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Wrongful Convictions: Causes and Implications
(A project report)
Submitted to:
Dr. Parvesh Kumar Rajput
Faculty, Criminal Justice System
Submitted by:
Archit Srivastav
Sem VII, Sec:A, Roll no: 30
B.A. LLB (HONS.)
Date of Submission: 23/10/2019
Hidayatullah National Law University,
Naya Raipur, Chhattisgarh
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DECLARATION
I, Archit Srivastav, hereby declare that, the project work entitled, ‘Wrongful Convictions:
Causes and Implications’ submitted to H.N.L.U. Naya Raipur, is record of an original work
done by me under the guidance of, Dr. Parvesh Kumar Rajput, H.N.L.U., Naya Raipur.
Name: Archit Srivastav
B.A. LLB (Hons.)
Semester: VII
Section: A
Roll No: 30
Date: 23/10/2019
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CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the content of this project entitled, “Wrongful Convictions: Causes and
Implications” is the bona fide work of him submitted to Hidayatullah National Law
University, Raipur.
The original research work was carried out by him under my supervision in the academic
year 2019-20. On the basis of declaration made by him, I recommend this research project for
evaluation.
Certified by-
Dr. Parvesh Kumar Rajput,
Faculty of Criminal Justice System
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I, Archit Srivastav, would like to humbly present this project to Dr. Parvesh Kumar Rajput. I
would first of all like to express my most sincere gratitude to Dr. Parvesh Kumar Rajput for
her encouragement and guidance regarding several aspects of this project. I am thankful for
being given the opportunity of doing a project on ‘Wrongful Convictions: Causes and
Implications’. I am thankful to the library staff as well as the IT lab staff for all the
convenience they have provided me with, which have played a major role in the completion
of this paper.
I would like to thank God for keeping me in the good health and senses to complete this
project.
Last but definitely not the least, I am thankful to my seniors for all their support, tips and
valuable advice whenever needed. I present this project with a humble heart.
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CONTENTS
DECLARATION .................................................................................................. ii
CERTIFICATE ..................................................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................. iv
Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………1
Chapter 2. WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS………………………………………3
Chapter 3. CAUSES OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS………………………..4
Chapter 4. REMEDIES AND IMPLICATIONS……………………………….14
Chapter 5. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………… .17
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................18
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Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION
Wrongful convictions occur when innocent defendants are found guilty in criminal trials, or
when defendants feel compelled to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit in order to
avoid the death penalty or extremely long prison sentences. The term wrongful conviction
can also refer to cases in which a jury erroneously finds a person with a good defense guilty
(e.g., self-defense), or where an appellate court reverses a conviction (regardless of the
defendant’s factual guilt) obtained in violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights. This
research paper deals with the first type of wrongful convictions, or wrong person convictions.
Note also that the verdict of acquittal in American law is “not guilty” rather than “innocent,”
meaning that an acquitted person might not be factually innocent. For the sake of clarity, the
term actual or factual innocence is used to refer to persons who did not commit the crime.
Miscarriage of justice (a legal term in England) is also used to describe wrongful conviction.
This understanding is supported by considerable recent research. This surge in awareness and
budding research has motivated a growing number of innocence projects, which work to
exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners, to also propose justice policy reforms designed to
reduce the number of wrongful convictions or to alleviate their effects. This research paper
explains why wrongful conviction has become a prominent issue and its causes.1
Objectives of the study
There are three primary objectives of study.
1. To study about the concept of wrongful convictions.
2. To study about the causes of wrongful convictions.
3. To study about the implications of wrongful convictions.
1
http://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/system/wrongful-convictions/
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Scope of Study
The scope of study includes the purview within which the project work lies. This topic has
been clearly enunciated with the help of articles from magazines, newspapers and other such
e-article databases that have been explored.
Methodology of Study
This project work is descriptive & analytical in approach. It is largely based on secondary &
electronic sources of data. Internet & other references as guided by faculty of Criminal
Justice System are primarily helpful for the completion of this project.
Organisation of Study
The study/report has been organised into five sections. The first section deals with the
introduction of the study is discussed to know what the project is dealing with. The second
section deals with concept of wrongful convictions. The third section deals with the causes of
wrongful convictions. The fourth section deals with the Remedies and Implications. The final
section deals with the concluding observations.
