Continued Project....

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Wrongful Convictions in the Criminal Justice System

Charlene D. Parker

Saint Leo University

CRJ 590: Applied Project in Criminal Justice Administration

Dr. Karin May

February 21, 2021

I. The Problem

Wrongful convictions among the innocent can be the cause of multiple things that went wrong during their conviction. When a suspect is facing accusations or being allegedly suspected and accused of committing an alleged crime, they are rightfully deserving of a fair trial and conviction. Receiving a fair trial or conviction is not always rendered, as there are so many people serving jail time as a result of wrongful convictions. A wrongful conviction means that errors that occurred during the investigation or somewhere after led an innocent person to be incarcerated. These acts inhibit justice by denying innocent people their freedom while the guilty go free. The various causes of wrongful convictions need to be addressed to prevent errors and ensure that every individual accused of committing a crime is rightfully convicted.

II. Factors Bearing on the Problem

The factors bearing on the problem are four items that causally relates to this issue and for this paper, I will only be dealing with these four issues.

· Eyewitness misidentification- Eyewitness misidentification occurs whereby victims or eyewitnesses are confident that a crime was committed, yet there was mistaken identity. There is an over-reliance on eyewitnesses; however, since the human mind is not like a surveillance video, eyewitnesses have wrongfully identified people who have led to wrongful convictions.

· Police investigations- Sometimes there are erroneous procedures or incomplete investigations during their processing of an incident or crime scene. Wrongful identification and tarnished evidence of an accused perpetrator can be the main factor of misleading an investigation.

· False confessions- During an investigation or trial bears a great deal on obtaining a conviction. Incidences in which perpetrators are being coached or intimidated to lie about committing a crime.

· Committing perjury – There are times where individuals will knowingly commit perjury during a trial or criminal hearing to sway the judge or jury. Wrongful identification and tarnished evidence of an accused perpetrator can be a main factor of misleading an investigation.

III. Discussion

Eyewitness misidentification is a common occurrence in the justice department that has adverse outcomes. It can get considered as the reason that causes many wrongful convictions since trials often rely on witness testimony. When eyewitnesses provide inaccurate data, the outcome is usually innocent persons getting arrested, while the real perpetrators go free (Albright, 2017). Criminal trials often rely on eyewitness accounts since they provide a real view of an occurrence of an event. The human memory can get relied on during criminal cases since their observation is accurate. Issues arise whereby the human memory can be malleable in nature and thus result in inaccurate perceptions of events. The issues become worse in cases that cannot get refuted. It is imperative to assess the effectiveness of human memory especially when under pressure to explain criminal acts.

Eyewitness misidentification also occurs due to the stress and anxiety that witnesses often face when they get questioned by the police. This can occur more when the case is critical and emotional for the witness causing to feel obligated to ensure the police capture culprits. The police can also be responsible for eyewitness misidentification since they may become suggestive when assessing eyewitnesses. This tactic is negative for the police procedures since it influences witnesses to construct testimonies based on the police expectations. The issue also occurs whereby the police influence eyewitnesses to give testimonies based on race. It is common for the witnesses to wrongfully identify perpetrators due to racism towards certain races.

Eyewitness misidentification is highly detrimental since innocent persons often get arrested and police investigations get terminated earlier than advisable (Albright, 2017). Whenever police conduct investigations, suspects can get lined up and witnesses get asked to pick the perpetrator. The eyewitnesses can also get provided with photos of common criminals. In such cases, it is common for the eyewitnesses to get influenced by the appearance of the suspects in terms of dressing style, body art such as tattoos, and race. Eyewitnesses are also influenced by the types of weapons that witnesses carry. This causes them to focus more on giving a testimony concerning the weapon while failing to identify the person behind the attack.

The misidentification can also occur when the eyewitnesses get influenced by gender of the perpetrators. Female eyewitnesses may often get influenced to identify male perpetrators as the main suspects in crimes. This inaccuracy often misleads an investigation since the real criminal would go free. This is negative for the whole police department since resources for investigations would be directed to the wrong persons.

Police investigations at times cannot get relied on since they may be inaccurate when conducted by unscrupulous law enforcement agents. Wuthichai (2017) stated that police investigations can get inaccurate information when there is imbalance of manpower, unfair promotion, unsuitable equipment, and delays in government resources provision. The issues usually result in wrongful convictions of individuals since it is difficult for investigations to be accurate when the persons conducting research do not have enough resources and manpower. Police investigations also cannot be depended on especially when the police lacked probable cause to arrest some individuals. When investigations are inaccurate, police reports would be inadmissible in court.

The inclusion of police reports in the justice system is critical since the reports ensure officers can conduct research of the crime scenes which then gets recorded as reports. The police are required to submit their reports to their departments so that the court case that would proceed afterwards would be conducted with highest degree of integrity. The police investigations also provide prosecutors with the decision of the most appropriate case to begin court proceedings. Issues can occur during investigation stages whereby the police might take notes of the crime scenes then type of different information in the reports. It is common for the note taking process to be inaccurate as the police type the information hurriedly. When the initial investigation gets conducted with errors, it is common for the whole investigation to be inaccurate leading to a wrongful conviction.

