Innocent Convictions and the Innocence Project
The majority of people know that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately, some people are guilty until proven innocent by the media. The job of helping people who were innocent, yet proven guilty in a court of law has fallen into the hands of the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is an organization that reviews cases and tries to help people who have been held and wrongly convicted of a crime they did not commit. Of course, not everyone is innocent. Criminals will try to argue their innocence, although some know that they are in fact guilty. There have been many cases that the media has talked about and expressed an opinion on, and that opinion was heard loud and clear, and as a result, people have been tried and convicted of a crime they did not commit. It is not until a third party like the Innocence Project picks up the case that they find that the person convicted was indeed innocent of all charges and that the individual had been telling the truth the whole time; they were innocent. The tragedy is that in some cases it is too late to help the person, especially when the person who was convicted and sentenced to death is no longer here. In the case of the "Groveland Four," Earnest Thomas died before being arrested or tried. He was no longer alive to experience the truth and experience the fact that the truth had set him free.
The 1949 case of Florida 's "Groveland Four" involved four black men were being charged and arrested for a crime they did not commit. Samuel Shepherd, Walter Irwin, Charles Greenlee, and Ernest Thomas were accused of beating Willie Padgett and raping Norma Padgett (Karijeck, 2014). One of the four men, Ernest Thomas, ran away before be...
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...s final once that person has gone through the execution, there is nothing that can be done to correct the wrong or bring that person back. That act will forever represent a failure in the criminal justice system, and a failure of the media if the way they reported the crime affected the outcome of the trial in a negative way. No one is trying to take away the media 's first amendment right of free speech. However, when the media 's right to freedom of expression imposes on other people 's rights, there lies a problem. There has to be an understanding that does not put one 's rights above another. The media 's rights are not above the law and not above other people 's rights. The Innocence Project is one entity working against this problem, but the media’s influence over the court is widespread and not only affects cases by influencing people to convict the innocent.
On March 25, 1931 nine African American youths were falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned for the rape of two white girls. Over the next six consecutive years, trials were held to attempt to prove the innocence of these nine young men. The court battles ranged from the U.S Supreme court to the Scottsboro county court with almost every decision the same---guilty. Finally, with the proceedings draining Alabama financially and politically, four of the boys ...
This is surprising because the legal system in the United States is “innocent before guilty”. If an innocent man is found guilty then I believe the court should provide their resources to that individual. For example, the United States main form of government is democracy but when the court system makes a fatal error they are not responsible for their own mistakes. Additionally, in the film After Innocence, they focus on questions that ask about human rights and society moral
One of the first things we need to look at is, what is the due process model? It is a model in which there is the assumption that every effort needs to be done to ensure that an innocent person is not convicted of a crime. It adheres to the belief of strict evidence, which means to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the person actually committed the crime, and the charge meets all of the requirements of the crime. The state in this model is burdened with showing evidence that the person has committed the crime, and the defense has the opportunity to show the evidence in inconclusive. Due to the strict guidelines of admissibility of evidence, and the right’s awarded to presumed innocent people, there end up being many guilty people that get off on a technicality, that should be incarcerated.
In the editorial “The Innocent on Death Row,” the board argues that the death penalty should not be legal. This article presents a strong argument for the end of the death penalty with clear assertions and effective rhetorical techniques.
Beauty pageants that involve children are a booming industry and growing fast in popularity. This is partially because of television shows like Toddlers and Tiaras and Living Dolls, which glorify pageants that threaten the innocence of childhood. According to Lucy Wolfe, “in 2011, three million children participated in pageants across the country” (454). With so many children, some as young as six months old, partaking in pageants and countless more aspiring to be pageant princesses, a closer look needs to be taken at the practices that are used to prepare them for the show. Often working long hours, not only prepping for the pageant but also performing in it, the children have no laws protecting them from being harmed or exploited. There are multiple negative effects associated with pageant participation law makers need to take action and find a way to regulate the trends of these controversial displays that sexualize young children.
In other words, “Four percent of defendants sentenced to death are innocent” and “If all innocent people who were given death sentences [were] to be cleared of their offenses, the exoneration rate would rise from the actual rate of those released – 1.6% – to at least 4.1%” (Pilkington). Often times in death penalty trials, prosecutors withhold exculpatory information or include false testimonies and unreliable witnesses in order to comply with the public's desire to blame a scapegoat in a timely matter. America’s legal system lacks the ability to function flawlessly on all accounts. Every defendant and every case differentiates in such large extremes that it is impossible for one system of death to justly exist, especially with the state governments abusing their judicial
To a large majority of us the idea of public executions and especially those televised instantly evokes vivid images of horrific and dehumanizing accounts of the destruction of human life. The Death Penalty topic alone is enough to conjure up a great deal of controversy from both sides of the argument, but another form of it appeared in an essay published in 2011 in The New York Times. The authors of this controversial piece were Zachary Shemtob and David Lat. The issue was whether executions should be televised. Both authors are well versed in matters of law and legal issues. Shemtob teaches Criminal Justice and Lat is a former prosecutor.
