For this assignment I only need complete pages of facts and a conclusion.

***Please ensure that there are 3 or more pages of facts in the discussion for EACH factor.  Please include no less than a page for the conclusion.***

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Conclusion- Now that you have shown how you reasoned through the problem, state a conclusion. The

conclusion is nothing more than a brief statement of the best possible solution or solutions

which you have described in detail in the Discussion section. You do not need to continue

the discussion. You should not introduce new material in this section. Example: “Although

new jails could be constructed to house more inmates, a new program of com

munity custody for first offenders convicted of nonviolent crimes would prove more cost-effective.”

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should be only one (1) complete page.

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2

Wrongful Convictions in the Criminal Justice System

Charlene D. Parker

Saint Leo University

CRJ 590: Applied Project in Criminal Justice Administration

Dr. Karin May

April 4, 2021

I. The Problem

Wrongful convictions among the innocent can be the cause of multiple things that went wrong during their conviction. When a suspect faces an accusation or allegedly suspected and accused of committing an alleged crime, they are rightfully deserving of a fair trial and conviction. Receiving a fair trial or conviction is not always rendered, as there are so many people serving jail time due to wrongful convictions. A wrongful conviction means that errors during the investigation or somewhere after led an innocent person to be incarcerated. These acts inhibit justice by denying innocent people their freedom while the guilty go free. The various causes of wrongful convictions need to be addressed to prevent errors and ensure that every individual accused of committing a crime is rightfully convicted.

II. Factors Bearing on the Problem

The factors bearing on the problem are four items that causally relate to this issue and for this paper, I will only be dealing with these four issues.

· Eyewitness misidentification- Eyewitness misidentification occurs whereby victims or eyewitnesses are confident that a crime was committed, yet there was mistaken identity. Eyewitness misidentification can also be regarded as a situation in which a crime victim or an eyewitness mistakenly identifies an individual as being the perpetrator of a given crime, even though he/she did not commit the crime. There is an over-reliance on eyewitnesses; however, since the human mind is not like a surveillance video, eyewitnesses have wrongfully identified people who have led to wrongful convictions.

· Police investigations- Sometimes, there are erroneous procedures or incomplete investigations during their processing of an incident or crime scene. Wrongful identification and tarnished evidence of an accused perpetrator can be the main factor of misleading an investigation.

· False confessions- During an investigation or trial bears a great deal on obtaining a conviction. Incidences in which perpetrators are being coached or intimidated to lie about committing a crime.

· Committing perjury – There are times where individuals will knowingly commit perjury during a trial or criminal hearing to sway the judge or jury. Wrongful identification and tarnished evidence of an accused perpetrator can be the main factor of misleading an investigation.

It is assumed that the criminal justice system is flawed. Many individuals have been wrongly convicted across the country. The criminal justice system is meant to be considered indifferent to innocence and errors. With these assumptions, there are more innocent individuals in the jail and prison system today than there ever were.

III. Discussion

Eyewitness misidentification is a common occurrence in the justice department that has adverse outcomes. It can be considered the reason that causes many wrongful convictions since trials often rely on witness testimony. When eyewitnesses provide inaccurate data, the outcome is usually innocent persons getting arrested, while the real perpetrators go free (Albright, 2017). Criminal trials often rely on eyewitness accounts since they provide a view of an objective view of an occurrence of an event. The human memory can get relied on during criminal cases since their observation is accurate. Issues arise whereby the human memory can be malleable and thus result in inaccurate perceptions of events. The issues become worse in cases that cannot get refuted. It is imperative to assess human memory’s effectiveness, especially when under pressure to explain criminal acts.

Eyewitness misidentification also occurs due to the stress and anxiety that witnesses often face when they get questioned by the police. In this case, there can be an occurrence where stress can be more critical and emotional for the witness causing them to feel obligated to ensure the police capture culprits. The police can also be responsible for eyewitness misidentification since they may become suggestive when assessing eyewitnesses. This tactic is negative for the police procedures since it influences witnesses to construct testimonies based on the police expectations. The issue also occurs whereby the police influence eyewitnesses to give testimonies based on race. It is common for witnesses to identify perpetrators due to racism towards certain races wrongfully.

