There are many critical issues in law enforcement in the United States of America. Wrongful convictions are an emerging issue due to DNA testing solving murders from times when technology was not available. Citizens, who are wrongly convicted of a crime, often spend years in jail, losing valuable years of their lives. A large issue in these cases is how to handle the authority figures that wrongly convicted the suspect, and whether the released person is fairly compensated. In 2013, “a former Texas District attorney agreed to serve 10 days in jail for withholding evidence that could have stopped an innocent man from going to prison for nearly 25 years (Johnson, 2013, N.P). Ken Anderson, a former Williamson County District Attorney, is …show more content…
When someone is incarcerated, they are not making any money. They lose time and memories with friends and family, and when the time comes that they are released, jobs and relationships are hard to reestablish. 30 states currently have compensation programs for innocent prisoners when they are released (Compensating The Wrongly Convicted,,N.P). That leaves 20 states that have no compensation at all for a prisoner when released. To put that into prospective, someone who was wrongly convicted of murder can spend 20 years in prison, exonerated of their crime 20 years later, then sent back into society with …show more content…
The payment is above the average annual salary of an American person, and they also offer money for the released person to go get an education. 5 men wrongly convicted of a crime 24 years ago, recently won a 41 million dollar lawsuit from the federal government (Gregorian, 2014, N.P). These men were coerced into confessing when they were teenagers, and it took years for the actual man responsible for the crime to confess. Each man will get around 7-12 million dollars each for about 13 years spent in jail. One of the men wrongfully convicted states that “the money could never make up for what they went through then—and what they continue to go through now” (Gregorian, 2014, N.P). The articles found about wrongful convictions do not seem very biased towards the reader. The New York Daily News covered all angles of the story, including the justice system, and the wrongfully convicted. The online news websites cover each part equally for these stories, but they all seem to leave out the mistakes made by the justice system years ago. The only site that covered the crucial mistakes by the judicial system was The Innocent Project. That is because the Innocent Project is a non profit organization that is fighting towards getting justice on the wrongfully convicted, so they will be the most biased of them
Criminals can come in many different shapes and sizes. For example, a criminal can be classified as being a murderer or a criminal could just simply have committed fraud in a business setting. There is a large diversity of criminals and it is the judge’s job to determine what is a fair punishment for a guilty verdict. Judge Ron Swanson, a federal judge for the Florida District Court of Appeal, deals with using cost-benefit analysis daily to determine what is fair for everyone involved. Before becoming a judge, Judge Swanson was a prosecutor coming out of law school in the University of Florida. As a prosecutor and a judge, Judge Swanson has always worked to bring justice for the victims, the defendant if he or she is innocent, and for the citizens
If that does not occur to the reader as an issue than factoring in the main problem of the topic where innocent people die because of false accusation will. In addition, this book review will include a brief review of the qualifications of the authors, overview of the subject and the quality of the book, and as well as my own personal thoughts on the book. In the novel Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make It Right authors Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer expose the flaws of the criminal justice system through case histories where innocent men were put behind bars and even on death row because of the miscarriages of justice. Initially, the text promotes and galvanizes progressive change in the legal
Convictions. Now Juries Expect the Same Thing – and That's a Big Problem.” U.S. News
Wrongful conviction is an issue that has plagued the Canadian Justice System since it came to be. It is an issue that is hard to sort out between horrific crimes and society’s desire to find truth and justice. Incidences of wrongful conviction hit close to home right here in Saskatchewan as well as across the entire nation. Experts claim “each miscarriage of justice, however, deals a blow to society’s confidence in the legal justice system” (Schmalleger, Volk, 2014, 131). Professionals in the criminal justice field such as police, forensic analyst, and prosecutors must all be held accountable for their implications in wrongful convictions. There are several reasons for wrongful convictions such as racial bias, false confessions, jailhouse informants, eyewitness error, erroneous forensic science, inappropriate, professional and institutional misconduct and scientific limitations that society possessed prior to the technological revolution (Roberts, Grossman, 2012, 253 – 259). The introduction of more advanced DNA analysis has been able to clear names and prevent these incidences from occurring as often. As well as the formation of foundations such as The Association of Defense for the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC). Unfortunately, mistakes made in the Canadian Justice System have serious life altering repercussions for everyone that is involved. Both systematic and personal issues arise that require deeper and more intense analysis.
prisoner than to keep him. In New Jersey ?$253 million? has been spent in the Capital punishment sector and they?ve killed a sum total of zero people. The cost of maintaining the equipment is exorbitant and the drugs are especially expensive. If the conviction is wrong the government can be sued for massive amounts.
