Law Commons^™

A Model State Compensation Law For The Wrongfully Convicted, Jacqueline Kamel

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

The Contribution Of Forensic Science To Wrongful Convictions: An Analysis Of Forensic Expert Testimony, Parker Gunter

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore the progression and potential improvement of forensic science in court. Errors is forensic science have contributed to the problem of wrongful convictions, but research surrounding forensic expert testimony over the last decade is lacking. The way that an expert explains evidence in court is important to gain a broader understanding for how forensic science may fail. The testimonies of forensic experts were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to further understand the shortcomings in the field at the end of its journey through the criminal justice system. The results showed that the testimonies …

A Comparative Analysis Of Statutory Remedies For Wrongful Convictions In The Fifty States, Abigail St. John

Honors Theses

Thousands of individuals have been wrongfully convicted across the United States. When an exoneration occurs, an individual’s conviction is absolved, and their innocence is proved through newly discovered evidence. While it might be impossible to protect from the errors of the criminal justice system, it is in the hands of the state to compensate the wrongly convicted. There is an abundance of research that focuses on reforming the existing wrongful conviction compensation legislation, but there is a lack of scholarly data that explains the motivations behind this compensation. Moreover, few researchers have considered the role of partisanship and political parties …

Petitions From The Grave: Why Federal Executions Are A Violation Of The Suspension Clause, Taran Wessells

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Note will address the intersection of wrongful convictions, the federal death penalty, and habeas corpus to conclude that the federal death penalty is an unconstitutional violation of the Suspension Clause of the United States Constitution. Part I of this Note will establish that Congress may not suspend the writ of habeas corpus outside of wartime. Then, Part II will show that wrongfully convicted prisoners therefore have a constitutional right to a habeas petition if they discover new, exonerating evidence. Part III will argue that because executed prisoners cannot file a habeas petition for release, executing wrongfully convicted prisoners is …

Official Misconduct And Error Correction Mechanisms In Exonerated Death Penalty Cases, Kamali'ilani Theresa Elizabeth Wetherell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There has been an average of approximately 3.9 death penalty exonerations annually in the United States since 1973 (DPIC, 2021). Wrongful convictions and executions constitute grave and irreversible errors. Studies show official misconduct is one of the leading causes for wrongful convictions and exonerations. Misconduct by police, prosecutors, and judges includes a wide range of behaviors such as coercing confessions, depriving rights to legal counsel, threatening witnesses, and concealing evidence. Operating under the due process model, the adversarial legal system is designed to detect and prevent any procedural violations of defendant’s rights, including official misconduct. Utilizing Packer’s (1964) due process …

Wrongful Incarceration Causes Substantial Bodily Harm: Why Lawyers Should Be Allowed To Breach Confidentiality To Help Exonerate The Innocent, Vania M. Smith

Catholic University Law Review

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct (MRPC) governs the conduct of lawyers and provides the framework for how individual states and territories craft their rules. Rules regarding confidentiality have been central through the many iterations of these rules since their inception. Client confidentiality protections are critical to establishing and maintaining the public trust in the profession. Rule 1.6 of the MRPC gives a lawyer the opportunity to divulge a client confidence under varying circumstances, including the prevention of “substantial bodily harm”. To date, this has not resulted in a wide interpretation that this exception includes wrongful incarceration. This article seeks …

Are Federal Exonerees Paid?: Lessons For The Drafting And Interpretation Of Wrongful Conviction Compensation Statutes, Jeffrey S. Gutman

Cleveland State Law Review

In this third of a series of articles on wrongful conviction compensation statutes, Professor Jeffrey Gutman tackles the first statute attempted to be passed in the United States – the federal wrongful conviction compensation statute. Championed in concept by Edwin Borchard, it was in fact poorly drafted, and recommendations by Attorney General Homer Cummings to improve it were only partly successful. This Article retraces the long legislative history of the statute which is dotted with sloppy language and reasoning, unexplained amendments and an unfortunate focus on who was not to benefit from it, rather than who was. This tangled legislative …

My Cash Is My Bond: Recognizing Rights To Cash Bail Forfeiture Exoneration In Washington, Olivia Hagel

Washington Law Review

When criminal defendants fail to appear for a court date after they are released on a bail bond or cash bail, Washington courts will likely forfeit their bail. And when the defendant reappears—whether a day, a month, or a year later—that same court might return, or “exonerate,” the bail bond or cash bail.

But Washington does not treat cash bail and bail bonds similarly in the context of forfeiture exoneration. Commercial bail bond agents enjoy robust statutory and judicial avenues for the return of their forfeited bail bonds. A little over one-hundred years ago, the Supreme Court of Washington treated …

Arc Mapping Methodologies & The Pursuit Of Magical Globules, Notches, & Beads: A Bridge Too Far To Establish Fire Origin?, Tom R. May, David J Icove

Lincoln Memorial University Law Review Archive

Expert fire investigators know the limits of arc mapping as an indicator of fire origin. Concerns about arc mapping are on the rise. There are doubts associated with arc-related artifacts, distinguishing “cause” from “victim” beads, visual vs. microscopic examinations, and even practitioner qualifications. Specific noteworthy complaints include: (1) overpromises on the technique’s precision, (2) exaggerated inferences from the available data, (3) failure to adequately account for potential methodological flaws, (4) deficient scientific rigor in establishing evidentiary fire origin-related reliability, (5) errors due to deficient practitioner training and experience, and (6) indeterminate findings based upon subjective visual analysis. An emerging industry …

Righting The Wrongfully Convicted: How Kansas's New Exoneree Compensation Statute Sets A Standard For The United States, Scott Connolly

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Note will document the increasing prevalence of exonerations and provide a perspective on how significantly the landscape of postconviction justice has developed since the late 1980s. Such developments include DNA testing, greater awareness of false confessions, and a more thorough understanding of the unreliability of eyewitnesses. Part II will demonstrate the devastating impact that wrongful imprisonment has on exonerees. Finally, Part III of this Note will provide a snapshot of the current landscape of exoneree compensation laws. It will highlight the fact that many of the laws that exist do not provide sufficient resources and …

Teaching Professional Responsibility Through Theater, Michael Millemann, Elliott Rauh, Robert Bowie Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

This article is about ethics-focused, law school courses, co-taught with a theater director, in which students wrote, produced and performed in plays. The plays were about four men who, separately, were wrongfully convicted, spent decades in prison, and finally were released and exonerated, formally (two) or informally (two).

The common themes in these miscarriages of justice were that 1) unethical conduct of prosecutors (especially failures to disclose exculpatory evidence) and of defense counsel (especially incompetent representation) undermined the Rule of Law and produced wrongful convictions, and 2) conversely, that the ethical conduct of post-conviction lawyers and law students helped to …

Finding Justice, Hannah Miller

Capstones

Finding Justice tackles the devastation caused by wrongful conviction through the journey of Jeffrey Deskovic. After serving 16 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, Deskovic has strived to rebuild his life. The film follows him as he finishes law school and runs a foundation that frees the wrongfully convicted, all while dealing with lingering trauma.

Unrequited Innocence In U.S. Capital Cases: Unintended Consequences Of The Fourth Kind, Rob Warden, John Seasly

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Reliability, Justice And Confessions: The Essential Paradox, Russell L. Weaver

Russell L. Weaver

This paper deals with the issue of "reliability" in the criminal justice process, and the rising number of wrongful convictions that have been identified in recent years. Using modern evidentiary techniques, a rising number of individuals have been found "innocent" of the crimes for which they have been convicted. These instances of wrongful conviction have involved individuals who spent time on death row, awaiting execution, only to be completely exonerated. There are various reasons for these wrongful convictions, including prosecutorial misconduct and systemic failures such as inadequate indigent representation. This paper focuses on another systemic failure: difficulties with the confessions …

Ending Innocence Denying, Lara Bazelon

Hofstra Law Review

Prosecutors, the most powerful actors in the criminal justice system, also have the most difficult job: they must be "ministers of justice." A prosecutor's core mission is to vindicate the truth, rather than strive to "win" by accumulating a track record of convictions. When evidence somes to light suggesting that a wrongful conviction has occurred, a prosecutor's ethical obligation requires admitting to a terrible mistake and working to undo it. Many conscientious prosecutors accept this responsibility and confess to their errors. But too many do not. They insist, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that wrongfully convicted …

Notre Dame Lawyer—2018, Notre Dame Law School

Notre Dame Lawyer

INSIDE

Leading News

Dean Newton Steps Down

Briefs

• Off the Bench—Prominent judges visit ND Law School
• Law School improves Loan Repayment Assistance Program
• Galilee sees record participation
• ‘You are the hope’—ND Law hosts one of Church’s leading voices on race
• Program on Church, State & Society growing
• ‘Fighting for Fair Housing’—Law School hosts conference on Fair Housing Act of 1968
• ND alumni talk about Guantanamo detention facility
• Religious freedom moot court team wins in Italy
• Music lesson—The Slants rock McCartan Courtroom
• Commencement 2018
• Exoneration Project inspires law students

Profiles—A Different Kind of Lawyer

• A Bridge to Home—James Cheney ’18 J.D. …

The Institutions Of Innocence Review: A Comparative Sociological Perspective, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

The last three decades have seen the rise of an international innocence movement that has forced participants in diverse criminal justice systems to confront their systems’ fallibility, previously thought more theoretical than real. The public acknowledgment of that fallibility has led to the creation of new institutional mechanisms to re-examine old convictions. This short essay prepared for a symposium issue of the Rutgers University Law Review on the theory of criminal law reform compares the error correction institutions created in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, three English-speaking countries with common law roots and an adversarial structure, through …

Richards Ii Takes A Bite Out Of Forensic Science, Michelle Cornell-Davis

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Strengths And Limitations Of Forensic Science: What Dna Exonerations Have Taught Us And Where To Go From Here, Vanessa Meterko

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Innocent Suffering: The Unavailability Of Post-Conviction Relief In Virginia Courts, Kaitlyn Potter

University of Richmond Law Review

This comment examines actual innocence in Virginia: the progress it has made, the problems it still faces, and the possibilities for reform. Part I addresses past reform to the system, spurred by the shocking tales of Thomas Haynesworth and others. Part II identifies three of the most prevalent systemic challenges marring Virginia's justice system: (1) flawed scientific evidence; (2) the premature destruction of evidence; and (3) false confessions and guilty pleas. Part III suggests ways in which Virginia can, and should, address these challenges to ensure that the justice system is actually serving justice.

