To achieve justice for all involved, then every party must submit their contribution honestly; additionally, they must critically think about motives behind their actions and words. This is the ideal mindset when accusing a crime, but there are people only want the upper hand and will use any means possible to have it. These people will place false accusations against those who have wronged them, or to place blame elsewhere. These people do not wish to persuade criminal justice, but use the system for their own gain. False allegations are a rapid issue that punctures the justice system.
Perpetrators of false allegations will have an underlying motivation in one of these categories: “mental illness/depression”, “attention/sympathy”, “financial/profit”, “alibi”, or “revenge”. These perpetrators develop a “self-victimization plan” in order to get temporary relief from life problems due to attention from society. They often overlook what would happen to them if the truth was ever revealed (McNamara), and rather wish to soak in their current success. If a woman had an affair, and is found out by her partner, then she may claim that the individual forced her as a cover-up for whole ordeal. In one case, Ralph Myers, a man with
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In order to get the defendant freed, then there must be evidence pointing to his innocence, or a recantation from the victim, which may be hard to come by for reasons as stated above. Imagine being confined behind bars for a crime that you did not commit. Some innocents are even sent to Death Row, where any day their execution can be scheduled. Samuel Gross did a study that the justice system has a 4.1 percent error margin of sending innocents to death, and that since 1973, there have been “144 death-sentenced defendants have been exonerated in the U.S.”, but Gross predicts that “at least 340 people would have been put to death unjustly in that same time period”
Anyone can be falsely accused of a crime. Everyone accused of a crime deserves a fair
``In criminal law, confession evidence is a prosecutor’s most potent weapon’’ (Kassin, 1997)—“the ‘queen of proofs’ in the law” (Brooks, 2000). Regardless of when in the legal process they occur, statements of confession often provide the most incriminating form of evidence and have been shown to significantly increase the rate of conviction. Legal scholars even argue that a defendant’s confession may be the sole piece of evidence considered during a trial and often guides jurors’ perception of the case (McCormick, 1972). The admission of a false confession can be the deciding point between a suspect’s freedom and their death sentence. To this end, research and analysis of the false confessions-filled Norfolk Four case reveals the drastic and controversial measures that the prosecuting team will take to provoke a confession, be it true or false.
Therefore, under these ethical standards, prosecutors cannot file charges if there is not enough evidence to support a conviction, they also do not file if it is not in the public interest to do so. This is what makes the possibilities limitless; however, three key factors also play a part in determining which cases to prosecute. If prosecutors follow these three factors in determining cases then the contradiction of limitless discretion and high ethical standards should be remedied for others. These are factors that should be followed are as followed: the seriousness and nature of the offense, the offender’s culpability, and the likelihood of being able to obtain a conviction at a trial. “Ethical conduct, then, must be the core of the prosecutor’s role in the criminal justice system” (Hemmens, Brody, & Spohn, 2013). Therefore, even though prosecutors have almost limitless discretion in their decisions, they still must
In America we believe in the saying “you are innocent until proven guilty” but we the people are remarkably swift to point our fingers at someone we believe that committed the crime. This habit is frequently displayed within our criminal justice system when a crime is committed we quickly assume it has something to do with the first person we can link the crime to. We tend to naturally feel sympathy for the victim therefore; if the individual accuses one for a crime the jury has no reason not to believe the victim. Society does not bother to care if the individual did not do the crime because as long as someone was caught and accused of the wrongdoing, then we the people can proceed on with our lives knowing we punished someone for the crime
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.
This research paper will be used to acknowledge the trending factor in our criminal justice system of wrongful convictions. Wrongful convictions socially can be defined as convicting the innocent and punishing the not guilty. In other words, wrongful convictions play a huge part of our flawed Criminal Justice system. In order to fix and come up with a solution, we will have to first come to basis of first understanding the issue, then using this information to gain ideas to which we can apply to access better results to the issue of wrongful convictions. Once we come up with a reasonable solution to this problem then we can conclude that the data will show an eminent decrease in this trend. The causes of wrongful convictions include the “Snitch” Testimony, Eyewitness misidentification, false confessions and much more that I will add during the readings of this paper.