Wrongful convictions usually occur due to false confessions whereby people get pressured to give testimonies by the police, their families, or due to pressure from the society. False confessions often occur when potential suspects get interrogated by the police who may using improper interrogation techniques (Niland & Ortu, 2020). The issue occurs more when defendants feel guilty depending on the type of crime committed. Whenever a person getting interrogated provides a confession, it is common for the jurors, judges, and attorneys to believe them. This usually overrides any information from investigations since providing contradictory information questions the validity of an investigation. Once a suspect confesses to a crime, the media, public, jurors, and officials dealing with the case would treat the suspect harshly often overlooking critical information in the case that would prove the true perpetrator.

The mental status of potential criminals usually affects criminal proceedings since it is common for the people to give wrongful convictions in order to limit interrogation sessions. False confessions can also occur due to mental issues such borderline intellectual disability which causes people to behave in ways that are not a standard (Garrett, 2018). Stress and trauma mostly cause individuals to give false confessions so that they would end the police investigations regardless of accuracy of the testimonies.

Wrongful convictions usually occur when individuals commit perjury after getting swayed the court proceedings and persons involved in criminal proceedings. The credibility of witness accounts is mainly based on the quality of witnesses and their ability to remain truthful even when faced with stressful lawyer inquisitions. The credibility of witnesses is not always guaranteed, as such, the criminal of act of perjury gets committed when the accounts change (FindLaw, 2019). Wrongful convictions further occur when witnesses get bribed or threatened before they give testimonies in court. Such cases of perjury are common especially when the cases involve criminals who are hardcore and have much influence that enables them to get to witnesses.

The mental status of a suspects affects the validity of their statement. There are suspects would deliberately lie to the court so that they create urgency in their cases based on the level of guilt they feel or the part they played in the occurrence of the crime. The existence of knowledge concerning a court case often influences potential suspects to commit perjury since they are aware of the type of punishment they would receive (Griffin, 2019). This knowledge can influence suspects to commit perjury without realizing the negative effect that would have on their cases. The presence of knowledge also influences suspects to commit perjury when they are fully aware of the severity of punishment for crimes.

It is assumed that the criminal justice system is flawed. There are many individuals that have been wrongly convicted across the country. The criminal justice system is meant to be considered indifference to innocence and errors. With these assumptions, there are as well, more innocent individuals in the jail and prison system today than there ever was.

Annotated Bibliography

Albright, T. (2017). Why eyewitnesses fail. Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, 114(30), 7758-7764. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1706891114.

The article studies eyewitness misidentification and focuses on how court proceedings can get influenced by any wrongful witness account. The author explains the correct way that eyewitness should get interrogated so that the accuracy of court cases would not be limited.

FindLaw (2019). Nothing but the Truth: What Happens When You Lie Under Oath. Retrieved 30 January 2021 from https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/perjury.html.

The article examines common examples of perjury and the effect they have on court proceedings. Perjury is detrimental to the entire justice system since criminals often go free while some individuals remain incarcerated.

Garret, B. (2018). Brendan Dassey's false confession shows we need to be more careful when interrogating juveniles. Retrieved 30 January 2021 from https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2018/06/09/brendan-dasseys-false-confession-supreme-court-column/652915002/.

The interrogation of juveniles is criticized by the article since there often negative outcomes of such court cases. The article focuses on the false confession by Brendan Dassey where he stated that he murdered a woman yet further research revealed that the lady did not die due to any physical altercation.

Griffin, L. K. (2019). Why Republicans Are Refusing to Testify. Retrieved 30 January 2021 from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/perjury-truth-courts/603727/.

Griffin explains that many Americans, especially Republicans have been often committing perjury due the level of knowledge concerning court cases. The acts are usually committed under oath as the suspects do not have high regard for the justice system and consider it to be like interviews and social media.

Niland, H. & Ortu, D. (2020). Confessions Selected by Consequences: An Operant Analysis of False Confessions and Interrogation Techniques. Behav. Soc. Iss. 29, 162–194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-019-00025-8.

The cases of false confessions have been common in the U.S.A. since criminals often confess to crimes then later get exonerated after DNA investigations get conducted. The article focuses on analyzing how false confessions impact negatively on the wellbeing of criminals and the validity of the justice system.

Rossmo, D. K. (2018). Criminal Investigative Failures. Salus Journal, 6(1), 82-84. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1706891114. Retrieved 2 February 2021 from https://salusjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/McKinley_Salus_Journal_Volume_6_Number_1_2018_pp_82-84.pdf.

Failures during police investigations often occur due to the mental status of the suspects, discrepancies during interview processes and errors that can occur in the justice system based on the techniques used to solve the case. The article proposes that investigators exercise more care when dealing with court cases so that it would be possible to maintain the credibility of police investigations during court cases.

Wuthichai T. (2017). Factors affecting the effectiveness of police performance in Metropolitan Police Bureau. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 38(1). 39-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.kjss.2016.07.001.

The article explains that discrepancies in police investigations often occurred to the lack of equipment for conducting effective research. The lack of proper manpower also affected validity of court proceedings since that influences the capability of accuracy in court proceedings.