Wrongful Convictions Causes & Remedies
Preventing Wrongful Convictions
Newspaper Articles, Magazine Articles, and Television Broadcasts:
- Study of Wrongful Convictions Raises Questions Beyond DNA - The New York Times (July 23, 2007). Explore the factors known to cause wrongful convictions, presented by The New York Times.
- The Wrong Man - The Atlantic Monthly (Nov. 1999). Read about patterns of prosecutorial and police misconduct, inept legal representation, false confessions, and mistaken eyewitness identifications in several cases in which innocent criminal defendants were sentenced to death, and then exonerated.
Reports and Reform Efforts:
- Achieving Justice: Freeing the Innocent, Convicting the Guilty - American Bar Association (2006). Review the report prepared by the ABA Ad Hoc Innocence Committee to Ensure the Integrity of the Criminal Process, focusing on factors known to cause wrongful convictions and analyzing proposed reforms.
- Lessons Not Learned - Innocence Project (2007). Learn about the wrongful convictions in New York that have been overturned by DNA evidence.
Journal Articles:
Erroneous Eyewitness Identifications
Newspaper Articles, Magazine Articles, and Television Broadcasts:
- Eyewitness: How Accurate is Visual Memory? - CBS News 60 Minutes (2009). View a must-see report on the flaws of eyewitness identification, including interviews with Professors Gary Wells and Elizabeth Loftus.
- Eyewitness IDs Don't Always Mean Justice - National Public Radio (2009). Listen to a conversation between Slate.com senior editor Dahlia Lithwick and National Public Radio's Madeleine Brand, discussing the reliability of police lineups and eyewitness accounts.
- Frontline: What Jennifer Saw - PBS Frontline. Explore a PBS series special report examining how eyewitness error contributes to wrongful convictions through an in-depth case study of Ronald Cotton, who was cleared of a rape conviction by DNA evidence after serving nearly 11 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Reports and Reform Efforts:
- Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcement - U.S. Department of Justice (1999). Explore the eyewitness identification guidelines recommended for use by law enforcement officials by a group of 34 seasoned professionals in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice.
- When Our Eyes Deceive Us. - Newsweek (Mar. 23, 2009). Read an article describing the failures of eyewitness identification that have lead to widespread reforms.
- North Carolina Adopts Lineup Reforms - Raleigh News & Observer (2007). Learn about the eyewitness identification procedures presently required of law enforcement officials under North Carolina law.
Journal Articles:
False Confessions
Newspaper Articles, Magazine Articles, and Television Broadcasts:
- The Case for Videotaping Interrogations - Los Angeles Times (Oct. 24, 2008). Learn how a suspect's false confession to a murder affected a seasoned police officer's understanding of false confessions.
- False Confessions - Washington Post (2001). Read a series of articles in the Washington Post exploring the question of why people confess to crimes that they did not commit.
- True Crimes, False Confessions - (Saul M. Kassin & Gisli H. Gudjonsson) Scientific American (May 2005). Learn the reasons why innocent people confess to crimes they did not commit.
Reports and Reform Efforts:
- False Confessions - Innocence Project. Learn about the role and prevalence of false confessions in wrongful convictions.
Journal Articles:
- The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World - (Steven A. Drizin & Richard A. Leo) North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 82, p. 891 (2004). Explore the findings of a study of 125 recent cases of proven interrogation-induced false confessions, questioning how these cases were treated by officials in the criminal justice system.
Jailhouse Informants and Other Unreliable Witnesses
Newspaper Articles, Magazine Articles, and Television Broadcasts:
- Frontline: Snitch - PBS Frontline (1999). Learn about how a culture of snitching in many cases rewards the guilty and punishes the innocent.
Reports and Reform Efforts:
Journal Articles:
Junk Forensic Science
Newspaper Articles, Magazine Articles, and Television Broadcasts:
Reports and Reform Efforts:
Journal Articles:
Prosecutorial Misconduct
Newspaper Articles, Magazine Articles, and Television Broadcasts:
Reports and Reform Efforts:
- Harmful Error - Center for Public Integrity (2003). Explore the findings of the Center for Public Integrity's study of nearly 12,000 cases spanning a 30-year period, illuminating the problems created by prosecutorial misconduct.
- Improving Prosecutorial Accountability: A Policy Review - Justice Project (2009). Learn about the Justice Project's proposed solutions to the systemic problems that lead to prosecutorial misconduct.
Journal Articles:
Suggestive Interview Tactics and Unreliable Memories
Newspaper Articles, Magazine Articles, and Television Broadcasts:
- But Sweetie, You Love Lima Beans - New York Times (Aug. 31, 2004). Read about a unique study of false memories conducted by psychologists in California and Washington.
Journal Articles:
