Download or read book Wrongful Conviction and Exoneration written by Lisa Idzikowski and published by Greenhaven Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1989, there have been over 2,200 exonerations in the United States. These have resulted from a number of factors, including the discovery of new evidence, perjury, false identification, and bad forensic evidence. Even when an individual is exonerated, is it possible to compensate them for their loss of time and money? This volume looks at the issue from varying perspectives, exploring causes of wrongful convictions, ways to increase exonerations for those who were unjustly imprisoned, strategies to decrease the number of wrongful convictions going forward, and appropriate compensation for those who have lost years of their lives.
Download or read book In Spite of the System written by Gary Gauger and published by . This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Wrongful Convictions written by Justin Brooks and published by Vandeplas Pub.. This book was released on 2018-07-03 with total page 698 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wrongful Convictions: Cases and Materials is the first legal textbook to explore the complex and fascinating legal and scientific issues involved in wrongful convictions and the exoneration of the innocent. This exciting area of the law is developing at a rapid pace as we learn more about the causes of wrongful conviction with each exoneration. The book is designed to teach about procedure related to the cases, as well as give a broad overview of the causes of wrongful convictions including false eyewitness testimony, false confessions, ineffective assistance of counsel, police and prosecutorial misconduct, and false forensic evidence. In this third edition, there have been significant updates to the cases and statutes from the previous edition, including expanded notes at the end of the chapters, as well as additional chapters on infant deaths, sex crimes against children, and arson.
Download or read book WRONGFUL CONVICTION written by John A. Humphrey and published by Charles C Thomas Publisher. This book was released on 2018-01-04 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The magnitude of wrongful conviction is increasing across the country and around the world, with individuals arrested, convicted, and incarcerated for extended periods of time. This book provides an understanding of legal remedies, organizational reforms, and policy changes that have been proposed and implemented. In various jurisdictions, these procedures reduce the likelihood of a wrongful conviction. Legal and organizational reforms and changes in criminal justice policy are considered at three key junctures of the process: (1) the investigation, evidence gathering, and forensic analysis, (2) prosecutorial decision-making, and (3) the judicial review and exoneration of a wrongfully convicted defendant. Each chapter opens with a wrongful case vignette that illustrates the reform strategies being considered. The investigatory process is studied on each case, and the police process is analyzed in detail. Part 1 includes the introductory chapter that provides an overview of wrongful convictions, and the investigatory process routinely employed to gather evidence and identify a suspect. The analysis of forensic evidence is explored, including the chain of custody, contamination of the evidence, misinterpretation, and the falsification of forensic reports. Part 2 focuses on the prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and juries. Plea bargaining strategies, coaching witnesses, violations of the rules of discovery, use of jailhouse snitches, inadequate defense counseling, lack of preparation and adequate resources are examined. Part 3 analyzes the processes involved in the reversal of wrongful convictions, the judicial review, and obstacles encountered in the exoneration process. In addition, the authors provide a thorough analytical overview of the criminal justice processes involved in wrongful conviction and the reforms that are needed to prevent and reverse injustices. This book is an invaluable resource for prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, advocates for the wrongfully convicted, criminal justice policymakers, law and society, and will contribute to academic courses in the fields of criminology and justice.
Download or read book Wrongful Convictions and the DNA Revolution written by Daniel S. Medwed and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, most people believed the criminal justice system worked - that only guilty defendants were convicted. DNA technology shattered that belief. DNA has now freed more than three hundred innocent prisoners in the United States. This book examines the lessons learned from twenty-five years of DNA exonerations and identifies lingering challenges. By studying the dataset of DNA exonerations, we know that precise factors lead to wrongful convictions. These include eyewitness misidentifications, false confessions, dishonest informants, poor defense lawyering, weak forensic evidence, and prosecutorial misconduct. In Part I, scholars discuss the efforts of the Innocence Movement over the past quarter century to expose the phenomenon of wrongful convictions and to implement lasting reforms. In Part II, another set of researchers looks ahead and evaluates what still needs to be done to realize the ideal of a more accurate system.
