History and Trends Related to Exonerations in the US.
Imagine, it’s 3 in the morning and the police are banging on your door. They confirm your identity and tell you that you’re under arrest for the murder of your neighbor. You’re confused, and you keep pleading to the officers that you’re innocent. You finally see your lawyers and they tell you your case doesn’t look good, and that there’s a lot of convincing evidence pointing to you as the suspect. Your case goes to trial, and the jury finds you guilty.
The judge sentences you to 25 years in prison. You spend the better half of your sentence wishing someone would believe that you’re innocent, until finally a lawyer looks over your case and decides to represent you. They help over-turn your conviction, and finally your free, Exonerated. You try to get acquainted to life out of prison, but there’s something different about the world you use to know. People whisper about you, you can’t find a job, and even though you’re exonerated you can’t forget how it feels to be treated like a criminal. Although you’re innocent, you still feel as though people cross the street just to avoid you.
Below is a trailer for the Documentary The Central Park Five, which follows a high profile rape case from beginning to end getting testimonies from the exonerees, their families, and even prosecutors who were around during the time of the trials. How those involved and the city of New York felt about these 5 boys, during the trial and after they’ve been exonerated. This video will give a preview to how wrongful convictions occur in the United States:
“Exonerate: to clear from accusation or blame.”
Documentaries like The Central Park Five are important because, exonerations have just recently began to receive media attention within the past few decades. Reason being, to be exonerated of a crime, the defendant must go through the system responsible for their conviction to get the conviction over-turned. So, there’s typically no coverage on the exoneration unless it was a high-profile case. To understand why exonerations occur, there must be an understanding of how wrongful convictions occur to begin with.
Most wrongful convictions are the result of faulty or corrupt DNA and forensic evidence, false confessions, and eye-witness misidentification. Paying attention to the trends related to the probable causes of wrongful convictions are also important in understanding how these situations happen. Being informed and holding those responsible for these miscarriages of justice are key to restructuring a better justice system.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, “the overall proportion of DNA cases continues to decline”. The registry reported a whopping 35% of exonerations were the result of using DNA evidence to prove innocence in May 2012, by the end of 2012 it dropped to 33% and 28% in the 2013 registry. Forensic kits used by authorities aren’t always perfect, and as a result they may show positive traces of drugs or illegal substances where there are none. The BBC, wrote an article titled Why Harris County Texas, leads the US in exonerations, describing such occurrences stating, “Past investigations have shown that these tests will show a positive hit for all kinds of things including Jolly ranchers, vitamin powder, and certain soaps.” The field test kits are known to be unreliable and resulted in “Thirty-nine of the 73 total cases in Harris County, Texas.”
False confessions, another factor that can contribute to wrongful convictions, makes up about 12% of all exoneration cases. Most would ask the question, “why would someone confess to a crime they didn’t commit?” Jones, an author for the Inquiries Journal says, “police investigators have repeatedly been found to have coerced confessions and witness identifications.” Because prosecutors deal with so many cases on a daily basis, they often pressure suspects to take plea deals. A tactic used by prosecutors, to persuade a suspect to take a plead deal. Suspects are often told that they can go home once they plead guilty until it’s time to finalize their plea deal and serve their sentence. It’s typically harder for people with false confessions to be exonerated because it’s harder to get someone to believe them, even though “false confessions may result in nearly 400 wrongful felony convictions annually.”
The last major factor related to wrongful convictions is witness misidentification. The issue with witness identification is that witnesses often believe the suspect is in the lineup so they feel pressured to pick someone, though in some cases the guilty party wasn’t present. Since prosecutors believe the witnesses choice in a suspect they often ease up on still weeding out potential suspects. Therefore, more courts are informing jurors not to rely so heavily on witness identification, because there are numerous opportunities for error.
As American citizens and taxpayers, it is important to pay attention to the practices prosecutors and officials use in the judicial system. It is important because not only are the lives of innocent people ruined by sentences related to crimes they didn’t commit, but taxpayer dollars are wasted on court fees, public defenders, and costs to house inmates who have been wrongfully convicted. The more informed Americans are on this newly introduced issue, the more conversations can be held with politicians and law officials on rectifying the issues related to wrongful convictions.
