Digital Evidence Is Behind Only a Tiny Fraction of Wrongful Convictions
The intriguing questions behind why this might be
I have a new article live at An Injustice!, about the human factors behind the kinds of mistakes in forensic science that can lead to wrongful convictions.
The article came about after I learned of a research report, published earlier in 2023, that explored this topic in much greater detail. The long and the short of it: since 1989, 732 cases and 1,391 forensic examinations resulted in exonerations for the defendants involved.
This report, and my article, focused on forensic evidence in general, but I want to highlight one finding in particular: just 16 cases — two percent of those 732 — involved digital evidence.
I was intrigued. After all, it’s commonly accepted that digital evidence touches all types of crimes, and many family and civil cases as well. Furthermore, the field has been around since at least the 1980s.
So why did it factor in only 16 exonerations since 1989?
I contacted the National Registry of Exonerations to find out more. Professor Simon Cole, of the University of California-Irvine’s Department of Criminology, Law & Society, suggested several reasons for the…