Download or read book Convicting the Innocent written by Brandon L. Garrett and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-04 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 20, 1984, Earl Washington—defended for all of forty minutes by a lawyer who had never tried a death penalty case—was found guilty of rape and murder in the state of Virginia and sentenced to death. After nine years on death row, DNA testing cast doubt on his conviction and saved his life. However, he spent another eight years in prison before more sophisticated DNA technology proved his innocence and convicted the guilty man. DNA exonerations have shattered confidence in the criminal justice system by exposing how often we have convicted the innocent and let the guilty walk free. In this unsettling in-depth analysis, Brandon Garrett examines what went wrong in the cases of the first 250 wrongfully convicted people to be exonerated by DNA testing. Based on trial transcripts, Garrett’s investigation into the causes of wrongful convictions reveals larger patterns of incompetence, abuse, and error. Evidence corrupted by suggestive eyewitness procedures, coercive interrogations, unsound and unreliable forensics, shoddy investigative practices, cognitive bias, and poor lawyering illustrates the weaknesses built into our current criminal justice system. Garrett proposes practical reforms that rely more on documented, recorded, and audited evidence, and less on fallible human memory. Very few crimes committed in the United States involve biological evidence that can be tested using DNA. How many unjust convictions are there that we will never discover? Convicting the Innocent makes a powerful case for systemic reforms to improve the accuracy of all criminal cases.
Download or read book Surviving Justice written by Voice of Witness and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated presents oral histories of thirteen people from all walks of life, who, through a combination of all-too-common factors-overzealous prosecutors, inept defense lawyers, coercive interrogation tactics, eyewitness misidentification-found themselves imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. The stories these exonerated men and women tell are spellbinding, heartbreaking, and ultimately inspiring.
Download or read book Anatomy of Innocence Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted written by Laura Caldwell and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recalling the great muckrakers of the past, an outraged team of America’s best-selling writers unite to confront the disasters of wrongful convictions. Wrongful convictions, long regarded as statistical anomalies in an otherwise sound justice system, now appear with frightening regularity. But few people understand just how or why they happen and, more important, the immeasurable consequences that often haunt the lucky few who are acquitted, years after they are proven innocent. Now, in this groundbreaking anthology, fourteen exonerated inmates narrate their stories to a roster of high-profile mystery and thriller writers—including Lee Child, Sara Paretsky, Laurie R. King, Jan Burke and S. J. Rozan—while another exoneree’s case is explored in a previously unpublished essay by legendary playwright Arthur Miller. An astonishing and unique collaboration, these testimonies bear witness to the incredible stories of innocent men and women who were convicted of serious crimes and cast into the maw of a vast and deeply flawed American criminal justice system before eventually, and miraculously, being exonerated. Introduced by best-selling authors Scott Turow and Barry Scheck, these master storytellers capture the tragedy of wrongful convictions as never before and challenge readers to confront the limitations and harsh realities of the American criminal justice system. Lee Child tells of Kirk Bloodsworth, who obsessively read about the burgeoning field of DNA testing, cautiously hoping that it held the key to his acquittal—until he eventually became the first person to be exonerated from death row based on DNA evidence. Judge John Sheldon and author Gayle Lynds team up to share Audrey Edmunds’s experience raising her children long distance from her prison cell. And exoneree Gloria Killian recounts to S. J. Rozan her journey from that fateful "knock on the door" and the initial shock of accusation to the scars she carries today. Together, the powerful stories collected within the Anatomy of Innocence detail every aspect of the experience of wrongful conviction, as well as the remarkable depths of endurance sustained by each exoneree who never lost hope.
Download or read book Convicting the innocent written by Edwin Montefiore Borchard and published by Рипол Классик. This book was released on 1961 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Overturning Wrongful Convictions written by Elizabeth A. Murray, PhD and published by Twenty-First Century Books. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine being convicted of a crime you didn't commit and spending years behind bars. Since 1989 more than 1,400 Americans who experienced this injustice have been exonerated. Some of the people who have won their freedom include Ronald Cotton, who was falsely convicted of raping a college student; Nicole Harris, who was unjustly imprisoned for the death of her son; and intellectually disabled Earl Washington Jr., who was unfairly sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a young mother. Wrongful convictions shatter lives and harm society by allowing real perpetrators to potentially commit additional crimes. How can such injustices happen? Overturning Wrongful Convictions recounts stories of individuals who served someone else's prison time due to mistaken eyewitness identification, police misconduct, faulty forensic science, poor legal representation, courtroom mistakes, and other factors. You'll learn about the legal processes that can lead to unjust convictions and about the Innocence Project and other organizations dedicated to righting these wrongs. The sciences—including psychology, criminology, police science, and forensic science—work hand in hand with the legal system to prosecute and punish those people whose actions break laws. Those same sciences can also be used to free people who have been wrongfully convicted. As a society, can we learn from past mistakes to avoid more unjust convictions?