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Chapter 2. WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS
Wrongful conviction is defined as the conviction of a factually innocent person. Wrongful
convictions encompass both culpability issues and procedural issues found to have a
substantial effect on the initial conviction. While an individual may be released and found
not to be criminally liable, he/she may still face repercussions stemming from the charges,
such as civil suits, as well as a criminal record indicating prison time served. In order for the
charges, as well as possible prison time served, to disappear, a defendant must seek
exoneration, which has been shown only to be granted in a small proportion of wrongful
conviction cases exonerations are official declarations of innocence by a governor’s pardon,
a court’s dismissal of charges, acquittals after retrials, and acknowledgements of innocence
for those inmates who died in prison.
According to Shermer, Rose, and Hoffman (2011), data from The Innocence Project have
indicated that an overwhelming majority of wrongful convictions are associated with
eyewitness misidentifications; specifically, eyewitness errors were shown to be responsible
for more than 75 percent of the DNA exoneration cases this group has handled. 2
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BRITTNAY LEA-ANDRA MORGAN, WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS: REASONS, REMEDIES, AND
CASE STUDIES, Department of Government and Justice Studies , May 2014,
https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Morgan,%20Brittnay_2014_Thesis.pdf
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Chapter 3. CAUSES OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS
Studies reveal several factors related to miscarriages of justice, labeled “causes,” although
they are not so in a scientific sense. Typically, more than one factor is found in each wrongful
conviction. Although a few wrongful convictions are caused only by honest witness error,
most involve some level of negligence or malfeasance by criminal justice officers or defense
lawyers. A troubling minority of cases involve perjury or knowingly dishonest action by
forensic examiners, prosecutors, and police. Brief descriptions of the major factors related to
wrongful convictions follow. Note that the list that follows is not comprehensive.
A. Eyewitness Identification
Mistaken eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. It was
involved in 79% of the first 200 DNA exonerations. Although an overall error rate for
eyewitnesses is not well established, some experts place it at about 25%. This figure is the
same as the proportion of DNA tests in rape cases conducted by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation laboratory in which the DNA did not match the mistakenly identified suspect.
The human memory does not record all information like a video recorder; it drops most
information out of short-term memory and stores the central, but not peripheral, elements of
those events in long-term memory. This makes facial recall somewhat uncertain. Events
during a crime, such as extreme stress or focus on a weapon, decreases facial recall by
victims and witnesses. In addition, unconscious transference can lead witnesses to
superimpose the face of someone previously observed but not well-known onto the memory
of the perpetrator. Memory is dynamic and can change during the recall stage from what was
observed. Memory is also malleable and can change under the influence of suggestion. These
and other factors show that eyewitness identification should be received with caution, and yet
police, prosecutors, and especially jurors tend to rarely disbelieve eyewitness evidence.
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Problems with eyewitness identification are made worse by flawed police procedures. Police
have relied on “showups,” which is showing the suspect or the suspect’s photograph alone to
the witness without a lineup. Courts rule that showups are suggestive and will exclude
showup evidence unless one of several easy-to-produce factors is present. The showup
exception factors are whether the witness paid attention, had a good opportunity to view the
perpetrator, gave an accurate description, was certain, and viewed the showup shortly after
the crime.
Even lineups are often flawed. Police are not always scrupulous in ensuring that the suspect
does not stand out from the lineup fillers. Laboratory research shows that more errors occur
when fillers are selected on the basis of their similarity to the suspect than on the basis of the
victim’s description of the perpetrator. Police or prosecutors have at times suppressed the
uncertain identification or nonidentification by one lineup witness while promoting the
testimony of another. These and other elements often make lineups a less-than-optimal
method of an accurate identification.
B. Forensic Science Error or Misconduct
Problems with expert evidence presented by forensic scientists or forensic examiners is the
second leading cause of wrongful convictions; erroneous forensic evidence supported the
convictions of 57% of the first 200 DNA exonerations. Forensic error and misconduct take a
variety of forms, including problems inherent in the method, incompetent or untruthful
experts, and substandard forensic laboratories.