Eyewitness misidentification is highly detrimental since innocent persons often get arrested and police investigations get terminated earlier than advisable (Albright, 2017). Whenever police conduct investigations, suspects can get lined up, and witnesses can pick the perpetrator. The eyewitnesses can also get provided with photos of common criminals. In such cases, it is common for the eyewitnesses to get influenced by the suspect’s appearance in dressing style, body art such as tattoos, and race. Eyewitnesses are also influenced by the types of weapons that witnesses carry. The type of weapons possessed by crime victims causes the eyewitnesses to focus more on giving a testimony concerning the weapon while failing to identify the person behind the attack.

The misidentification can also occur when the eyewitnesses get influenced by the gender of the perpetrators. Female eyewitnesses may often get influenced to identify male perpetrators as the main suspects in crimes. This inaccuracy often misleads an investigation since the real criminal would go free. This is negative for the whole police department since resources for investigations would be directed to the wrong persons. There exists quite a several gender-based violence issues that might result in bias when pointing out an eyewitness. For instance, men who have been frustrated with women will tend to develop a bad attitude towards women. In case there is a selection to be done in which both men and women are lined up, such men will tend to associate the women with wrong things and the men with positive deeds. The same applied to women who feel inferior and oppressed by men.

An eyewitness can mistakenly identify someone as a perpetrator of a crime but, the person has not committed the crime. The mistake is contributed by the fact that during a crime fear, and anxiety affects eyewitnesses that affects their ability to concentrate and observe the incident to offer the right information and they are likely to fail in recalling specific facts (Garrett, 2020). There is always the issue of checking if the witness is mentally well to give evidence. However, Still, stress aspect is psychological and might happen during the period and may confuse the possible victims. The police might also contribute to the eyewitness misidentification, especially when they are giving suggestive glue as a way of assisting the eyewitness to remember the perpetrators from a group of suspected individuals. The suggestions by the police during eyewitness sharing information might give misleading information that might put an innocent individual in incarceration and the criminal is offered freedom unknowingly. There also exist police officers who are biased in their operations. Extending this will result in wrongfully convicted people who in many ways might be innocent.

Eyewitnesses at times might find themselves unfamiliar with various races and when during their timeshare what they observed during an incident is where they are likely to make inaccurate descriptions. Cross-race bias is contributed by the fact that people have the tendency of easily recognizing their race where they are more familiar with it but can mistake other races during description, giving misleading identification (Garrett, 2020). During a criminal act, especially where weapons are involved, it creates fear in the eyewitnesses. Their attention is driven towards the type of weapons possessed by the victims. Based on the type of weapon possessed, the eyewitnesses develop a fear of being murdered by the victims. This kind of focus interferes with the witness’s truth that misleads the police investigations putting the wrong person into prison.

Police investigations cannot get relied on since they may be inaccurate when conducted by unscrupulous law enforcement agents. Wuthichai (2017) stated that police investigations could get inaccurate information when there are an imbalance of manpower, unfair promotion, unsuitable equipment, and government resource provision delays. The issues usually result in individuals’ wrongful convictions since it is difficult for investigations to be accurate when the persons conducting research do not have enough resources and manpower. Police investigations cannot be depended on especially when the police lacked probable cause to arrest some individuals. When investigations are inaccurate, police reports would be inadmissible in court.

The personal characters of individual police officers significantly determine the nature of the investigation that they will be involved in. these personal features include but not limited to the level of education, sex, and marital status. According to the interviews that have been done with the police officers, it has been realized that older police officers and those who have stayed in the forces for longer are more experienced and offer quality work than the newly recruited police officers. They are more effective in executing their operations. This, therefore, demands that serious conviction cases should be mainly handled by experienced police officers and not the newly recruited officers.