Download or read book Wrongful Convictions written by Justin Brooks and published by Vandeplas Pub.. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wrongful Convictions: Cases and Materials is the first textbook to bring together the law related to the exoneration of innocent people wrongfully convicted of crimes. This exciting area of the law is developing at a rapid pace with the increasing numbers of exonerations of innocent people around the world. The book is designed to give a broad overview of the cases related to the causes of wrongful convictions including false eyewitness testimony, false confessions, ineffective assistance of counsel, police and prosecutorial misconduct, and false forensic evidence. It is also designed to teach students the legal standards involved in habeas litigation, the parole processes, and post-release compensation. Professor Justin Brooks is the Director and Co-Founder of the California Innocence Project, a law school clinic devoted to the exoneration of innocent men and women wrongfully incarcerated in the state of California. Over the course of his career he has served as counsel on several high profile criminal cases, and along with his co-counsel and students he has been successful in exonerating many wrongfully convicted clients. Professor Brooks works extensively throughout Latin America training defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement. He is a founding board member of the Innocence Network and has launched innocence work in Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia.
Download or read book Postconviction DNA Testing written by National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence (National Institute of Justice) and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A report from National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence"--Cover.
Download or read book The Victimology of a Wrongful Conviction written by Nicky Ali Jackson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-07-07 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book exposes the myriad of victims of wrongful conviction by going beyond the innocent person who has been wrongfully incarcerated to include the numerous indirect victims who suffer collaterally. In no way overlooking the egregious effects on the wrongfully convicted, this book widens the net to also examine consequences for family, friends, co-workers, witnesses, the initial victims of the crime, and society in general—all indirect victims who are often forgotten in treatments of wrongful conviction. Utilizing interviews of exonerees and indirect victims, the authors capture the tangible and intangible costs of victimization across the board. The prison experience is examined through the lens of an innocent person, and the psychological impact of incarceration for the exoneree is explored. Special attention is given to the often-ignored experience of female exonerees and to the impact of race as a compounding factor in a vast number of miscarriages of justice. The book concludes with an overview of the victimization experiences that follow exonerees upon release. Unique to this book is its interdisciplinary approach to the troubling subject of wrongful conviction, combining perspectives from a number of fields, including criminal justice, criminology, victimology, psychology, sociology, social justice, history, political science, and law. Undergraduate and graduate students in these disciplines will find this book helpful in their respective areas of study, and professionals in the legal system will benefit from appreciation of the far-reaching costs of wrongful convictions.
Download or read book Smoke But No Fire written by Jessica S. Henry and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2020 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Winner, Silver (Political and Social Sciences) Winner of the Montaigne Medal, awarded to "the most thought-provoking books" The first book to explore a shocking yet all-too-common type of wrongful conviction—one that locks away innocent people for crimes that never actually happened. Rodricus Crawford was convicted and sentenced to die for the murder by suffocation of his beautiful baby boy. After years on death row, evidence confirmed what Crawford had claimed all along: he was innocent, and his son had died from an undiagnosed illness. Crawford is not alone. A full one-third of all known exonerations stem from no-crime wrongful convictions. The first book to explore this common but previously undocumented type of wrongful conviction, Smoke but No Fire tells the heartbreaking stories of innocent people convicted of crimes that simply never happened. A suicide is mislabeled a homicide. An accidental fire is mislabeled an arson. Corrupt police plant drugs on an innocent suspect. A false allegation of assault is invented to resolve a custody dispute. With this book, former New York City public defender Jessica S. Henry sheds essential light on a deeply flawed criminal justice system that allows—even encourages—these convictions to regularly occur. Smoke but No Fire promises to be eye-opening reading for legal professionals, students, activists, and the general public alike as it grapples with the chilling reality that far too many innocent people spend real years behind bars for fictional crimes.