In 1931, on a freight train bound for Memphis, around twenty-five young men, both black and white, were hoboing, looking for work. The whites began to act spitefully at the blacks, picking up rocks to throw at them, stepping on their hands, and calling them names. The blacks, wanting to keep their pride, came back at them. In the brawl that followed, all but one of the whites were thrown off the train. These whites, sore about being beaten, ran back to the nearest rail station, who phoned ahead to the next station, in Paint Rock, Alabama. A mob of whites were waiting there, armed to the teeth. They took everyone off the train and rounded them up. Nine of them were blacks. These men: Roy and Andy Wright, Eugene Williams, Haywood Patterson, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Charlie Weems, Clarence Norris, and Ozie Powell were brought to the Scottsboro jail, and charged with the rape of two young white women, also hoboing, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates (Patterson 13-17). They were tried for rape, convicted, retried, convicted again, retried again, and convicted a third time (Patterson 9). These trials and retrials of these nine young men, who became know as the “Scottsboro Boys,” were not fair.
Many prisoners in the past have been known to be killed before they were proven innocent. Many documented cases where DNA testing showed that innocent people were put to death by the government. This sometimes happens because there are defendants who are given minimal legal attention by often minor qualified individuals. The government has made many mistakes which are being wrong about convicting someone for something they didn’t do, and killing this person for the wrong reason. Putting the wrong person to death is the biggest mistake that can be made and the government cannot afford to make this mistake.
Every time an innocent person is exonerated based on DNA testing, law enforcement agencies look at what caused the wrongful convictions. There are many issues that contribute to putting guiltless lives behind bars including: eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, imperfect forensic science, and more (Gould and Leo 18). When a witness is taken into a police station to identify a suspect, it is easy for their memories to be blurred and their judgment influenced. This can lead the witness to identify a suspect who is actually innocent. Flawed forensic science practice also contributes to wrongful imprisonments. In the past, analysts have been inaccurate due to carelessness, testified in court presenting evidence that was not based on science, and participated in misconduct. False confessions have also been known to cause unlawful convictions. In some instances, police departments took part in transgression and interviewed their suspects in such an intense manner that a false confession was used cease the interrogation. To imagine that there are innocent people rotting in prison is appalling and something must be done. To prevent wrongful convictions, legislatures should form commissions and policies to reform flawed procedures.
... on trial killed a loved, anybody would want that person in prison. Even though it hurts to see a family member suffer people have to do the right thing.
Criminal Law declares what conduct is illegal and proscribes a penalty. Although, we rely on our court system to administer justice, sometimes the innocent are convicted (Risinger). Most people would not be able to imagine a person who is convicted of a crime as innocent, sometimes that is the case. Imagine what a variance that is: an innocent criminal. In an article by Radley Balko he asks the question, “How many more are innocent?” In his article, he questions America’s 250th DNA exoneration and states that it raises questions about how often we send the wrong person to prison. The other issue that follows is the means of appealing the court’s decision and who they can turn to for help.
Are there really innocent people on death row? At least twenty-three people have been executed who did not commit the crime they were accused of (JAICLC). And that 's only those that we know. And here lies a natural danger of capital punishment...when we execute an innocent person; the real killer is still on the streets, ready to victimize someone else. But when an innocent person is arrested, he is often the motivating reason behind further investigation, and if he is executed, than the case remains closed forever or until someone else gets killed by the real perpetrator. Often the only people who know what really happened are the accused and the dead. It then comes down to the skill of the examination and the defense lawyers as to whether there will be a conviction for accidental murder or for manslaughter. At times, a detective could naturally make an error and possibly lead to the conclusion that the innocent committed the crime. Whether it be multiple years in prison or even capital punishment there is no possible way of revenging or forgiving the judge and jury for this miscarriage of justice. There must always be the concern that the state can order the death penalty justly. In America, a prisoner can be on death row for many years awaiting the outcome of numerous appeals (Short). In simpler terms killing another being with or without evidence is not fair, decent, or ethically
How Tom Robinson was put at fault for raping Mayella Ewell. “-the evil assumption - all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around women-” (Lee, 225) He was blamed because he was near the house at the time it happened and he is black, so why shouldn’t they blame a black man? “In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins.” (Lee, 243) In the 1930’s, or you could just say when slavery was happening, black men were at fault over white men. If it involved black and white men, the black men were at fault until it was proven that they weren’t
In criminal law the principle, presumed innocent until proven guilty is sometimes twisted and altered to presumed guilty until proven innocent in many wrongful conviction cases. Many factors go into the deliberation and reasoning behind an investigators, juries and courts verdict and occasionally their decision is actually wrong and an innocent person is locked up behind bars, to serve a sentence that they do not deserve because they are not a criminal. False confessions from an innocent suspect is very common in the interrogation room and by it is their own fault because they admit to being a part a crime they truthfully were not part of due to misleading questions or statements by the investigators. Another factor that could place an innocent person in prison is wrong scientific discoveries and false DNA evidence. 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.