Month: May 2019
How to improve the count of false convictions/confessions
Our justice system is pretty messed up with so many false confessions that lead to false convictions. Once the public finds out the person who was wrongly convicted was actually innocent, itâs almost as the crime doesnât seem to matter anymore. The person is free from incarceration, but their minds are still trapped in the system. Some people are freed after years of being held captive in jail, some struggle after being released, and some donât make it at all. So what can we do to prevent or improve false convictions: the final report from the study offers recommendations to help prevent erroneous convictions in the future. These include recommendations on defense practice, exculpatory evidence, eyewitness identification, false confessions, forensic error, police misconduct, weak prosecution evidence, systemic failures, and tunnel vision.Interviewees generally advised that officials should notify the original crime victim in person. One service provider suggested that officials dress in plain clothes to avert unwanted attention or speculation from community members. Service providers noted that when an in-person notification is not possible, telephone notification is preferable to a letter or other form of communication.
Recommendations varied regarding the timing of the initial notification. Law enforcement and prosecutors were reluctant to disrupt victims’ lives every time there was a claim of innocence, whereas the crime victims expressed a desire to be notified early in the process. This study did identify a complicating factor: the varying amount of time it takes for a wrongful conviction to be confirmed and then for the wrongfully convicted individual to be released. Victims and stakeholders agreed that the original crime victims should not be blindsided by the exoneration or find out after the wrongfully convicted individual has been released. Interviewees also highlighted the importance of counseling services in helping crime victims come to terms with the wrongful conviction. Given the unique nature of these cases, interviewees recommended that counseling services be provided by someone with formal training and experience working with victims of trauma. They also suggested making peer support available. Several victims recommended establishing a national network, operated by a neutral victim-centered organization, to facilitate peer support across jurisdictions. All of the victims interviewed for this study who received peer support were direct victims of a crime; additional research is needed to explore the benefits of peer support for other victims, such as family members in cases of homicide.
Finally, attorneys interviewed for this study recommended that all victims in wrongful conviction cases receive access to independent legal counsel. One attorney suggested that counsel have expertise in criminal defense, as well as training and experience working with victims of trauma. More research is needed to examine the legal considerations for victims in cases of wrongful conviction. Innocence projects do handle these cases, or at least some of them. They receive many times more letters than we do. Iâve spoken with lawyers who do this work, and who have successfully exonerated dozens of defendants. Most of them have clients who remain in prison despite powerful evidence of their innocence that no court will consider. And they all know that there are countless innocent defendants hidden in the piles of pleas for help that they will never have time to investigate.
https://www.nij.gov/topics/justice-system/wrongful-convictions/Pages/predicting-preventing.aspx
https://www.naacp.org/innocence-project/
https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2018/11/28/protect-the-innocent-prevent-wrongful-conviction/
Point B
Kalief Brown was an African American man from The Bronx, New York. In 2010, at 16 years old, Browder was blamed for the burglary of a backpack. Anticipating his preliminary, Browder was imprisoned on Rikers Island for a long time. He was discharged when the case was furtherd investigated against Browder to find out that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that Kalief Browder was innocent. Unfortunately Kalief Browder committed suicide outside outside his mother apartment on her Air conditioner.While he was in imprison for such a long time as an innocent man. You could imagine the thoughts going through his head when he assaulted and punished for no reason. The question that arises is if the criminal justice system for us or against us.
Blog False Confessions
âPlease Donât Do Itâ, âHe Didnât Do Itâ, âNo Judge, Not MY BABYYâ . . . are the words you hear on trail when the judge or duty plea the defendent guilty. He ACTUALLY didnât do it your honor. The system is pretty messed up on society especially on False confessions. âDid the time but not the crimeâ. People are being wrongly convicted for crimes they havenât done and the problem with that is the times of innocent people and youth are being wasted in a cell or in holding. False convictions and confessions are important because the majority of people has been through a false confession before. From a minor to a major crime, someone is being interrogated and forcing that person to confess in a crime that did not commit as we speak. Our goal is to inform our audience and help them understand the basic information of false convictions/confessions and how it can be an impact on society.
There are 3 branches of the U.S Government, all under the constitution with 3 different powers. The first branch is the Legislative Branch. This branch makes the laws and it falls under the congress, senate, and the house of representative. These laws have to be approved by presidential appointments from two senators from each state and then the number of congressmen is based on the population from each state. Second Branch is Executive. The executive branch carries out the law. They also veto or rejects, bills passed by Congress, and commander and chief of the military, and the laws must be faithfully executed. The last branch of the United State Government is Judicial. The judicial branch evaluates the law and falls under the supreme courts and federal courts. It also interprets the meaning of laws, applies laws to individual cases and decides if laws violate the Constitution. Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. The problem is that this branch may be the weakest branch because it cannot act unless it is called for by a case and it’s meant to protect the liberties of the people. The courts do not have power in the government and the judiciary branch has no power over society.
A false confession is “an admission to a criminal act â usually accompanied by a narrative of how and why the crime occurred â that the confessor did not commit.” This includes Characteristics of false confessions make them difficult to research. Police usually don’t keep records of them, or, if the confessed offenders are convicted, it is often difficult to prove their innocence. In addition, there is no known estimate of the incidence rate of false confessions which makes it difficult for researchers to sample random cases where false confessions may or may not be present. If sampling were possible, in many cases there are not recordings of entire interrogations or other records that would provide researchers enough data to accurately analyze the confessions. Most of the research on false confessions is based on an analysis of the DNA exoneration because of the limitations. DNA exoneration allow social scientists to examine characteristics of the interrogations leading to known false confessions, but they are not able to manipulate and measure potential variables that may cause false confession.