Some expert evidence is based not on scientific testing but on comparisons that rely
ultimately on the experts’ subjective evaluations. Some of these methods, such as
fingerprints, bullet and tool mark examinations, and footprint and tire impressions, are
relatively credible and accurate, but known errors have nevertheless occurred. If such expert
evidence goes unchallenged by defense attorneys (by having other experts evaluate it), it is
possible that honest but mistaken conclusions will lead to false convictions. Other kinds of
expert comparison, such as handwriting analysis, are more subjective and require closer
scrutiny. Even lower on the reliability scale are comparison methods that are so tentative that
some label it “junk science.” Two such methods, microscopic hair analysis and bite mark
impressions on skin, have caused numerous wrongful convictions. Hair analysis has now
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been largely replaced by DNA analysis, and bite mark evidence, although accepted in courts,
has been subject to strong criticism.
Examiners have been known to err even where evidence is based on forensic science, which
includes blood analysis (serology, which has been replaced by DNA analysis), drug analysis,
forensic toxicology (the science of poisons), and organic and inorganic analysis of crime
scene trace evidence. Even worse, in a few notorious cases forensic examiners have been
exposed as pathological liars who always testified to benefit the prosecution, even when no
tests were conducted. In addition to outright falsification, forensic experts can mislead courts
and juries by overstating the strength of their findings, reporting inconclusive reports as
conclusive, failing to report conflicting results, and the like. When expert witness perjury has
been exposed, state criminal justice systems have had to reopen hundreds of cases to ensure
that they did not result in wrongful convictions. Some specialized arson investigators have
relied on incorrect or outdated fire science to report that fire and burn patterns were evidence
of arson when this was not true.
Finally, even the most reliable methods can produce incorrect results if the forensic
laboratories are substandard. As DNA testing becomes more sensitive, the risks of
contamination rises unless the laboratories are in pristine condition. Testing in some inferior
laboratories has even led to several people being wrongly convicted on the basis of erroneous
DNA analysis. Among the worst cases was the Houston, Texas, police laboratory. A few
years ago conditions were so poor that the laboratory’s roof leaked, contaminating samples
with excess moisture.
C. False Confessions
Most people cannot understand why innocent persons confess, especially as the “third
degree” (beating and torture to get confessions) has mostly disappeared from American law
enforcement. Yet, false confessions were obtained in about 20% of exonerations, and at least
125 false confessions have been documented. What people do not know is that police
interrogation is a “guilt presumptive” process designed to extract a confession from the guilty
person who is reluctant to confess. As such, it uses powerful psychological techniques to get
suspects, even innocent suspects, to talk and to confess.
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When police interrogate a suspect, they are usually not trying to solve a crime because they
are already convinced that the suspect is guilty, even if the investigation has not been
completed. Police conduct pre-interrogation interviews to ascertain whether a suspect is
truthful, but the ability of police to detect lies is no better than chance. Despite Miranda
warnings, most suspects waive their rights. Laboratory experiments and case studies have
shown that innocent persons waive more frequently because they know they have nothing to
hide.
The interrogation setting and process create psychological pressure designed to extract a
confession. The suspect is isolated and confined in a small, uncomfortable space. The
interrogator forcefully asserts the suspect’s guilt and cuts off any denials or objections. In the
United States police may lawfully lie to a suspect during interrogation, by, for example,
falsely asserting that his or her fingerprint or DNA profile was found at the scene. The
interrogation creates a sense of hopelessness in the suspect. The interrogator then develops
themes, such as minimizing the seriousness of the crime, that make it psychologically easier
for the suspect to admit guilt. Once an admission is made, the process moves on to generating
detailed oral and written admissions or confessions.
Police interrogation produces incriminating statements or full confessions two thirds of the
time. The techniques and subterfuges are so powerful that interrogation also induces innocent
persons to confess. Research suggests that teens, mentally impaired individuals, and people
with personality deficits are more likely to falsely confess than normal adults. Compliant
false confessions are made in order to end the psychological pressure of interrogation. Some
who confess naively believe that they will be released, led to that belief by subtle police
statements that do not amount to the clear promises banned by the rule against coerced
confessions. Others think that once they get out of the interrogation room they will be able to
explain their case to a judge and have their case dismissed. Less frequently, cases of
internalized false confessions occur, where the innocent suspect comes to doubt himself, after
extensive and insistent police persuasion that includes false statements presented as fact, and
admits that he “must have” committed the crime while in a blackout state. Even when such
confessions are retracted, they play a strong role in convicting innocent suspects.