Download or read book Levon and Kennedy written by Isabelle Armand and published by powerHouse Books. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two African American men from poor, rural Mississippi wrongfully convicted for crimes they didn't commit. Lost years of their lives spent in jail and finally released a decade a half later thanks to the Innocence Project and DNA testing. This is their life for all to see. In the early 1990s in a small disadvantaged community in rural Mississippi, Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer were wrongfully convicted in separate trials of capital murder. Brooks, despite an alibi, was sentenced to life and was imprisoned for 18 years. A few years later Brewer was convicted and sentenced to death. He was incarcerated for 15. In 2008 the Innocence Project in New York exonerated both men. Vanessa Potkin, longtime attorney at the Innocence Project, along with co-founder of the Innocence Project, Peter Neufeld, spent years investigating the two cases, and discovered a link between them that subsequent DNA testing substantiated. The results of that testing led authorities to the real perpetrator who was responsible for both murders and then to the exonerations of Brooks and Brewer. Without the work of the Innocence Project, Potkin, Neufeld, and a host of others, these photographs-of lives lost, forgotten, and then regained-would not have been possible. The photographs' poignance is made all the more powerful as one contemplates their stark, deeply felt beauty against the haunting realization that they were almost never able to be made or seen at all. The evidence against Brooks and Brewer consisted primarily of bite mark matching evidence. A prosecution expert testified that in both cases multiple bite marks covered the victims' bodies and matched the defendants' teeth impressions. A group of experts retained by the Innocence Project later determined that the marks were not bite marks at all. As a forensic discipline, bite mark matching has come under serious criticism in recent years and led to the exoneration of multiple other prisoners. This same prosecution expert testified not only in Brooks's and Brewer's cases, but a host of others in Mississippi and the region. The extent of the damage is still unknown. In 2012, photographer Isabelle Armand came across an article about these two cases. Such a scenario seemed unbelievable. How, why, and where could this happen? How does one cope with wrongful conviction? For the next five years, she spent several weeks each year documenting Brooks, Brewer, their families and their environment. This intimate photographic essay, akin to looking in a mirror, puts faces on the victims of wrongful convictions. It seeks to raise consciousness, challenge popular perceptions about poverty and inequality in our criminal justice system, and demands that we confront these critical issues.
Download or read book Wrongful Convictions written by Justin Brooks and published by Vandeplas Pub.. This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wrongful Convictions: Cases and Materials is the first textbook to bring together the law related to the exoneration of innocent people wrongfully convicted of crimes. This exciting area of the law is developing at a rapid pace with an increasing numbers of exonerations of innocent people around the world. The book is designed to give a broad overview of the cases related to the causes of wrongful convictions including false eyewitness testimony, false confessions, ineffective assistance of counsel, police and prosecutorial misconduct, and false forensic evidence. In this second edition, updated cases have been added as well as the topic of clemency. The book is also designed to teach students the legal standards involved in habeas litigation, the parole processes, and post-release compensation. Professor Justin Brooks is the Director and Co-Founder of the California Innocence Project, a law school clinic at California Western School of Law in San Diego devoted to the exoneration of innocent men and women wrongfully incarcerated in the state of California. Over the course of his career he has served as counsel on several high profile criminal cases, and along with his co-counsel and students, he has been successful in exonerating many wrongfully convicted clients. Professor Brooks works extensively throughout Latin America training defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement. He is a founding board member of the Innocence Network and has launched innocence work in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. He has been named several times as one of the top one hundred lawyers in California by the Los Angeles Daily Journal and has twice won a California Lawyer Magazine Attorney of the Year award for his work exonerating innocent men and women.
Download or read book Picking Cotton written by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2010-01-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times best selling true story of an unlikely friendship forged between a woman and the man she incorrectly identified as her rapist and sent to prison for 11 years. Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape, and eventually positively identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken-- but Jennifer's positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars. After eleven years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA test that proved his innocence. He was released, after serving more than a decade in prison for a crime he never committed. Two years later, Jennifer and Ronald met face to face-- and forged an unlikely friendship that changed both of their lives. With Picking Cotton, Jennifer and Ronald tell in their own words the harrowing details of their tragedy, and challenge our ideas of memory and judgment while demonstrating the profound nature of human grace and the healing power of forgiveness.
