1. Wrongful Convictions
Tamara Peatross

2. Subtopics:
Contributors
Compensation
Prevention

3. Contributors The Race Effect on Wrongful Convictions
Author: Arthur L. Rizer III – Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center and Associate Professor of Law at West Virginia University College of Law
The source above gives me background information on how race is a major factor when contributing to Wrongful Convictions. They start off with the history with an example of how in North Carolina, they had mandatory capital crime statutes for those cases where a black man was convicted of raping a white woman, where if a white man was convicted of the same crime, he would receive a maximum of one year in prison. This source can also help me argue how race can contribute do to cross racial identification. They stated how people make identifications by recognizing facial features. As well as those of one race have a harder time recognizing faces of people from different races. For example, a man named William Jackson spent five years in a penitentiary on a rape charge because two white women swore under oath that he raped them when in reality, he did not.

4. Contributors The Prosecutors Contribution to Wrongful Convictions
Author: Bennett L. Gershman – Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University
This source gives me background information about how a prosecutor can contribute to wrongful convictions. In this source, they stated how prosecutors is there to ensure that justice is afforded to all accused, empirical, and anecdotal evidence but their misconduct, exercise of bad judgment or simple carelessness have been responsible for causing the convictions of hundreds of innocent people. He also stated that a prosecutor’s failure to disclose favorable evidence to the defense that may either exculpate a defendant or undermine wrongful convictions. As well as a prosecutor can also misrepresent the record by making false or exaggerated claims that can mislead the jury into convicting someone who may be innocent.

5. Contributors
Wrongly Accused – Is Race A Factor In Convicting The Innocent
Author: Andrew E. Taslitz – Professor of Law at the Washington College of Law at American University and Howard University
This source helps me argue how racial stigma can be a factor when convicting the innocent. In this source, they express how white jurors engage in fundamental attribution error. The fundamental attribution error is the human tendency to attribute behavior more to individual character than to a good or bad set of circumstances. They make this error because they believe that all bad behavior by blacks as stemming from some fundamental flaw in their nature rather than an unfortunate situation. This source also helps me argue how the dynamics of interrogation can be a contributor in wrongful convictions. In this source, they stated how in interrogation people are wrongfully convicted because people who interrogate them uses presumed base rates of behavior and stereotyping.

6. Contributors
Wrongful Convictions and the Accuracy of the Criminal Justice
Author: H. Patrick Furman – Professor at Univeristy of Colorado Law School
This source helps me argue the different type of contribution that can be a factor to wrongful conviction like misidentification and ineffective assistance of counsel. They stated how the most common factor that’s contributing to wrongful convictions is mistaken identification. A study of 70 cases in which DNA evidence proved that an innocent person had been wrongfully convicted concluded that mistaken identification was a factor in 87 percent of the cases studied. Also in line up procedures, in the 58 live line-ups, 50 percent of the witnesses selected the suspect, 24 percent selected a known innocent who was part of the line up and 26 percent made no selection at all. As a citizen you have the right to a counsel when dealing with a serious crime and some who are appointed do not perform their jobs. In this article they state how in the studies of wrongful convictions, ineffective assistance of defense counsel has been cited as a significant contributing factor in anywhere from 5 to 28 percent of the cases.

7. Contributors
The Relationship Between Prosecutorial Misconduct and Wrongful Convictions: Shaping Remedies For A Broken System
Author: Peter Joy – Professor of Law at University in St. Louis
This source helps me argue about prosecutorial misconduct is a factor when contributing to wrongful convictions. In this source, they express that prosecutors across the country have violated their oaths and the law committing the worst kinds of deception in the most serious cases. They do it to win, because and because they won’t get punished. For example, in the Berger v. United States case, Justice Sutherland identified a list of misconduct by the prosecutor at Berger’s trial including misstating the facts in his cross-examination of witnesses, putting into the mouths of such witnesses things which they had not said, pretending to understand that a witness had said something which he had not said and many more. Since this case, prosecutorial misconduct has proven to be one of the most common factors that causes or contributes to wrongful convictions.

8. Synthesis
In the “Race Effect on Wrongful Convictions,” by Arthur Rizer informs me with background information about the connection between race and wrongful convictions. This helps me by providing history about the race effect in wrongful convictions as well as information on cross identification with race. My second source, “The Prosecutors Contribution to Wrongful Conviction,” by Bennett Gershman gives me background information about the way prosecutors can be a major factor when sending someone who’s innocent to jail. This source can help me inform my readers with the misconduct of prosecutors and how their disclosure of evidence or bad judgment can convict someone who’s innocent. In “Wrongly Accused – Is Race A Factor In Convicting The Innocent,” by Andrew E. Taslitz helps me argue the way racial stigma and the dynamics of interrogation is a contribution to wrongful convictions. The author helps me argue this with examples of how racial stigma can effect someone that was sent to jail and how the use of stereotyping in dynamic interrogation can send someone to jail also.