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D. Perjury: Perpetrators, Informants, Jailhouse Snitches, and Criminal Justice
Personnel
Perjury in various forms is common in wrongful convictions. Informant perjury was a factor
in 49% of the first 111 death penalty exonerations. In capital cases the real perpetrator is
often a suspect, and in several cases where police focused on an innocent person, the actual
killers led investigators further astray with false testimony. Witnesses frequently lie to police
for a number of reasons, and although police tend to believe that they are proficient at
detecting witnesses’ deception, scientific studies show that investigators do no better than
chance at detecting liars. In laboratory studies, all groups (whether police or students) could
identify falsehoods about half the time.
Miscarriages of justice happen often when police pay informants to supply incriminating
information about suspects, which the informants then fabricate. Informants are often
criminals and can be paid in many ways: money, dropped criminal charges, leniency when
they are charged with serious crimes, or favors to friends or family. This gives the most
untrustworthy people incentives to lie, and police handlers often fail to properly screen their
stories. A pernicious type of informant is the jailhouse snitch. Numerous false convictions are
obtained in part on the testimony of jailed snitches who claim that the innocent suspect
confessed the crime to them or made incriminating statements. It is not all that difficult for a
clever snitch to get enough information about a case to make up a plausible story for the
prosecution to use. In some jails the use of snitches has become so routine as to suggest
willful blindness on the part of police and prosecutors.
Unfortunately, there are several recent notorious cases in which rogue police officers have
framed innocent people for drug and weapons possession. Although this kind of corruption is
rare, when it happens it requires officials to reinvestigate hundreds of convictions. Police and
prosecutors have great discretion in conducting investigations and trying cases. Although the
overwhelming majority are honest, their opportunity to cover the truth requires internal
vigilance on the part of these agencies.
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E. Ineffective Defense Counsel
Most defendants are poor (indigent) and rely on government- paid assigned counsel or public
defenders rather than retained lawyers. Indigent defense is chronically underfunded, making
it difficult for competent attorneys to routinely provide adequate defense. Studies in several
states have shown a higher proportion of defense lawyers in exoneration cases with poorer
disciplinary records than average, offering proof that substandard lawyering is a cause of
wrongful convictions. The U.S. Constitution requires effective assistance of counsel for
defendants, but the Supreme Court’s standards for determining ineffective assistance are
weak and require proof that attorney negligence caused a verdict. Only 38 of the first 200
(29%) DNA exonerees raised ineffective-assistance claims on appeal, reflecting the difficulty
of making this kind of challenge, and only 4 received a reversal on ineffective-assistance
grounds.
Egregious cases of defense attorney misconduct in court have ranged from sleeping or total
unpreparedness to drunkenness and being high on drugs. Even ordinarily competent defense
lawyers have failed to prevent the conviction of innocent clients in ways too numerous to
catalogue. Among the most serious underlying problems are failures to adequately investigate
case facts and failing to properly challenge prosecutors’ witnesses, including forensic experts.
Although the wrongful conviction literature does not list ineffective assistance as the highest
cause, in a sense there is a failure by the defense in every wrongful conviction.
F. Prosecutorial Misconduct
Prosecutorial misconduct, whether or not it leads to wrongful convictions, is common. In-
court misconduct includes making inflammatory comments or mischaracterizing evidence to
the jury, allowing witness perjury (suborning perjury), or permitting snitches to lie about their
payoffs for testifying. Prosecutors have even been known to destroy evidence. The
suppression of exculpatory evidence (that which points to innocence), in violation of
Supreme Court rules, appears in many wrongful conviction cases. Suppressing exculpatory
evidence is a cloudy issue because it is up to the prosecutor to determine in the first instance
whether the evidence is exculpatory.
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When DNA testing became standard in the 1990s, a large proportion of prosecutors, all of
whom welcomed DNA as an investigation tool, strongly resisted postconviction, postappeal
petitions by prisoners seeking to test DNA crime scene samples in storage. Such resistance
added to the frustration and tragedy of actually innocent prisoners, and it delayed justice. In a
few cases, any chance of getting to the truth was terminated when existing DNA samples in
evidence lockers were deliberately destroyed after prisoners petitioned for testing.