The gender/sex of the police officers also impacts the investigations that are being undertaken. Logically, the male is stronger than the women, and they can survive in the harsh environment when compared to the female. Therefore, there are circumstances under which it will be difficult for the female police to undertake an investigation compared to the male. In such cases, the information obtained from the investigation might end up not being qualified. The level of education of the police officers is another factor that impacts the police investigations undertaken. Well-educated police officers might have enough skills of gathering information from people compared to the police whose level of education is lower. For instance, police officers who have studied psychology are in a better position of understanding what suspects might be going through and the rationale as to why they are behaving the way they are. Officers with a low level of education might fail to understand this and end up making wrong decisions.

The working environment of the police also determines the nature of the investigations that the police might give. When the officers are forced to work in harsh environments, the investigation given out might not be credible because they will be struggling with other factors in their work. However, when the working environment of the police is conducive and they are entitled to certain forms of motivation and appreciation, then it is evident that they will serve to ensure that everything is okay. Psychologically, motivating and appreciating people in whatever they do serves to make them work even harder and better. It is in this light that they end up undertaking well-strategized investigations which will minimize the wrong convictions.

The inclusion of police reports in the justice system is critical since the reports ensure officers can research the crime scenes, which then gets recorded as reports. The police must submit their reports to their departments so that the court case that would proceed afterward would be conducted with the highest degree of integrity. The police investigations also provide prosecutors with the decision of the most appropriate case to begin court proceedings. Issues can occur during investigation stages whereby the police might take notes of the crime scenes then type different information in the reports. It is common for the note-taking process to be inaccurate as the police-type the information hurriedly. When the initial investigation gets conducted with errors, it is common for the whole investigation to be inaccurate, leading to a wrongful conviction.

Police investigations also might contribute to wrongful convictions, especially when their investigation is based on biasness on matters of race or prior criminal record aspect of fixing an individual (Zhong & Dai, 2018) l. The police might conduct investigations with the business of making sure a person of a given race is convicted and this case has happened in the United States against the Black race. The stereotype that Black people are likely to be criminals might trigger the police to be biased in their investigations, resulting in wrongly convicting an individual. The overreliance on the police investigations might put the wrong people in prison, violating their freedom to movement and assembly.

Police investigation plays a major role in the criminal justice department and there is a need to conduct the investigations with the necessary keenness. The police are pressured to deliver the evidence which puts them in a dilemma between accuracy and speed. While working under pressure, there are so many things that might take place, without following the right procedure which ought to be followed. Utilizing such information will be dangerous as it will yield bad results. Too much pressure from the courts would result in misleading reports that might put an individual into a wrongful conviction (Zhong & Dai, 2018).

Wrongful convictions usually occur due to false confessions whereby people get pressured to give testimonies by the police, their families, or society’s pressure. False confessions often occur when potential suspects get interrogated by the police, who may use improper interrogation techniques (Niland & Ortu, 2020). The issue occurs more when defendants feel guilty, depending on the type of crime committed. Whenever a person getting interrogated provides a confession, it is common for the jurors, judges, and attorneys to believe them. Developing trust usually overrides any information from investigations since providing contradictory information questions the validity of an investigation. Once a suspect confesses to a crime, the media, public, jurors, and officials dealing with the case would treat the suspect harshly, often overlooking critical information in the case that would prove the true perpetrator.

Wrongful convictions can also occur because of wrong forensics. When the assumption is flawed, the forensic scientists will land at the wrong conclusions. Examples of wrong evidence include gunshots, head trauma, and even arson. Most of the time, the evidence that is presented in the courts is not monitored to confirm its credibility and reliability of its source. In this light, the experts presented before the judges to give evidence or stand in as witnesses tend to be trusted. Even with their wrongful convictions, they are believed. This supports the wrong convictions.

Official misconduct is another serious reason which can result in wrongful convictions. There are cases in which a person deliberately refuses to disclose any evidence. Since the lawyers and the judges do not have direct access to most of the information which might be gathered by the witnesses, they will hardly realize whether the witnesses are denying the evidence that they have or not. The prosecutors do not peruse or read into detail the notes that are available in the police cases.

