of cases are rare, occasionally they do happen. Occurrences such as these can result from lack of …show more content…
The inability to correctly process evidence, especially DNA, can make or break a case. With the necessity of DNA in a murder or rape case is amongst the highest with wrongful convictions and if obtained incorrectly more wrongful convictions can be the result. Additionally training within laboratory technicians can also cause a case to become corrupted. If reports or testing is askew an offender can become incarcerated on faulty science. Prosecutors have also been known to violate the rules of a criminal trial to get a wanted sentence or