In 1992, Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted of arson murder, where a fire that was presumably started by him, killed his three children, and in 2004 he was put to death. Later, the Texas Forensic Science Commission, established in 2005, found that none of the evidence used while prosecuting Mr. Willingham was valid, and that the fire was in fact, accidental. Unfortunately, many cases like this have occurred in our nation’s history, where human error was to blame for convicting an innocent person. The American Justice system will only be as accurate as the science and technology that we have in place to remove human error during the process. The movie The Wrong Man is a perfect example of human error in the justice system convicting an innocent …show more content…
The portrayal of the justice system in this movie is unmistakably accurate; however, the downfall of the system comes when a victim wrongly identifies Mr. Balestrero as the robber. This human error sends the detectives down a slippery slope, where they forcibly find evidence against Mr. Balestrero and ultimately detain him on shallow grounds. Thankfully, the real culprit was found before Mr. Balestrero’s trial came to an end, but nevertheless, the impact a situation like this has on a person, is devastating, and most notably seen with Mrs. Balestrero. The fault, however, is not that of the justice system itself, a Time magazine article depicting the events of that case states, “He does not blame the police (“ they couldn’t help it”)” (Brean 107), but that of human error, Mr. Balestrero states, “ If they have a conscience, they’ll realize they where wrong”(Brean 107) which is an unavoidable aspect of the justice …show more content…
The hand writing sample, although it may not carry much influence today, was a tool that they had at their disposal, so when similarities were found between the two letters, this gave the detectives reasonable doubt to keep investigating. Once Mr. Balestrero was identified as the robber by two of the victims the detectives had no other choice but to detain him as a suspect. Now let us place Mr. Balestrero and this exact situation 60 years later; in a time where essentially every establishment dealing in cash has a surveillance cameras, and fingerprints can be lifted off inanimate objects. The outcome would be drastically different; detectives today have tons of new technology to help gather evidence, and would have undoubtedly recognized that Mr. Balestrero was
In today’s Canadian society, it is certain that criminal law is to serve and protect and its fundamental purpose is to prevent crime and punish offenders. However, there have been cases where criminal law has punished the offender who turned out to be innocent. A conviction is needed to show that the system is not in disrepute and to keep order and people safe in society. If a criminal cannot be caught then people will look down upon the system in disgrace. In many cases, officers will arrest an individual who fits a certain description that they know will lead to an arrest and conviction. In the case of Guy Paul Morin it shows how the system failed in aiding the innocent who abide to the law. The law is established to protect those who are innocent from being targeted because of the law.
At the time of the murder of which David Milgaard was accused of committing he was just 16 years old. He was a hippie, constantly in trouble. Even before he was a teenager he was getting into trouble. His parents and teachers considered him impulsive; he resisted authority (Regina Leader Post, 1992, as cited in Anderson & Anderson 1998). He was removed from kindergarten because he was considered to be a negative influence on the other children. When he was thirteen he spent time in a psychiatric centre (Anderson & Anderson, 1998)
If that does not occur to the reader as an issue than factoring in the main problem of the topic where innocent people die because of false accusation will. In addition, this book review will include a brief review of the qualifications of the authors, overview of the subject and the quality of the book, and as well as my own personal thoughts on the book. In the novel Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make It Right authors Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer expose the flaws of the criminal justice system through case histories where innocent men were put behind bars and even on death row because of the miscarriages of justice. Initially, the text promotes and galvanizes progressive change in the legal
Wrongful conviction is an issue that has plagued the Canadian Justice System since it came to be. It is an issue that is hard to sort out between horrific crimes and society’s desire to find truth and justice. Incidences of wrongful conviction hit close to home right here in Saskatchewan as well as across the entire nation. Experts claim “each miscarriage of justice, however, deals a blow to society’s confidence in the legal justice system” (Schmalleger, Volk, 2014, 131). Professionals in the criminal justice field such as police, forensic analyst, and prosecutors must all be held accountable for their implications in wrongful convictions. There are several reasons for wrongful convictions such as racial bias, false confessions, jailhouse informants, eyewitness error, erroneous forensic science, inappropriate, professional and institutional misconduct and scientific limitations that society possessed prior to the technological revolution (Roberts, Grossman, 2012, 253 – 259). The introduction of more advanced DNA analysis has been able to clear names and prevent these incidences from occurring as often. As well as the formation of foundations such as The Association of Defense for the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC). Unfortunately, mistakes made in the Canadian Justice System have serious life altering repercussions for everyone that is involved. Both systematic and personal issues arise that require deeper and more intense analysis.
