In fact, many people do not have knowledge of the law and are not aware of their legal rights. Certain statements might falsely incriminate a person. Law Enforcement may threaten or use scare tactics to get a false declaration of guilt, but most serving time in prison for wrongful convictions are witness misidentification. Police do not take the time to get genuine proof of guilt and in the end has destroyed innocent lives. Should spending time in prison for a crime not committed be fair?
Putting someone to death is definitely not the solution. It lets them off the hook too easily. I would rather see criminals have to suffer in jail without parole so they can think about the horrible crimes they committed, especially people who do not know that prison is worse than the death penalty when doing life without parole.
Organizations like the Innocence Project claim that well over 20,000 Americans could be in jail for crimes they did not commit (Wilkinson, 2014. P. 1101). There is a problem with absolute immunity for prosecutors; the incentives it creates. We have a system that not only fails to sanction bad behavior, but also often rewards
Doctors sometimes misinterpret injuries and causes of death and this can really alter a case's outcome significantly. Finally, witnesses may report false sightings, or report something that they thought they heard but misinterpreted it entirely. More laws should be put into place to protect the innocent suspects, and to insure that nobody goes to prison that really does not deserve it and more citizens should be trained to accurately give a description of a suspect to decrease the wrongful conviction rate. It is understandable why a criminal would lie about committing a crime which they did commit to get out of trouble and stay out of jail. In majority of prisons worldwide, 90% of convicted criminals claim innocence.
Lives Wasted Have you ever experienced that feeling of being punished and accused of something you haven’t even done? It can be one of the worst feelings, and the wrongfully convicted are victims of mistakes that the judicial system makes. 0.5% of felony convictions result in wrongful convictions, which is too many of which wrongful convictions have affected the lives of innocent people. “We call for more integrated approaches for addressing a wide range of often interrelated social, psychological and mental health issues experienced by those who were wrongfully convicted.” As explained in the Experiencing Wrongful and Unlawful Conviction article. No amount of money can replace the time you have missed freely.
Whether a person is killed for money or drugs or out of hate or prejudice, the fact still remains that he or she has been killed. With hate crime laws, the hate is being looked at, more so than the crime itself. Even though hate is a terrible thing to have in your heart, all Americans have the right to hate whatever or who ever they want. Besides, if officials start punishing hate or unholy thoughts, they might as well make a new category of crime— thought crime. If this line of thinking were acted upon, then half of America would be behind bars.
. . I am sure I am going to get in trouble for saying it, for $65 you can bring that lawsuit" (Carter, 2013, pp.4). The stop and frisk law is one reason I do not believe in law enforcement profiling. Even though some law enforcement officers allow personal feelings and power to allow them to not follow policy, some policies are not followed morally because I do not feel that officers should be allowed to frisk someone who is innocent and has not committed a crime because it takes the focus off real criminals and onto innocent people; it causes emotional stress.
Another reason they it as a disadvantage was because according to the dissent “some cases cannot be solved without confessions”. Also they implied the “welfare” of our society was at stake because it would let criminals run free, if the Miranda rights weren’t stated to them correctly. This was a “hazardous” experiment which could have a dismal outcome and prove to be very ineffective in the future. Furthermore, the dissenting opinion on the way the police officers had treated suspects amendment rights were “exaggerated” and that the outcome was only to favor the accused more favorably. Our Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights have changed since the Miranda v. Arizona case got brought to the attention of the Supreme Court.
It’s sad but I don’t think we will ever live in a world when people aren’t getting treated differently. There is a lot of data that proves people get different sentences for the same crimes. The reason they received a different sentence is because of their age, sex, or prestige. Money talks in the criminal justice system and this does help certain people. I have lost faith in our justice system, it is not uniform and depending on what judge you get or what lawyer you hired is a factor in what kind of sentence you will receive.
Most are not aware of their rights and what could be said that might falsely incriminate a person. There are also the forced confessions by police who threaten or use scare tactics to get a false confession. Most wrongfully convicted are sitting in prison for witness misidentification. Police not taking the time to get actual proof of guilt have ruined innocent lives. Is it fair for a person to serve time for a crime they did not commit?