When the victim does not fit the ideal victim attributes which society has familiarised themselves with, it can cause complications and confusion. Experts have noticed there is already a significant presence of victim blaming, especially for cases involving both genders. The fear of being blamed and rejected by the public is prominent in all victims. Victim blaming proclaims the victim also played a role in the crime by allowing the crime to occur through their actions (Kilmartin and Allison, 2017, p.21). Agarin (2014, p.173) underlines the problem of victim blaming is due to the mass of social problems and misconceptions within society. The offender can have “an edge in court of public opinion” if victim blaming exists, resulting in the prevention of the case accomplishing an effective deduction in court (Humphries, 2009, p.27). Thus, victims will become more reluctant to report offences because of their decrease in trust in the police and criminal justice system, leading to the dark figure of
Within the criminal justice system, the victim faces re-victimization with the techniques that are done within the court room. For example, the defense attorney may try to use rape myths such as the victim asked for it based on the way she may have dressed, the victim led the offender on by flirting with them, and that she could have avoided being raped if she wasn’t drinking (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2013, p. 377). The purpose of using rape myths is to demonize the victim’s character by subjecting the victim to humiliating and inquisitive questions (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2013, p. 377). Third, the victim may not report rape to law enforcement because they may fear retaliation by the offender, especially if that offender is a lifelong partner or a boyfriend. Fourth, due to the culture of rape and the influences of the media, a victim may feel guilty and blame themselves for the assault (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2013, p. 377). As stated earlier, rape myths are used to demonize the victim’s character and ultimately take the blame away from the offender and put it onto the victim. In fact, rape myths serve to lessen the prevalence and seriousness of
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.
The criminal justice system, like any system designed by human beings, clearly has its flaws. (Ben Whishaw). There has been numerous occasions that have showed the flaws of our justice ststem from convicting a person of a crime in ehich they did not commit, to the wrongfull execution of an innoncent person. Although the United States justice system was created to serve and protect the American people being fair to all, it continues to show evidence of the flaws within the system.
This form of accusing holds zero form of justice. The accusers weren’t even able to explain what happened themselves, so instead of worrying about t...
It has been demonstrated the one in seven people, or fourteen percent, who are put on death row were innocent of their convicted crimes. The American society is outraged when an innocent person is killed, the fourteen percent would not have to suffer if the death penalty was illegal throughout the country. There is no way to tell how the more one thousand people, possibly more, executed since 1976 may also have been innocent, courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead. Wrongful convictions and executions can be made from many of the following factors: mistaken eyewitness testimony, faulty forensic science, fabricated testimony or testimony from jailhouse informants, grossly incompetent lawyers, false confessions, police or prosecutorial misconduct and racial bias. Many of the people who are resentenced from death to life imprisonment may be innocent and rotting behind bars, since without the imminent threat of death, no one will take up their case to exonerate them. Along with the con of the death of innocent people, the elimination of the death penalty proves as a more effective way to deter
Throughout society there are both individuals and groups of people with a wide range of perceptions about crime and justice. These perceptions are influenced by the media and what the media presents. Media presents crime stories in ways that selectively distort and manipulate public perception, thus creating a false picture of crime. Therefore the media provides us with perceptions and social constructions about our world. Firstly I will be discussing the role of the media in constructing knowledge about crime. I will begin by explaining why the media is important, and go further to explain that media representations construct knowledge of crime and since knowledge about crime is constructed it does not necessarily capture reality in fact crime stories are often sensationalised. I will then link this to my central argument that the media shapes people’s perceptions of crime and how this is important as it can lead to changes in the law. I will then explain what it is that the public or society needs to be aware of when reading and watching media reports about crime. We need to be aware of bias and moral panics that are created by the media and how the media shapes or influence’s public perception through this, it is important for us to be aware of misleading or false crime stories so that we are not swayed by the media in believing what they want us to believe.
Man charged with the rape of 31 women in New York! Ever caught the headline of a crime that occurred and wondered how a person could possibly commit such a heinous act against another person? This is the job of a criminologist. To study crimes, criminals, victims, environmental and social factors, etc. in order to come up with theories and reasons as to why people commit acts against others (Brotherton). Criminology is not a new concept, but it is an evolving one. For this reason many theories have derived from sociologist and psychologist as to why crimes are committed, who commits them, and other the factors that played a role. Take for instance the crime rape. Rape is an unwanted sexual act performed upon another individual by force, deception or while under the influence of a substance. While most rape victims are known to be women, this crime has been expanded to include rape against a man or a person of the same sex. Rape is not an easy concept to deal with, nor is dealing with a rapist. For the purpose of this paper, rape will be explained by three theories, biological, psychological and rational choice theory, all of which criminologist have deemed are fitting of the crime.
Great effort has been made in our criminal justice system in pretrial, trial, appeals, writ and clemency procedures to minimize the chance of and innocent person being convicted and sentenced to death. Since 1973, legal protections have been so great that 37 percent of all death row cases have been overturned for due process reasons or commuted. Inmates are six times more likely to get off death row by appeals than by execution.