9. Synthesis cont.
Patrick Furman helps me argue the different contributions like misidentification and ineffective assistance of counsel in “Wrongful Convictions and the Accuracy of the Criminal Justice.” He helps me argue this with data provided about the effects of mistaken identification dealing with the line up procedure. Also, provides me with data on how counsels that aren’t doing their jobs ineffectively can contribute to wrongful convictions. Lastly, in “The Relationship Between Prosecutorial Misconduct and Wrongful Convictions: Shaping Remedies For A Broken System,” by Peter Joy helps me argue about the way prosecutorial misconduct can contribute to wrongful convictions. He provides me with explanation on why prosecutors do their wrongdoing and how it effects cases.

10. Compensation Compensating the Wrongly Convicted
Author: Peter Neufeld – Cardozo School of Law
In this source, they provide me with background information on why should a state compensate the wrongly convicted. The author expresses how with no money, housing, transportation, health services, and a criminal record that is rarely despite innocence, the punishment lingers long after innocence has been proven. States have a responsibility to restore the lives of the wrongfully convicted to the best of their abilities. They also stated on how society has an obligation to provide compassionate assistant to the wrongfully convicted by help securing affordable housing, assistance with education and the development of workforce skills, legal services to obtain public benefits, expunge criminal records, and regain custody of children and many others.

11. Compensation
How The Wrongfully Convicted Are Compensated For Years Lost
Author: Stephanie Slifer – Associate Producer for CBSNews
This source helps me argue about why compensation is needed for people who are exonerated. After being exonerated, they cannot just pick up where they left off. People have lost families, jobs, the ability to build a career over this. In this article, she revealed that there’s a law in 21 states that states how you’re not guaranteed any form of compensation after being exonerated. The author gave an example of how a teenager spent 17 years in jail for killing his parents before being exonerated. He was released in 2007 and finally won his settlement in The author also expressed how a person who falsely confessed or pleaded guilty to a crime they didn’t commit could be prohibited from receiving compensation. But, nearly 30% of all DNA exonerations recorded in the United States involve a person that either pleaded guilty or falsely confessed.

12. Compensation Compensation Statutes and Post-Exoneration Offending
Author(s): Evan J. Mandery, Amy Shlosberg, Valerie West, Bennett Callaghan – Professors of Department of Criminal Justices and Social Sciences.
This source helps me argue on the difficulties that people who are exonerated go through to get compensation. They explained how exonerees may seek official compensation though one of three means: tort claims, private bills, or compensation statutes. Which ever path an exoneree goes down, he encounters substantial obstacles. Exonerees may sue the federal government but they rarely win in that situation. The authors also stated on how some states impose time constraints on exonerees who seek compensation. For example, California only allows an exoneree two years to file a claim, before it was only six months. Even when there isn’t any statute of limitations, the process is even more difficult because they have to get the litigant to prove his innocence about a crime that took place years ago.

13. Synthesis
“Compensating the Wrongly Convicted,” by Peter Neufeld, helps me gain background information on why compensation is needed for people who are victims of being wrongfully convicted. This author provides me with how exonerees with no money, housing or jobs needs some type of compensation after being in jail for a long period of time. The same goes for Stephanie Slifer in “How The Wrongfully Convicted Are Compensated For Years Lost,” she stated on how 21 states do not have compensation for people who are wrongfully convicted. People cannot just pick up where they left off after being in jail for majority of their lifetime. Not only people who are victims of wrongful imprisonment needs compensation but it shouldn’t be a difficult task for them to obtain it. In “Compensation Statutes and Post-Exoneration Offending,” by Evan J. Mandery, Amy Shlosberg, Valerie West, Bennett Callaghan, they expressed how compensation isn’t so easy to come by. Simply because of having to prove their innocence or not prevailing when suing the government.

14. Prevention
The Innocence Commission: Preventing Wrongful Convictions and Restoring the Criminal Justice System
Author: Jon B Gould – Professor, Department of Justice, Law and Criminology
In this source, they give me background on preventing wrongful convictions. They start off by saying how twenty years ago, the claim that innocent people had been wrongly convicted of serious crimes would have been “treated with general incredulity.” Although most of the innocent people were convicted of minor crimes, they showed that the majority of exonerations have occurred in murder and rape crimes. To try to prevent this from happening, the author states on how we should focus on the states reform. For example, address mistaken eyewitness identification by electronically recording identification procedures, using double blind method, provide additional training to reduce misconduct or inadvertent mistakes by police and prosecutors, and etc.

15. Synthesis
In “The Innocence Commission: Preventing Wrongful Convictions and Restoring the Criminal Justice System,” by Jon B Gould, the author provided me with enough information about preventing wrongful convictions. They gave me reasons on why wrongful convictions need to be prevented. People did not think it was a big deal of people being sent to jail for a crime they did not commit until innocent people were being put to death. Knowing this information, the author provided me with examples on how the state can prevent this from happening. These solutions can help give back people their freedom and stop this from happening in the future as well.