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Wrongful Convictions Thesis Statement

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1. What is your thesis statement? Innocent individuals have been wrongfully convicted for crimes that they did not commit. This has happened in the past, before DNA technology was available, however, it continues to happen today. Some people have spent several months behind bars, while others have spent decades behind bars, all while being innocent. There are several reasons that this occurs, and there are several ways to correct this life changing problem. This includes misidentification. This is a huge problem that leads to wrongful convictions. DNA evidence mishandling and tampering also help to convict innocent individuals. Lab technicians that are undereducated in handling, analyzing and interpreting DNA evidence is another major problem …show more content…
State why it is a problem. Wrongful convictions are a problem. Innocent individuals lose their freedom, their family and friends, their careers and their entire life in general, as they know it. Many, become depressed and are susceptible to suicide. The wrongful conviction problem is the result from several other problems that caused these individuals to be convicted to begin with. Many of these problems are within the criminal justice system and legal system itself. Misidentification, evidence mishandling and tampering, and undereducated lab technicians are a few problems within the criminal justice system that must be dealt with to ensure wrongful convictions do not take place. Eyewitness Misidentification Testimony was a factor in 75 percent of post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in the U.S. making it the leading cause of wrongful convictions (naacp.org). Evidence mishandling and tampering is another contributing factor of wrongful convictions. In many cases, evidence has been altered, destroyed and even lost and therefore cannot be used in trials. While this may sometimes happen out of error or can be due to the undereducation of some laboratory technicians, it has also been proven to happen purposefully. These factors are the cause of so many innocent individuals being wrongfully convicted. This causes so many lives to be destroyed in countless

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