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Full-Text Articles in Law
Adjudicated Juveniles And Post-Conviction Litigation, Joshua A. Tepfer, Laura H. Nirider
Adjudicated Juveniles And Post-Conviction Litigation, Joshua A. Tepfer, Laura H. Nirider
Faculty Working Papers
Post-conviction relief is a vital part of the American justice system. By filing post-conviction petitions after the close of direct appeal, defendants can raise claims based on evidence outside the record that was not known or available at the time of trial. One common use of post-conviction relief is to file a claim related to a previously unknown constitutional violation that occurred at trial, such as ineffective assistance of counsel. If a defendant's trial attorney performed ineffectively by failing to call, for instance, an alibi witness, then that omission is unlikely to be reflected in the trial record -- but …
Arresting Development: Convictions Of Innocent Youth, Joshua A. Tepfer, Laura H. Nirider, Lynda M. Tricarico
Arresting Development: Convictions Of Innocent Youth, Joshua A. Tepfer, Laura H. Nirider, Lynda M. Tricarico
Faculty Working Papers
This is the first quantitative study documenting and analyzing a dataset of wrongfully convicted individuals who were teenagers or younger when first accused. The article explores the causes and factors leading to these wrongful convictions and offers reasons why youth may be particularly vulnerable to being convicted for crimes they did not commit. The data shows that these young exonerees falsely confessed at a rate almost double that of an adult dataset of exonerees, and that police-induced false statements from youth play a role in more than half of the cases. The article also proposes reforms to prevent future wrongful …