Why are people wrongfully convicted

The National Academy of Sciences recommends funding strong research to validate forensic sciences, setting federal standards, and—on the state level—enacting commissions like the Forensic Science Board and Scientific Advisory Committee in Virginia.

Click here for more information about what can go wrong and how to fix it. Earl Washington was an intellectually disabled year-old when he confessed to raping and murdering Rebecca Williams in Culpeper County, Virginia. His confession had problems. He was wrong about the race of the victim and the way she was killed, he did not know she had been raped, and he was fed information about the crime.

Physical evidence indicated that he could not have been the perpetrator. Nonetheless, he was prosecuted, convicted, sentenced to death, and only fully exonerated 14 years after DNA testing proved he was not the perpetrator. It is hard to believe that anyone would confess to a crime they did not commit, but situations like Mr. People who have falsely confessed often are juveniles, mentally disabled, or mentally ill, but they also include people with normal or even high IQs.

The focus of most suspect interrogations is getting a confession, not investigation. This can be a challenge, even if the person is guilty. Police interrogators therefore work to make confessing seem like a rational choice. They emphasize how strong their evidence is and then suggest to the suspect that confessing is their only chance to minimize the consequences of the crime. Interrogations that produce false confessions last an average of eight hours, and some have lasted more than 24 hours.

Some interrogators threaten suspects with the death penalty or the loss of their children. Also, police are allowed to lie to suspects about what evidence they have.

In most false confession cases, police have given information about the crime to the suspect, so their confessions contain some accurate information about the crime. Many jurisdictions all over the country are taking steps to prevent false confessions. The most common form of prevention is videotaping all interrogations, from start to finish, which is required by law in DC.

Not allowing police to lie to suspects also would help prevent false confessions. In addition, some experts on police practices have recommended changing the way suspects are interrogated altogether—focusing on investigation and information gathering rather than solely on getting confessions. Click here to learn more. His cellmate was Paul Carter, a federal prisoner who later testified that Mike had confessed to him in that jail.

Prosecutors said that Mike was transferred because of overcrowding in the local jail, and Carter told the jury he could not receive a benefit for his testimony. Both were lies. Lawyers working with MAIP eventually learned that Mike was transferred so that he could be placed in a cell with Carter, an informant who had testified in several other cases. And Carter not only expected a benefit in his case, but he received one—with the help of Culpeper authorities.

The use of informants like Carter is a common and consistent problem in wrongful conviction cases at MAIP and all over the country. As the pace of DNA exonerations has grown across the country in recent years, wrongful convictions have revealed disturbing fissures and trends in our criminal justice system. Together, these cases show us how the criminal justice system is broken — and how urgently it needs to be fixed. In each case where DNA has proven innocence beyond doubt, an overlapping array of contributing factors has emerged — from mistakes to misconduct to factors of race and class.

For every case that involves DNA, there are hundreds that do not. Only a fraction of criminal cases involve biological evidence that can be subjected to DNA testing, and even when such evidence exists, it is often lost or destroyed after a conviction. Innocent people have been convicted because forensic lab workers made errors in testing, testified inaccurately about their results, or fabricated results. Inadequate lawyers can cause wrongful convictions, too. African Americans are burdened by a presumption of guilt that most defense lawyers are not prepared to overcome.

Children and people with mental disabilities are especially vulnerable to being wrongly convicted. EJI won the release of Diane Tucker , a woman with intellectual disability who was wrongfully convicted of murdering an infant, by obtaining medical evidence that proved the baby never existed. Official misconduct and racial bias led to Mr.

E ven when incarcerated people manage to get evidence that proves their innocence, police and prosecutors often refuse to re-examine the evidence or re-open the case. Police, prosecutors, and judges are not held accountable for misconduct that leads to wrongful convictions, such as fabricating evidence, presenting false testimony, or refusing to consider proof of innocence. Immunity laws protect them from liability even in cases of gross misconduct. Unlike teams assigned to review individual cases or a series of questionable convictions, CIUs are designed to operate indefinitely and have a dedicated staff.

EJI confronts official indifference to innocence by challenging wrongful convictions in court, advocating for broader access to DNA testing, and supporting the creation of Conviction Integrity Units to prevent, identify, and correct false convictions. Colbey was wrongly convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole when she gave birth to a stillborn baby. EJI successfully challenged her conviction.

Anthony Ray Hinton spent 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit because of racial bias, inadequate counsel, and prosecutorial indifference to innocence.