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Emotionally Charged: The Prosecutorial Charging Decision And The Innocence Revolution, Daniel Medwed
Emotionally Charged: The Prosecutorial Charging Decision And The Innocence Revolution, Daniel Medwed
Daniel S. Medwed
Efforts to rectify wrongful convictions in the United States arguably represent a new civil rights movement for the twentieth-first century. Since 1989, post-conviction DNA testing has exonerated over two hundred inmates, their innocence proven beyond a shadow of a doubt through science, and at least three hundred other innocent prisoners have gained their freedom in cases lacking the magic bullet of DNA. Studies of these cases reveal that specific factors tend to cause wrongful convictions in the first place. Misbehavior by prosecutors - especially involving the suppression of exculpatory evidence - has emerged as one of those factors. This Symposium …
Beyond Biology: Wrongful Convictions In The Post-Dna World, Daniel S. Medwed
Beyond Biology: Wrongful Convictions In The Post-Dna World, Daniel S. Medwed
Daniel S. Medwed
Post-conviction DNA testing first exonerated an innocent prisoner nearly twenty years ago. During this period, we have learned many lessons from the 200 subsequent DNA exonerations, including insight into the factors that led to those wrongful convictions at trial and the procedural obstacles that can make it difficult for inmates whose cases contain biological evidence to procure DNA testing after conviction. Yet, as I have often written in the past, these exonerations are just the tip of the proverbial innocence iceberg. As a threshold matter, very few criminal investigations result in the collection of biological evidence whatsoever; over time, moreover, …