Prosecutorial misconduct is especially significant because prosecutors are the most powerful
figures in the criminal justice process, with great discretion as to whether to charge suspects
or to dismiss cases. Before prosecutions are formally initiated, prosecutors have a judge-like
role. They dismiss one quarter of all cases filed by police, often because they believe that the
suspect is innocent. Two theories guide prosecutors in their discretionary decisions and in the
way they prosecute their cases: the (1) adversary role and (2) the minister of justice role. In
the adversary role a prosecutor can go forward with a case in which the evidence is
equivocal, on the theory that it is up to the jury to decide whether a defendant is guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt. As a minister of justice a prosecutor must be personally
convinced that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. A problem with the
adversary role is that prosecutors holding that view will tend to have a win-at-any-cost
attitude, likely resulting in fewer dismissed cases, more aggressive trial tactics, more
instances of misconduct, and greater opportunities of generating wrongful convictions. The
minister of justice role requires the difficult human and institutional ability to balance
vigorous prosecution with fairness and decency. This balance was captured in a 1940 speech
to federal prosecutors made by Attorney General Robert Jackson, later a U.S. Supreme Court
justice:
Your positions are of such independence and importance that while you are being diligent,
strict, and vigorous in law enforcement you can also afford to be just. Although the
government technically loses its case, it has really won if justice has been done.
G. Police Investigation
At its best, police investigation is the patient, systematic, and dispassionate search for,
discovery of, and evaluation of all relevant facts of a suspected crime. The goal is to establish
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whether a crime was committed and to identify and apprehend the perpetrator(s). This
complex and sensitive task requires solid understanding of criminal law, extensive knowledge
about criminal behavior and crime patterns, complete familiarity with the methods of
evidence collection and analysis of forensic evidence, skill in interviewing witnesses, and
good analytic and writing abilities.
Although it is inevitable that some crimes will not be solved and some innocent suspects will
be mistakenly identified, several factors increase the probability of error. One is tunnel
vision, which in fact affects all people and all criminal justice system participants. This term
encompasses well-established psychological cognitive mechanisms such as confirmation
bias, or the human tendency to seek and interpret new information in ways that confirm
preconceptions and avoid information and interpretations that contradict prior beliefs. When
applied to police investigation, tunnel vision is the tendency to focus on the first suspect and
then to select and filter evidence that builds a case for guilt, while ignoring or suppressing
exculpatory evidence. Tunnel vision is an unconscious or “natural” and entirely nonmalicious
process. However, its worst effects are amplified by aspects of police investigation such as
the nature of interrogation, discussed earlier.
Another problem is the nature of the police investigation report. This document is
tremendously important, because in most cases there is limited or no investigation by the
defense (in large part because of severely limited funds) and so the police case, found in the
report, becomes the official facts in the case. The police report is relied on heavily by the
prosecutor in deciding whether and what crimes to charge, by the magistrate in setting bail
and ordering detention for psychological evaluation, and even by defense attorneys who do
not independently investigate their client’s cases for plea bargaining and trial purposes. It is
the basis on which an officer testifies at trial and can influence sentencing decisions.
In contrast to European countries, where police investigation is supervised by investigative
magistrates who are well-trained judicial officers in national ministries (departments) of
justice, American police investigation (aside from federal cases) is almost entirely under the
control of local police departments. European police reports are highly detailed, part of the
official dossier, and geared to ascertaining the truth; American reports are internal documents
that serve functions other than informing the prosecution, such as evaluating personnel.
Police are not specifically trained to include exculpatory information in reports, despite
orders to include “all” information. Severe time pressure makes it difficult for police to write
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comprehensive reports, and police are trained to not report information that could lead to civil
suits against themselves or their departments. Studies indicate that police reports do not
normally contain exculpatory facts, and in fact are often deficient in reporting inculpatory
facts, to the discomfit of prosecutors. A few cases have uncovered deliberate fabrication and
the exclusion of exculpatory evidence in police reports that framed innocent suspects. It is not
known how pervasive these behaviors are. What is probably more common is for overworked
police officers to focus on the initial suspect and enter facts in their field notes and follow-up
reports that confirm their initial suspicion. Once written, there is no regular procedure to
incorporate contradictory or exculpatory evidence in police reports.
