An article, “Wrongful Convictions and DNA Exonerations: Understanding the Role of Forensic Science” shown on the National Institute of Justice discusses the factors to why wrongful convictions even happen in the first place. In addition, the article helps better understand the role of forensic science in criminal cases. According to the Innocence Project, there are six contributing causes for wrongful convictions. The six contributing causes are eyewitness misidentification, false confessions or admissions, government misconduct, inadequate defense, informants, and unvalidated or improper forensic evidence. False confessions/admissions may be coerced by government officials to close a case sooner and help better their “picture”. Inadequate defense meaning the defendant did not have a professional public defense lawyer or simply could not afford a lawyer. To add on, the lawyer may have been unprofessional, was not attentive, and did not show care to the case. Government misconduct may mean professionals giving expert testimony based on unvalidated evidence to help better their portfolio and/or career. However, Dr. Jon Gould and his colleagues identified “10 factors not causes that led to wrongful conviction.” These 10 factors are younger defendant, criminal history, weak prosecution case, prosecution withheld evidence, lying by a non-eyewitness, unintentional witness misidentification, misinterpreting forensic evidence at trial, weak defense, defendant offered a family witness, states with a “punitive” culture. These “10 factors” do also relate with the Innocence Project’s “causes”. The NRE website lists a total of “1,944 exonerations since 1989 and improper forensic science is cited in 24 percent of all exonerations.” As you can see by the statistics listed in the article there are many factors that leads to wrongful convictions.
Gerald M. LaPorte the author of “Wrongful Convictions and DNA Exonerations: Understanding the Role of Forensic Science”. This article was published September 7, 2017. In the text, the author first starts off with the tragedies in the criminal justice system then to the effects of these tragedies in the criminal justice system, and then to the factors of wrongful convictions, etc. The author organized this article by using topical order. The writer’s authority for this text is to inform the people about the mistakes made in the criminal justice system even though there is such advanced technology to stop these mistakes happening in the first place. The primary audience for this text are workers involved in the criminal justice system such as lawyers, prosecutors, judges, law enforcement, future juries, forensic scientists, etc. Other audiences may be civilians, activists, researchers who further develop DNA analysis, and etc. The occasion for this article may have been because of the amount of exonerations occurring in that following year and the further advancement of DNA technology. This article is shown on the “National Institute of Justice” (nij.ojp.gov). The purpose of writing this article is to inform people about the number of wrongful convictions occurring and to further advance people’s knowledge of the role of forensic science in the criminal justice system. The article uses several graphs, data, statistics to help people understand why there are so many wrongful convictions in our criminal justice system. The author uses a formal tone to share facts and data. This article helps us understand how DNA advancements impact exonerations. The article uses other sources such as the Innocence Project and the National Registry of Exonerations to better establish credibility.
This article was very informative with the way it provided the statistics, graphs, data, and citations from other supporting materials. The article established credibility and had statistics from other sources such as the National Registry of Exonerations, more than 20 cases showing the reason why they were wrongfully convicted. I strongly agree with the information provided in this article. The criminal justice has such advanced technology yet there are so many to factors that can lead to an innocent person getting wrongfully convicted. “Because DNA can provide factually irrefutable evidence in some cases, the idea that innocent people can be found guilty has gained more awareness and acceptance over the past two decades. As a result, we have come to learn more about erroneous convictions.” As stated earlier, there are is such advanced technology in this world yet there are many wrongful convictions happening in today’s world.
LaPorte, Gerald M., et al. Wrongful Convictions and DNA Exonerations: Understanding the Role of Forensic Science, National Institute of Justice, 7 Sept. 2017, https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/wrongful-convictions-and-dna-exonerations-understanding-role-forensic-science.
Jonathan, really good and thorough job, especially with the summary. With the rhetorical analysis, it’s definitely a great start, but I think you can better explain the EFFECT some of these choices have on the reader. For example: when you say “The author organized this article by using topical order,” you might explain what you mean by that and why you think the author made that choice. What effect does that have on you as a reader?
Likewise, when you write: “The primary audience for this text are workers involved in the criminal justice system such as lawyers, prosecutors, judges, law enforcement, future juries, forensic scientists, etc” how do you know? Is it the language the writer uses? Can you show us an example of that? These are very different audiences, by the way. If I’m writing to forensic scientists, I’ll be writing about, well, the science of the situation. If I’m writing to lawyers (prosecutors are lawyers btw), I’ll be referring to specific legal briefs), if I’m writing to future juries, I’ll probably be writing a much more emotional appeal.