Reducing False Guilty Pleas And Wrongful Convictions Through Exoneree Compensation, Murat C. Mungan, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

A great concern with plea-bargains is that they may induce innocent individuals to plead guilty to crimes they have not committed. In this article, we identify schemes that reduce the number of innocent-pleas without affecting guilty individuals' plea-bargain incentives. Large compensations for exonerees reduce expected costs associated with wrongful determinations of guilt in trial and thereby reduce the number of innocent-pleas. Any distortions in guilty individuals' incentives to take plea bargains caused by these compensations can be off-set by a small increase in the discounts offered for pleading guilty. Although there are many statutory reform proposals for increasing exoneration compensations, …

Voices On Innocence, Lucian E. Dervan, Richard A. Leo, Meghan J. Ryan, Valena Elizabeth Beety, Gregory M. Gilchrist, William W. Berry

Law Faculty Scholarship

In the summer of 2015, experts gathered from around the country to sit together and discuss one of the most pressing and important issues facing the American criminal justice system – innocence. Innocence is an issue that pervades various areas of research and influences numerous topics of discussion. What does innocence mean, particularly in a system that differentiates between innocence and acquittal at sentencing? What is the impact of innocence during plea bargaining? How should we respond to growing numbers of exonerations? What forces lead to the incarceration of innocents? Has an innocent person been put to death and, if …

Voices On Innocence, Lucian E. Dervan, Richard A. Leo, Meghan J. Ryan, Valena Elizabeth Beety, Gregory M. Gilchrist, William W. Berry

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In the summer of 2015, experts gathered from around the country to sit together and discuss one of the most pressing and important issues facing the American criminal justice system – innocence. Innocence is an issue that pervades various areas of research and influences numerous topics of discussion. What does innocence mean, particularly in a system that differentiates between innocence and acquittal at sentencing? What is the impact of innocence during plea bargaining? How should we respond to growing numbers of exonerations? What forces lead to the incarceration of innocents? Has an innocent person been put to death and, if …

Flaws In The Justice System: Examining The Angel Cordero Case, Rose C. Itzcovitz

Capstones

This article examines a case in criminal law that started 17 years ago and has yet to be resolved. Despite a plethora of mounting evidence, including a confession, more than a dozen witnesses, a proven false alibi, impeaching evidence against police and DNA evidence, Bronx-born Angel Cordero's conviction has yet to be overturned. The article breaks down what went wrong in the initial trial, discusses Cordero's multiple appeals and takes a broader look at what needs to change in today's judicial system.

Mistaken Eyewitness Identifications In Maryland, David Aaronson, Julia Fox

David Aaronson

No abstract provided.

Legal Thinking, The Adversarial Process And Exonerating Innocent Defendants: A Socio-Legal View Of The Wrongful Conviction Process., Gary J. Kowaluk

Gary J Kowaluk

Little is as frustrating as advocating the release of an innocent defendant who has been wrongfully convicted. Surprisingly, most of the wrongfully convicted fail to overturn their cases through the courts, and rely on government officials and prosecutor’s to find other ways to release them from custody. Too often the wrongful conviction process leaves lawyers and judges arguing to legally support injustices in the face of a practical common sense indicating a defendant’s innocence. This paper is an attempt to understand the tendency of legal professionals to argue against remedying a wrongful conviction in favor of the continued social injustice …

Women In Litigation Literature: The Exoneration Of Mayella Ewell In To Kill A Mockingbird, Julia L. Ernst

Akron Law Review

This essay explores numerous factors constraining Mayella Ewell’s actions throughout the novel, particularly with respect to her false accusation of Tom Robinson. Some of the forces bearing down on Mayella include class, gender, race, history, morality, as well as familial, social, and legal dynamics. The jury’s verdict convicting Tom Robinson of rape indicates that Mayella received a much more favorable outcome in the trial than she merited.6 Depictions of Mayella within analyses of the novel have portrayed her in an unfavorable light. However, this essay encourages the reader to dig more deeply into the assumptions one must make about justice, …

Making Sure We Are Getting It Right: Repairing "The Machinery Of Death" By Narrowing Capital Eligibility, Ann E. Reid

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Pink Cadillac, An Iq Of 63, And A Fourteen-Year-Old From South Carolina: Why I Can No Longer Support The Death Penalty, Mark Earley Sr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Future Of The Death Penalty In The United States, Richard C. Dieter

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.