H. Other Causes, Root Causes
This list of wrongful conviction causes is not comprehensive. Race may play a part, either by
blatant discrimination, subtle bias, or as a result of the weaknesses of cross-racial
identification. This last results not from bias but from familiarity that allows people to see
subtle facial features among people with whom they are familiar. A disproportionate number
of wrongful convictions have occurred against African American men convicted of raping
white women.
The death penalty may also generate a higher proportion of wrongful convictions. Police,
under extreme pressure to solve capital murders, rely on marginal evidence to fasten their
attention on suspects. The American war on crime and its hyperimprisonment (at five to eight
times the levels found in other advanced democracies with comparable crime levels except
for homicide) has created a proprosecution atmosphere, leading police, prosecutors, judges,
juries, and appellate courts away from balanced decision making, probably resulting in more
miscarriages of justice.
In addition, pervasive root causes of wrongful convictions exist. One, discussed earlier, is
tunnel vision. Another is the lack of resources for all actors (police, prosecutors, and courts,
as well as defense lawyers). This creates extreme pressure to investigate cases within limited
time periods. Overlapping with pressure is the system’s normal bureaucratic functioning and
production demands, which channel the work of justice officials into routines that make it
difficult to slow case processing for more careful examination where called for. These
bureaucratic imperatives are aggravated by structural factors that may be impossible to
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change. The American governmental and criminal justice system is the most fragmented of
any modern nation. There are substantial differences in quality among the 16,000 local police
departments and 3,000 prosecutors’ offices in the nation. The election of prosecutors and
judges, virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world, injects a level of partisanship into
criminal justice that often undermines rational action. These factors may in turn create a
culture of impunity among investigators and prosecutors in which errors are seldom
restrained and misconduct rarely punished. The adversary system of trial, which imposes a
large burden on the defense to counter the prosecution with its own evidence, is fatally
flawed when criminal defendants almost never have the ability to independently gather
evidence.3
3
Supra Note 1
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Chapter 4. REMEDIES AND IMPLICATIONS
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 (ICCPR) is one of the key
international documents on miscarriage of justice. ICCPR discusses the obligation of State in
cases of miscarriage of justice resulting in wrongful conviction. It requires the State to
compensate the person who has suffered punishment on account of a wrongful conviction
provided that the conviction was final, and was later reversed or pardoned on the ground of
miscarriage of justice i.e. a new fact proving that the accused was factually innocent.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee discussed Article 14 of the ICCPR in detail in
its General Comment No. 32 (2007). In explaining the obligations of the State in Cases of
Miscarriage of Justice, it required:
It is necessary that States parties enact legislation ensuring that compensation as required by
this provision can in fact be paid and that the payment is made within a reasonable period of
time.
ICCPR and the above-referred General Comment together emphasise the need for a
legislative framework for payment of compensation to the victims of wrongful conviction,
and the same to be done within a “reasonable period of time”. A total of 168 State parties,
including India, have ratified the ICCPR.
These States have developed legal frameworks for remedying such miscarriage of justice by
compensating the victims of wrongful convictions, providing them pecuniary and/or non
pecuniary assistance. These frameworks establish the State’s responsibility of compensating
the said victims and also lay down other substantive and procedural aspects of giving effect
to this responsibility – quantum of compensation - with minimum and maximum limits in
some cases - factors to be considered while deciding the right to compensation as well as
while assessing the amount, claim procedure, the institution set up etc.
Public law remedy for miscarriage of justice on account of wrongful prosecution,
incarceration or conviction finds its roots in the Constitution of India. In such cases, it is the
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violation of fundamental rights under Article 21 (the right to life and liberty), and Article 22
(protection against arbitrary arrests and illegal detention etc.) that invokes the writ
jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the High Courts under Articles 32 and 226 of the
Constitution respectively; which includes the grant of compensation to the victim, who may
have unduly suffered detention or bodily harm at the hands of the employees of the State.4
IMPLICATIONS
Wrongful convictions continue to get attention and the issue is finally making headway as
more cases come to light. Additionally, there has been an increase of those willing to step up
and advocate for the innocently incarcerated to create ways to clean up the criminal justice
system. Furthermore, we are learning about exonerees and their experiences, but we also
must examine the effect that just one wrongful conviction has on a family and community.
Every family member of a person wrongfully convicted is put in distress. Had it not been for
the dogged pursuit of his mother, Jonathan Fleming’s case may not have reached us at
Management Resources, and we would not have had the opportunity to uncover evidence
leading to his exoneration.