The New York Times bestseller book titled Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case examines the O.J. Simpson criminal trial of the mid-1990s. The author, Alan M. Dershowitz, relates the Simpson case to the broad functions and perspectives of the American criminal justice system as a whole. A Harvard law school teacher at the time and one of the most renowned legal minds in the country, Dershowitz served as one of O.J. Simpson’s twelve defense lawyers during the trial. Dershowitz utilizes the Simpson case to illustrate how today’s criminal justice system operates and relates it to the misperceptions of the public. Many outside spectators of the case firmly believed that Simpson committed the crimes for which he was charged for. Therefore, much of the public was simply dumbfounded when Simpson was acquitted. Dershowitz attempts to explain why the jury acquitted Simpson by examining the entire American criminal justice system as a whole.
The legal system is considered a place where justice is served and criminals are sent to prison. However, this is not always the case, as seen with Robert Baltovich, who suffered a serious miscarriage of justice. Baltovich was accused and unfairly convicted for a murder that he did not commit. The investigation into the murder of Elizabeth Bain was unfairly skewed to gain a conviction against Baltovich. The bias against Baltovich, in the murder investigation, and his subsequent trial was a disservice to him and to Canadian society.
In Corsicana, Texas Cameron Willingham and his family’s home was burned down the twenty-third of December is 1991. According to the report Cameron was asleep when the fire started and survived the accident with only a few injuries, as for his children they were not so lucky, they lost their lives to the tragic accident. At the time of the accident Cameron’s wife was buying presents for their children for Christmas. According to a witness and her Daughter Diane and Buffie from a few houses down went outside and saw Cameron screaming, “My babies are burning up!” Diane and Cameron tried countless attempts to rescue the girls from their room until the fire department could get there. According to the New Yorker “The house, in short, had been deliberately transformed onto a death trap.” According to the reports on December twenty-fourth and twenty-seventh of 1991 the fire was declared arson and they later decided to conduct a criminal investigation. Cameron was questioned by the investigators on December 31st and was then later arrested on January 8th of 1992 for the death his three daughters.
Sub Point A: In the innocence project website Cameron Todd Willingham was wrongly convicted for allegedly setting fire that killed his three d...
The legal system’s focus on legal guilt over factual guilt sets rules in place that could potentially prove an accused person’s innocence and thus solve the issue of factual guilt. The judicial system is structured in a way that ensures a person’s legal rights are upheld when it comes to criminal law. It is critical to the proceedings that all rules are followed
They say justice is blind. Or at least they used to. The true role of the judicial system is true justice, and in some cases the system has failed in the past. We do learn, though, and thanks to the latest scientific breakthroughs we now have genomic testing and DNA fingerprinting as widely accepted methods of looking at a crime scene. What was left up to conjecture before can now be verified with great confidence.
Garrett, Brandon. Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2011. 86. Print.
The criminal justice system is a complex structure of separate parts that must work together to achieve justice as an end result. Justice isn’t always served and sometimes the wrong person goes free, robbing the victim of any possible closure. This is shown in the movie, Fracture, where an intelligent and wealthy man named Theodore Crawford goes to trial for the attempted murder of his wife, putting her in a coma and on life support, and ultimately gets off due to a lack of solid evidence. The motive behind the attempt on his wife, Jennifer’s, life is that she’s been engaging in an affair with Detective Robert Nunally, who would later unwittingly play a huge role in getting Theodore Crawford off. William Beachum, the prosecutor, is a cocky,
People do not trust the justice system because injustice does occur from time to time, and misconduct by law enforcement and the courtroom also occurs (Pollock, 2017). Misconduct such as tampering with evidence, judicial misconduct, police brutality, prosecutorial and defense misconduct, wrongful convictions, and the list continues (Pollock, 2017). These criticisms are valid because society witnesses misconduct first hand or we read about instances provided by the media. For example, take into consideration the recent police shootings that occurred in Louisiana and Minnesota. Police brutality happens in our communities and all of the most recent cases have all been videotaped for the world to see. Some may believe the recent victims of police
Here is an example of a specific case where innocent people were imprisoned because of inaccurate forensics. Officials say from the Nebraska’s Attorney General’s Office, “Six people in a murder case in 1985 were wrongfully convicted of the murder because of inaccurate forensic science made by investigators and prosecutors” (Hammel). This shows a specific example of how these inaccurate forensic practices can ruin a person’s life. Second, one reason for this issue in the past is because of the lack in technology. Assistant Attorneys General Doug Warner and Corey O'Brien said blood testing in 1985 was not refined enough to pinpoint one single killer, but it was because the technology was not in their favor back then. Not because of the scientists screwing up (Hammel). This shows that the main reason in the past for all of these wrongful convictions is because of the lack in technology not
The present system of justice in this country is too slow and far too lenient. Too often the punishment given to criminal offenders does not fit the crime committed. It is time to stop dragging out justice and sentencing and dragging our feet in dispensing quick and just due. All punishment should be administered in public. It is time to revert back to the "court square hanging" style of justice. This justice would lessen crime because it would prove to criminals that harsh justice would be administered.