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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, it’s almost as the crime doesn’t 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 don’t 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. I’ve 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/

 

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.

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 “Wilson 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 arrest”. 32 years of this man’s life was lost on a false conviction of a stabbing. Wilsons attorneys state that “key pieces of evidence were never turned over to the defense during the trial”. 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 “Between lawsuits and state statutes that award fixed compensation for wrongful convictions, state and municipal governments have paid out $2.2 billion to exonerees”(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

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

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: