Wrongful convictions are cases in which a defendant is legally and/or factually innocent, but due to one or more errors made by the legal system, the defendant is found guilty of the offense in question. When a defendant’s conviction is overturned because it is discovered that the state violated the individual’s constitutional rights (due to procedural error), this is referred to as legal innocence; however, the person may not be factually innocent. Factual innocence means that someone other than the defendant committed the crime (i.e., actual innocence). When a wrongful conviction is overturned or a pardon occurs, the innocent individual is said to have been exonerated. Most of the scholarly inquiry on wrongful convictions focuses on factual innocence. Thus, this article discusses various aspects of wrongful convictions in the United States, including incidence, consequences, and causes, as well as barriers to and methods for correcting.
Incidence and Demographics
While the actual number of wrongful convictions is not known, it is estimated that between 3% and 5% of convictions may have been made in error. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, of the 2,245 exonerees who have been identified between 1989 and July 2018, 46% were African American; 91% were male; 75% were convicted by juries and 18% pled guilty; 21% were exonerated, in part, by DNA evidence; 39% were falsely convicted of homicide and 14% of sexual assault; and 57% were imprisoned for 5 years (with 9 years being the average number of years spent imprisoned prior to exoneration).
Consequences of Wrongful Convictions
The harms of wrongful convictions include the following:
- As long as the true perpetrator is still in the community, there is a potential risk to public safety.
- Taxpayer money is used to investigate, try, convict, and imprison persons for crimes they did not commit.
- The public may lose trust in a criminal justice system that fails to correct systematic and procedural errors, intentional or otherwise, which contribute to erroneous convictions.
- Many victims report feelings of revictimization, anger, fear, and guilt (especially when they provided eyewitness identification) upon discovering that a wrongful conviction occurred.
- Innocent defendants’ freedom, employment, finances, and relationships can be affected by wrongful imprisonment. In addition, they may experience significant psychiatric and adjustment difficulties as a result of imprisonment.
- It is difficult for innocent individuals, who are still imprisoned, to maintain their innocence while also trying to convince a parole board that they are rehabilitated, have accepted responsibility for their transgressions, and should be released.
- Even if their convictions are overturned, exonerees may have limited housing and employment opportunities, have trouble reconnecting with family and friends, experience social stigma and rejection, and may experience psychological problems.
- Thirty states and the District of Columbia have compensation systems designed to provide assistance (e.g., finances; medical, dental, and mental health care; workforce skills, legal services); however, these systems typically have restrictive approval processes. Of those who do meet the high standards, the actual dollar amount in some jurisdictions (e.g., Louisiana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin) is capped at a low level. In some jurisdictions (e.g., California, Iowa, Mississippi), exonerees who confessed or accepted a plea are ineligible for any compensation.
Causes of Wrongful Convictions
There are several primary factors that contribute to wrongful convictions. The first is eyewitness misidentification, which occurs for a variety of reasons. Witnesses may have been shown a biased live lineup or photo spread, wherein the suspect looks very different from the fillers (i.e., the nonsuspects), making it highly unlikely that the eyewitness will pick out the suspect. For example, the suspect may be over 6 ft tall, while the fillers are a few inches shorter; or the photo of the suspect may be in color, whereas those of the fillers are in black and white. In addition, witnesses may feel pressured to pick someone in the identification procedure, due to investigators’ suggestive statements, facial expressions, or body language. Witnesses may also feel guilty if they do not make a selection, which leads to internal pressure to make an identification. Once the identification is made, investigators may inflate witnesses’ confidence in their incorrect identifications by making postidentification statements that confirm the identification (e.g., good job or thank you for confirming our suspicion). Jurors tend to place high importance on this type of evidence when determining guilt or innocence. Of the 2,245 exonerations that have been identified between 1989 and July 2018, eyewitness misidentification was a factor in 29% of wrongful convictions.
A second factor that contributes to wrongful convictions is faulty forensic science. Questions about the accuracy of fingerprint, hair comparison, shoe print, and serology analyses have been raised. In addition, information about these analyses can be incorrectly conveyed during trials. However, juries still tend to believe in the veracity of these analytical methods. In contrast, DNA analysis has been shown to be highly accurate, but only 5–10% of crime scenes contain biological evidence sufficient for DNA analysis. Therefore, police officers have to rely on other, less accurate forms of forensic evidence. Of the 2,245 exonerations that have been identified between 1989 and July 2018, faulty forensic science was a factor in 24% of wrongful convictions.
A third factor that contributes to wrongful convictions is false confessions. These occur when law enforcement officials coerce an innocent person into falsely confessing to a crime. Typically involving psychological coercion and deception, some investigators utilize a set of accusatory and confrontational methods in order to break down suspects’ denials. This weakens suspects, causing them to believe the only way to escape the isolative custodial environment is to confess and provide a postconfession narrative. This narrative is shaped and influenced by police behavior (e.g., showing evidence to suspects, correcting errors made by suspects). Some individuals are more susceptible to providing an incorrect, coerced confession, particularly those who are developmentally disabled, cognitively impaired, mentally ill, and young. Of the 2,245 exonerations that have been identified between 1989 and July 2018, false confession was a factor in 12% of wrongful convictions.
Another factor that contributes to wrongful convictions is incentivized informants. These individuals lie for personal gain. For example, they might tell police officers that a factually innocent defendant admitted guilt to them or that they witnessed the crime. Rewards for doing so may include prison sentence reductions or financial compensation. Of the 2,245 exonerations that have been identified between 1989 and July 2018, incentivized informants was a factor in 7% of wrongful convictions.
A fifth factor that contributes to wrongful convictions is inadequate defense representation. It is the charge of the defense attorney to zealously defend his or her client, to protect the defendant from the errors of others involved in the case, and to bring such errors to the attention of the trial judge. However, insufficient defense representation does occur, typically because of scarce funding, lack of motivation, and the absence of quality control. Attorneys may communicate in a rushed or callous manner or may fail to communicate at all with their client. They may fail to prepare sufficiently for trial, not obtain necessary evidence from opposing counsel, carry out superficial investigations, neglect to obtain necessary experts or test forensic evidence, fail to attend hearings, conduct inadequate trial advocacy, or engage in shallow questioning of opposing counsel’s witnesses. Of the 2,245 exonerations that have been identified between 1989 and July 2018, inadequate defense representation was a factor in 25% of wrongful convictions.
The final factor that contributes to wrongful convictions is government misconduct. While most prosecutors and law enforcement officials behave ethically, some may not. Incendiary closing arguments, suggestive witness coaching, and intentionally destroying or withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense are examples of prosecutorial misconduct. Police officers may, at times, intentionally fail to provide prosecutors with evidence that may assist in the defense’s case and mislead jurors about their observations of the defendant. Both investigators and prosecutors can become susceptible to tunnel vision, whereby their attention becomes focused on evidence that supports a case against a suspect, while ignoring information that endorses an alternative scenario. Of the 2,245 exonerations that have been identified between 1989 and July 2018, government misconduct was a factor in 52% of wrongful convictions.
Barriers to Correcting Wrongful Convictions
Once found guilty of a crime, individuals typically find it extremely difficult to convince the legal system of their innocence. There are several reasons for this. Judges may need to be persuaded to order a new trial. They are often hesitant to do so because this would mean that they accept the notion that the jury (or judge in a bench trial) was incorrect in its original decision to convict. In addition, some jurisdictions require that defendants file a motion for a new trial, based on exculpatory evidence, within a short time frame following the conviction order. Furthermore, some prosecutor’s offices create and maintain an environment that resists postconviction claims because they believe that it creates an image that these offices are soft on crime. The media also plays a role in creating an environment in which the public demands that suspects, particularly those who commit such heinous crimes as rape, murder, and offenses against children, are caught and punished as quickly and as punitively as possible.
Methods to Reduce the Occurrence of Wrongful Confessions
To reduce the likelihood of eyewitness misidentification, criminal justice experts have recommended five guidelines for police lineups. First, the individual who conducts the lineup (i.e., the administrator) should not be involved in the investigation so that he or she cannot influence the outcome of the lineup identification. Second, the witness should be instructed that the administrator does not know who the suspect is in the lineup, if the suspect is present. This instruction should reduce the potential for witnesses to feel guilty if they cannot identify someone and reduce their propensity to rely on the administrator for confirmation. Third, the suspect and the fillers should match the witness’s description. If there are features of the suspect that may make him or her stand out among the fillers, an attempt should be made to match the fillers to these. Fourth, to avoid inflation of the witness’s confidence in his or her selection, administrators should not provide any feedback to the witness until after he or she has indicated how confident he or she is in the identification. Fifth, administrators should conduct the procedure in a sequential manner (viewing one lineup member at a time) as opposed to the traditional simultaneous method (viewing all lineup members at once). By doing do, decisions based on relative judgments (picking the lineup member who looks most like the image in the witness’s mind) will decrease, whereby decisions based on absolute judgments (picking the lineup member who resembles the image in the witness’s mind) will increase.
To reduce the likelihood of false confessions, criminal justice experts suggest that agencies require investigators to record interrogations in their entirety. In addition to focusing a camera on the suspect, it is recommended that one camera should focus on the investigator and another on the entire interrogation room. By utilizing this three-camera strategy, it is anticipated that interrogators will be less likely to engage in potentially coercive tactics to elicit a confession and manipulate a postadmission narrative. Furthermore, juries will be able to review these recordings during trial and ascertain if any coercion, intentional or otherwise, may have occurred. As of July 2018, over 20 states (e.g., North Carolina, Massachusetts, Illinois) required the recording of interrogations and over 1,000 localities voluntarily recorded interrogations.
To limit the occurrence of incentivized informants, experts advise that video recordings of law enforcement conversations with witnesses, as well as witness conversations with suspects, be required. In addition, they advocate for the strict enforcement of discovery rules, including the disclosure of incentives for informant cooperation. Furthermore, they recommend pretrial hearings to assess the reliability and corroborate the content of informant testimony.
To quell the occurrence of government misconduct, creating criminal justice reform commissions (or conviction review units) has been recommended. The goal of these commissions is to investigate cases of wrongful convictions and staunchly advocate for comprehensive reforms in the criminal justice system (including not only government misconduct but also other issues that contribute to wrongful convictions). These commissions should include members from all aspects of the legal systems with various perspectives and experiences, including victims, concerned members of the public, attorneys, and law enforcement officials. As of July 2018, at least 11 states have established such commissions (e.g., North Carolina, Pennsylvania, California, Connecticut).
While the media, indirectly, can play a role in the creation of a wrongful conviction, it can play a productive role, as well. Publicizing cases of wrongful convictions, including through podcasts and television series, can produce a record of a problem that necessitates attention. This record then can be, and often is, referenced and used in the establishment of effective policy formation and implementation to reduce the occurrence of and identify existing wrongful convictions.
References:
- Garrett, B. L. (2011). Convicting the innocent: Where criminal prosecutions go wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Gould, J. B., & Leo, R. A. (2010). One hundred years later: Wrongful convictions after a century of research. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 100(3), 825–868. Retrieved from http:// scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol100/ iss3/7/
- Holloway, J. (2016, April). Conviction review units: A national perspective. Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice. Retrieved from https:// www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/5522-cru-final
- Irazola, S., Williamson, E., Stricker, J., & Niedzwiecki, E. (2013). Study of victim experiences of wrongful conviction (Document No. 244084). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/244084.pdf
- Redlich, A. D., Acker, J. R., Norris, R. J., & Bonventre, C. L. (Eds.). (2014). Examining wrongful convictions: Stepping back, moving forward. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.