Children left behind without a parent face a life without their presence and guidance. They
miss the opportunity to receive love and direction from a parent who is incarcerated.
Extended family, friends, and entire communities are forever changed by the experience of a
wrongful conviction through lost contact and opportunity. Especially concerning are the lost
contributions the person may have made to society were they not wrongfully convicted.
Maintaining a relationship with a spouse or significant other who is incarcerated is stressful at
best. Oftentimes relationships cannot withstand the separation, no matter how strong the
relationship was before the conviction, the strain is just too much.
There is no way to fully compensate a person for time out of their life, lost possibilities and
lost relationships. When they are finally free, there is little in the way of resources available
4
Wrongful Prosecution (Miscarriage of Justice): Legal Remedies, Report No. 277, LAW COMMISSION OF
INDIA, August 2018
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to help the transition back into a society which has dramatically changed. A person being let
out of prison on parole has more resources available to assist them than someone who is
exonerated.
Monetary settlements frequently take time to receive; in the meantime, the exoneree is left
with insignificant funds and skills to return to the workforce. And, they may return to the
outside world homeless were it not for the generosity of family and friends.
Reunification with family can also be awkward when one has been out of the circle for so
long, leading to further difficulty maintaining those relationships.
On the other side of the coin is the victim of the crime. Thinking the right person was
convicted, they now realize that the person who actually committed the crime has not been
brought to justice. They have not received a resolution to the case, and, once again, must
pursue justice through the system, re-living the crime and all the negative ramifications.5
Regardless of their newfound ‘freedom,’ exonerations continue to suffer upon release.
Clearly, adaptation to life on the outside is fraught with painful, psychological difficulties.
Once exonerated, the psychological effects of being wrongfully convicted are immediately
apparent. They may express withdrawal through forms of depression, self-mutilation, and
suicide. Withdrawal may also manifest as physical separation from peers through isolation,
and minimal communication with others.6
5
https://managementresources.wordpress.com/2016/07/01/the-ripple-effect-of-wrongful-convictions/
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https://alife4alifecoalition.com/2018/02/28/the-effects-of-wrongful-convictions-upon-the-exonerated-and-
their-families/
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Chapter 5. CONCLUSION
In 20 years, wrongful conviction has gone from a little-noted phenomenon to an important
topic within criminal justice. The number of innocence projects working to exonerate
prisoners has grown from 1 or 2 in the early 1990s to about 50 today. Partly as a result of
their policy advocacy, innocence reforms have been enacted. As it has already been indicated
that wrongful convictions may occur due to a variety of reasons or due to a culmination of
errors, it is important to determine the effects of such errors. Wrongful convictions not only
cost the criminal justice system a lot of money, including the costs for the time and resources
investigating the case, the costs of prosecuting the suspect, and even the costs of
incarceration, but also places a heavy burden on those subject to wrongful conviction. Those
who are wrongfully convicted may be subject to psychological issues, such as anxiety,
depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as the other physical and lifestyle issues
that may result from being wrongfully incarcerated. These individuals are subject to a loss of
freedom, liberty, and even life, as they are no longer able to take part in a normal life, even
after release from prison. The effects of wrongful conviction on the individuals subject to
this phenomenon, as well as the criminal justice system, bring to light the importance of
determining how to prevent these miscarriages of justices from occurring. The investigation
of wrongful convictions, which challenge the fairness and accuracy of the criminal justice
system, are becoming a necessary feature of criminal justice analysis.
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REFERENCES
1. http://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/system/wrongful-convictions
2. BRITTNAY LEA-ANDRA MORGAN, WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS: REASONS,
REMEDIES, AND CASE STUDIES, Department of Government and Justice Studies
, May 2014, https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Morgan,%20Brittnay_2014_Thesis.pdf
3. Wrongful Prosecution (Miscarriage of Justice): Legal Remedies, Report No. 277,
LAW COMMISSION OF INDIA, August 2018
4. https://managementresources.wordpress.com/2016/07/01/the-ripple-effect-of-
wrongful-convictions/
5. https://alife4alifecoalition.com/2018/02/28/the-effects-of-wrongful-convictions-upon-
the-exonerated-and-their-families/