Now, it takes a lot of courage for an investigator to stand up and admit a wrongful conviction, especially in a case that he helped to convict. That brings me to think agree with the statement of Chief Justice William H. Rehmquist “the justice system has not yet learned to confront the fact that, even when there are no easily identifiable misstep, it can produce an unjust outcome.” (Clifford 4) It is because of this reason, that manyinnocent people end up in jail. Despite the efforts to get them out, many of them are denied. It took nine years for federal agents to even consider looking into the Edward Garry conviction case. In addition, it took another three years for Garry’s lawyer to get a post-conviction motion, which was denied by a Bronx judge, saying that the new evidence wasn’t credible. And still, Garry has yet to be absolved for this crime that he did not commit despite witnesses testifying on his behalf. This is a really depressing case because of the fact that Garry has become broken. “Garry gives the impression of a man who has been inside literally and figuratively for far too long.” Twenty one years of his innocent life that he may never get back. All because this justice system has failed him as a
The main purpose of this article is to look at the possible link between race and exoneration, and how race and wrongful convictions lead to the exonerations. There were three reasons that the authors chose this topic to research. The first reason was the research previously done in the field show racial biased in the criminal justice system. This paper looks at how that effects wrongful conviction and the subsequent exoneration. The second reason is because if there is an innocent person in prison that means that the real culprit is still out there, and more than likely committing more crimes. The third reason is racial composition of the dyad, victim and the perpetrator. This article is the first to mention the dyad and the authors focus on that in their discussion of wrongful conviction. This article is a very insightful look at the problem of the racial bias in the system that leads to wrongful conviction and how that leads to exoneration. It effectively explains the causes of wrongful convictions and how race affects those causes, especially how the dyad is incorporated in it.
On July 30, 1992, an innocent man was placed behind bars and caged for a crime he did not commit. This false arrest allowed for the real perpetrator to walk free whi...
Upon examination, one finds capital punishment to be economically weak and deficient. A common misconception of the death penalty is that the cost to execute a convicted criminal is cheaper than to place a convict in prison for life without parole. Due to the United States judicial system, the process of appeals, which is inevitable with cases involving death as the sentence, incurs an extreme cost and is very time consuming. The cost of a capital trial and execution can be two to six times greater than the amount of money needed to house and feed a prisoner for life. "Studies show incarceration costs roughly $20,000 per inmate per year ($800,000 if a person lives 40 years in prison). Research also shows a death-penalty ease costs roughly $2 million per execution," (Kaplan 2). Capital punishment is extremely expensive and depletes state governments of money that could be used for a wide range of programs that are beneficial. As Belolyn Wiliams-Harold, an author for the journal Black Enterprise, writes that county governments are typically responsible for the costs of prosecution and the costs of the criminal trial, including attorney's fees, and salaries for the members of the courtroom. All this money is spent at the expense of the corrections department and crime prevention programs, which are already is strapped for cash (Williams-Harlod 1). These "financial constraints," such as capital punishment, do not promote a healthy, commercial society, but actually cost and harm the public.
Although the criminal justice system punishes those who have committed crimes against society, there are still flaws in the system that send innocent people to prison. Actual Innocence by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer, focuses on those problems connected to the incarceration of innocent people, as well as those who have been convicted and were ultimately exonerated. Confessions and racism are two major issues that are described in Actual Innocence that explain how these problems occur in our criminal justice system today and how innocent people are convicted of crimes.
"Know the Cases." Innocence Project. Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, n.d. Web. 1 Mar 2011. .
were not previously seen, such as hostile or mistrustful attitude towards the world, social withdrawal, feelings of emptiness or hopelessness, a chronic feeling of threat, and estrangement.” Although psychological issues develop in anyone incarcerated, those discussed are particular from the perspective of a victim wrongfully accused.
There are major problems with our criminal justice system. In the last one hundred years, there have been more than 75 documented cases of wrongful conviction of criminal homicide. According to a 1987 Stanford University survey, at least 23 Americans have been wrongly executed in the 20th century. For this very reason, the State of Illinois imposed a moratorium on the state?s death penalty in 2000 when it was discovered that 13 inmates on its Death Row were wrongly convicted. Anthony Porter, one of the 13, spent 15 years on Death Row and was within two days of being executed, before a group of Northwestern journalism students uncovered evidence that was used to prove his innocence.
Smith, C. E. (2004). Public defenders. In T. Hall, U.S. Legal System (pp. 567-572-). [Ebscohost]. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook
A wrongful conviction is the worst thing that a jury, witness, investigator or judge could be responsible for. The burden and the guilt that will be placed on the shoulders of them, knowing an innocent person had to spend time out of their personal life in prison is unbearable. Nobody is perfect, but everybody should try to be as close as possible to perfect when they are putting a person in prison for a crime they are sure they committed. Compensation will help the innocent victim who had to waste time in prison but nothing will replace the time missed away from families and many families turn on and hate the person thrown in jail because they thought they were indeed guilty, little to their knowledge their innocent. Money can sometimes buy happiness, but it cannot replace lost love and wasted time in prison.