Dr. Richard Leo, a false confessions expert who testified in the Beatrice 6 case, discussed the three types of false confessions. One of them is Voluntary False Confessions. A false confession is knowingly given in response to little or no police pressure. Researchers and psychologists suggest that innocent suspects may voluntarily do false confessions for a variety of reasons which are a pathological desire for notoriety, need for self-punishment stemming from guilt over prior transgressions, inability to understand fact from false evidence due to mental issues or impairment, and last but not least, the desire to protect the actual perpetrator. (Usually somebody that person knows or fears)
Compliant False Confessions is false confession knowingly given to put an end to the interrogation or to receive an anticipated benefit or reward in exchange for a confession. These confessions likely occur when innocent victims succumb to social pressure during interrogation and believe that the short-term benefits of a false confession outweigh the long-term costs of prolonged interrogation. A famous example of a compliant false confession in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, discussed below, in which five young suspects were told they could end their lengthy and coercive interrogations in connection with the rape and murder of a female victim if they provided statements placing themselves at the scene and incriminating others.
    Persuaded False Confession â a false confession knowingly given by an innocent suspect who comes to doubt the reliability of his memory and thus comes to believe that he may have committed the crime despite no actual memory of having done so. Also called “internalized false confessions,” these types of confessions are admittedly rare but exceedingly prejudicial when entered into evidence.
Point C
Andrew Wilson
Life for the falsely convicted many times too often lead to horrible situations; often behind bars. For example, Andrew Wilson had lost 32 years of his life in prison before actually being freed. Innocentproject.org explains that âWilson plans to move to St. Louis to be with his 96-year-old mother, Margie Davis, who has been a tireless advocate for his exoneration since his arrestâ. 32 years of this man’s life was lost on a false conviction of a stabbing. Wilsons attorneys state that âkey pieces of evidence were never turned over to the defense during the trialâ. Andrew Wilson was 29 at the age of his conviction.
Source :
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5111
https://www.innocenceproject.org/andrew-wilson-released-after-32-years/
Kalief Browder
Another example of a false conviction that had become viral was the story of Kalief Browder. Kalief Browder was sentenced to 3 years in prison for the false accusation of stealing a backpack. Browder was 16 years of age when he was convicted. Kalief was sent to Rikers Island and over and over denied bail for a crime he had no part in. His life in prison was horrible. Kalief explained that the guards would starve him as well as repeatedly beat him. His prison time included one of the worst forms of punishment in jail today: solitary confinement. Kalief would be forced to be alone for 23 hours every day. As a teen, this would indeed be an extremely traumatic experience. So traumatic than two years after his release Kalief Browder committed suicide after never being able to recover from his time in prison.
Source :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIlSqk_pfbA
False convictions have hurt many people and taken away time that they will never get back regardless of the money paid. National Registry of Exonerations database shows that 2,265 exonerees served a total of 20,080 years in prison. 2,265 people alone have served time  9 and a half times the age of the united states of America. This is a tremendous amount of time wasted. In addition, Radley Balko from the Washington Post explains that âBetween lawsuits and state statutes that award fixed compensation for wrongful convictions, state and municipal governments have paid out $2.2 billion to exonereesâ(Balko). Not only is time wasted, but money is also wasted. This money is certainly needed for the exonerees however had our system allowed these people the justice they deserve this money could have been used on helping other parts of our country, including benefits for the poor, better healthcare, and maybe even correcting the justice system itself. False convictions not only waste time for inmates but also costs a lot and takes more time outside to prepare another trial.
Source :
ve-stolen-at-least-20000-years-from-innocent-defendants/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.42eb4365c99e
Research for Point D
Point  D: The comparison between each fasley convicted (Truman)
Detail 1: Different fasley convicted between different race and what deals they get
- http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf
- For all cases except Child Sex Abuse, Other Violent Crimes, and Other Non-Violent Crimes. (These cases are for Whites). The race that has the most false conviction is African american, then whites, then Hispanic, than other races.
Detail 2: The most common crime for fasley convicted
- http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf
- In a study for 2016 on 1900 exoneration
- 782 were on murder
- 289 on sexual assault
- 212 on sexual assault on a child
- 221 on drug related
Project proposal
Outline For Group Project
Question: How does false confessions impact on black and hispanic?
Introduction
Point A: What are false confessions? (Chrisy)
Detail 1: Why this topic should be important to the audience
Detail 2: Explain the Judicial system
Detail 3: Explain what is false confessions
Point B: The process of false confession/convicted (Frederick)
Detail 1: Explain which and why certain races are more impacts on false conviction than others.
Detail 2: Show/ Prove different people, same crime, different outcome
Detail 3: Discuss the statistics or the probability of that person getting more time and punishment than others.
Point C: The impressions on the fasley convicted. (Fahad)
Detail 1: Explain how life changed on the falsey convicted
Detail 2: Explain how false confessions impacted on the police along with judges and lawyers
Detail 3: Discuss the positive and negative effects on false convicted person
Point  D: The comparsion between each fasley convicted (Truman)
Detail 1: Different fasley convicted between different race and what deals they get
Detail 2: The most common crime for fasley conviction
Detail 3:
