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Mitchell Banister
British Literature
10/5/11
Mrs.Maxwell
Wrongful convictions
America has arguably the greatest justice system on the face of the planet, but it is very
far from perfect. The main problem with it is that it relies heavily on people and people are easily
corrupted or have biases. America’s justice system has an alarming rate of wrongful convictions,
and a number that seems to increase more and more as technology improves and shows what was
wrong with the cases. In our system we are supposed to believe that justice is “blind” but as we
look at our justice system and past cases we can see that is clearly not the cases. The only thing
that is wrong with our system seems to be the people within it. The people in it that are causing
these unjustices are not quick to say they are wrong and do not think these people show be
compensated for the time that our government had taken from them and the reputations that they
have destroyed just so the case could be put away.
People, people are what is messing up our justice system by doing things that I consider
unspeakable, and the end result is someone being locked away. The first thing that should get
any lawyer disbarred without trial is tampering with evidence; the way most prosecutors do this
is by ignoring evidence that could easily set someone free. Many times (in cases of wrongful
convictions) prosecutors will throw out evidence that could have set the innocent person free.
Police officers are also to blame for innocent people getting their lives stripped from them; their

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interrogations can last for hours and can cause a lot of distress for the person being interrogated.
These people can give away false confessions because of the officers chipping away at them
until person sells their freedom. Forensic scientists also can take some blame by mishandling
forensic evidence they can help put someone away for a long time. Though it is less common
now, scientist would use improper science and claim it as “evidence” or they would ignore
evidence (just as some prosecutors still do today) that could have let that person be. Also they
would testify as “experts” but by todays terms would not be so and would make exgerated
claims. They were also known to use terms to confuse the jury and they would assume that the
scientist was right based on the fact he was using big terms they could not understand.
Eyewitness reports also were a big factor in wrongful convictions. Eyewitnesses are now
considered highly unreliable unless there are many others that saw the same thing. Human
memory usually isn’t very good, while this is known it really was not considered in the courts
and used anyways. Eyewitness testimony is the number two reason an innocent person was
convicted behind the misuse of forensic evidence (RadleyBalko, Reasons.com). The last big reason
behind wrongful convictions are the use of informants (snitches) and how they’ll point and
testify against a person knowing they are innocent the help a friend get away with the crime and
have another person fall for it.
However these innocent people can and have gotten out of jail eventually, but it took
extreme patience, technology, and good people to get them out of jail. DNA evidence was
introduced in the 1980’s and has been the sole reason many innocents have been exnorated from
the charges periveously convicted of. Many scientists have gone through case files and tested the
evidence for DNA than tested the DNA from the prisoner only to find no match and then let said
prisoner go. More and more people are getting out of jail due to DNA evidence, and wrongful

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convictions should go down more and more due to this eliminating them as a suspect, before
charges where pressed against him. Richard Buckland was the first person ever to be exnorated
due to DNA evidence; he was accused of murdering and rapeing a fifteen year old girl but due to
semen samples taken from the girl then collected frim him it was shown that it could not of
dbeen him and he was relased from police custody (Susan Elvidge, Explore Forensics). Recently
a man in Ohio was exnorated after 30 years in prison for the rape of an eleven year old girl.
Another problem with wrongful convictions happen is after the person is exnorated then
what? Should they be paid for that time that the government wrongfully took away from him?
This is something most exnorees try to do when getting directly out of jail, and all are getting
mixed results. A man who had been imprisoned for 20 years got rewarded 1.2 million dollars for
his time served, and yet another in North Carolina got his 18.4 million reward overturned. Others
have been outright thrown out, no judge can really seem to agree on what they think about
exnoree rewards. When they are awarded moneyshould it be taxable? In Texas a man spent 12
years imprisoned and was awarded six hundred thousand dallors for his time stripped away from
him. He travled all over, bought a house, invested it, wrote a book and is making a lot of money
off of it. But now he is being slung back into court because of an IRS disput about the money
itself. One IRS agent said it should be counted as an insurance reward for the mentally and
possible physically scarring prison can create. Another proposed that it is possible lost wages and
should be taxed as such (Santos, Fernanda, and Janet Roberts, NY Times). This is an issue that
will eventually come before the Supreme Court since DNA is starting to exonorate people more
and more and the one’s lucky enough to be compensated for it will hit these patches afterwards.
Exonoration is proof of money wasted; it keeps $10,000a year to keep someone in jail (on

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average) making that a complete waste of money. Combine that with the millions that exonorees
could end up receiving from the court and that is too much tax money given up.
One misjustice that seems to always be overlooked whenever someone is wrongful
convicted is this; the person who actually is guilty of the crime got away with it. For everyone
wrongfully convicted person does just mean that someone went to jail for no reason, it also
shows that the real criminal got away with it. Whenever a criminal gets away with something
they are more likely to do it again. Which is scary because the type ofcase where there are the
most wrongful convictions are Rape cases (NorthWestern University, Center of Wrong
Convictions). Rapist all have something mentally off with them, mostly a hatred towards women.
If one gets off and another received that blame in his place, he might go off and traumatize
another woman. Murder is another type of case that the people within the justice system need to
get right, we should not let these people walk away from something that henious.
At last how do we fix these issues with our judical system in it’s constant misfires? First
off witnesses should be considered unreliable and be observed fairly closly so eye witnesses are
not throwing innocent people in jail. Prosecutor should be observed more, a lot of wrongful
conviction cases are because they withheld evidence from the jury (Duke University, Wrongful
Convictions Causes and Remedies). Police officers lie on the stand too if they truly believe that
the person in the court room did it and will stretch the truth so everyone can see it that way too.
Forensics need to be explained better to the jury because they are just ordinary people who are
unfimiliar with the scientific lingo that is used in an “experts” testimony. All of the evidence
needs to be shown and strict records of the evidence collected needs to be public record,
evidence is fooled around with by the people who collect more often that it should. Another rule
should be added to make sure this happens less, because if it does than it will not be able to be

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fixed in the court room itself. DNA is already ruling the innocent out as technology advances
wrongful conviction rates will decrease radically as technology is increasingly surprising us with
all the advancments we have made, espeacially in this field of science. Also police officers need
to be watched closly as they interrogate the aledged; more innocent people are imprisoned than
you would think due to confessing to something they had no involvment in.
Wrongful convictions are a very curable problem that our justice system seemed to have
over the years just brought out by DNA evidence clearing the air for those unlucky enough to be
caught up in this. Though with the use of DNA the amount of future wrongful convictions should
decrease, also with more and more studies showing different and common techniques are not
working and are actually impeding progress is also helping. But these things cannot correct the
injustice that is sometimes carried out by Law men and forensic scientists behind the scenes of
the court room. Many lawyers have taken an interest and more and more groups are helping out
these people treated unfair by our justice system that this will cease to be a problem in the near
future and those already effected will have to wait it out until they are finally released from
prison. Yes, wrongful convictions are a problem but the good news is that people and helping
and so is technology to make sure it slows down.

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Works Cited
Balko, Radley. “Wrongful Convictions .” Reasons.com. Reason Magezine, July 2011. Web. 21 Sept. 2011.
<http://reason.com/////convictions/>. This is the website for the magezine “Reasons’ which
include anything that has a causation and their columnist research and write about the
reasoning for how countless of subjects are, they’re many other related articles related to this
subject for me to use on this website
“Center on Wrong Convitions.” Northwestern.edu. Northwesten University, n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2011.
<http://www.law.northwestern.edu/cwc/>. This whole website posts articles about possible
wrong convictions around the country and was the first universities to look into

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Duke. “Wrongful Convictions Causes and Remedies.” duke.edu. Duke University of Law, n.d. Web. 18
Sept. 2011. <http://www.law.duke.edu///causes>. Gives the most reasons and solutions to the
problem of wrongful conviction i have seen than any other website.
The Innocence Project. “Causes of Wrongful Convictions.” Innocenceproject.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept.
2011. <http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/>. This website gives statistics of different
cuasations of wrongful convicitons and the lists each cause of wrongful convictions to help
educate up and coming lawyers.
- - -. “Preventing wrongful convictions through better news reporting.” Innocenceproject.org. N.p., n.d.
Web. 28 Sept. 2011.
<http://www.innocenceproject.org//_wrongful_convictions_through_better_news_reporting.p
hp>. suggests improvements to the judicail system to start catching the bad guy more of the
time than we already do
Kari & Associates. karisable.com. Kari & Associates, n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. <http://karisable.com/
crwrong.htm>. Gives articles after article of specific cases and new technologies besides DNA to
help prove the innocent is innocent
Rosen, Jeffery. “The Wrongful Conviction as Way of Life.” nytimes.com. New York Times, 26 May 2011.
Web. 20 Sept. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com//////review-convicting-the-innocent-where-
criminal-prosecutions-go-wrong-by-brandon-l-
garrett.html?ref=falsearrestsconvictionsandimprisonments>. gives statistcs about wrongful
convitctions, how many people have been exnorated since 1980, the percentages of race, life in
prison, and even death row.
Santos, Fernanda, and Janet Roberts. “Putting a Price on a Wrongful Conviction.” nytimes.com. New
York Times, 2 Dec. 2007. Web. 28 Sept. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/////.html>. Argues
about the amount of money exnoerees should get for compesation of being put in prison
wrongfully
Schwartz, John. “Changes to Police Lineup Procedures Cut Eyewitness Mistakes, Study Says.”
nytimes.com. New York Times, 18 Sept. 2011. Web. 22 Sept. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com///
//to-police-lineup-procedures-cut-eyewitness-mistakes-study-

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says.html?_r=1&ref=falsearrestsconvictionsandimprisonments>. New York Times write on
anything and this particular article explains a way to cut down on wrongful convictions by
unreliable eye witnesses.
Virtanen, Micheal. “Bar task force to study wrongful convictions in NY, AM NY .” nysba.org. N.p., 5 June
2008. Web. 28 Sept. 2011. <http://www.nysba.org///ns/_Convictions.htm>. Explains the ask
force’s job and duty and how if they are successful could release and prevent wrongful convicts