False confessions are another serious cause of wrongful convictions. Regardless of how unbelievable this might be, any false confession will result in a wrongful conviction. Ideally, false confessions are supposed to come from people who are assumed to be mentally ill. However, this is not always the case since even normal people have been found to give false confessions, particularly when they want to achieve a certain goal.

The utilization of informants is another serious reason which can result in wrongful convictions. There are situations in which the police officer chose to make use of incentives so that they can obtain a reluctant witness who will testify against a certain suspect. Such witnesses are normally provided with benefits that will motivate them to stan against the suspect. An example of the benefit which they can be entitled to be a reduced sentence period or even dropping off their charges.

Potential criminals’ mental status usually affects criminal proceedings since it is common for people to give wrongful convictions to limit interrogation sessions. False confessions can also occur due to mental issues such as borderline intellectual disability, which causes people to behave in ways that are not a standard (Garrett, 2018). Stress and trauma mostly cause individuals to give false confessions to end the police investigations regardless of testimonies’ accuracy. This can be reinforced by inadequate defense from the suspect’s side. This is because so many accusations will be channeled to the suspects. This will make it easy to place wrong convictions on them.

False confessions also lead to wrong convictions where innocent defendants decide to deliver an outright confession that they participated in the crime and plead guilty and this would interfere with the whole process of getting the truth because the jury or the judge is likely to believe him/her (Vick et al., 2020). The motive of false convictions includes scenarios where the defendant feels that justice would not be served based on the crime. In later stages, he/she is likely to be asked to decide and feels that confession would be beneficial to him or her.

There are criminal cases were getting the evidence to prove the evidence is limited and an innocent defendant considers convictions that might lower the prison period. There are also those defendants coerced or forced to confess that they are responsible for a given crime, especially when the main perpetrator has power and resources to threaten an individual and may even offer him/her an amount of money to their family. The kind of confessions resulted in arresting and imprisoning the wrong person and the investigations are stopped and the real criminal remains free. Also, there is the concept of voluntary false confession. An individual decides to defend a close family friend of an incident based on pity or love, like a husband confessing to having committed a crime that his wife committed just to keep her out of prison (Kassin, 2017). A false confession is a threat to the victims’ justice and increases the cases of crimes because the real perpetrators are not punished.

Wrongful convictions usually occur when individuals commit perjury after getting swayed by the court proceedings and persons involved in criminal proceedings. The credibility of witness accounts is mainly based on witnesses’ quality and their ability to remain truthful even when faced with stressful lawyer inquisitions. The credibility of witnesses is not always guaranteed; thus, perjury’s criminal act gets committed when the accounts change (FindLaw, 2019). Wrongful convictions further occur when witnesses get bribed or threatened before they give testimonies in court. Such perjury cases are common, especially when the cases involve hardcore criminals and influence them to get to witnesses.

It should be noted that several defenses are not available in defenses of perjury. The first one is double jeopardy. With the double jeopardy situation, the claims hold that defendants are tried twice with a common jurisdiction and for the same offense. Although it fails to account for the time when the defendant has been charged for the offense, the charges are mentioned during a trial.

The mental status of suspects affects the validity of their statements. Some suspects would deliberately lie to the court to create urgency in their cases based on the level of guilt they feel or the part they played in the occurrence of the crime. Knowledge concerning a court case often influences potential suspects to commit perjury since they know the type of punishment they would receive (Griffin, 2019). This knowledge can influence suspects to commit perjury without realizing the negative effect on their cases. The presence of knowledge also influences suspects to commit perjury when they are fully aware of the severity of punishment for crimes.

Also, there are health conditions of patients which are not permanent. That is a condition affecting an individual at a given time of the year. Incase such an individual is required to make a statement when he/she is in good health, this is possible to have credible information. However, making a statement when the person is not feeling well might result in major issues. This affirms that sometimes the statements made might be wrong, but it has been triggered by the temporary health conditions of the person. The same person might be needed to adjust when in good health condition. But since it might not be in the same proceedings, making the adjustments will remain difficult.

Witnesses that commit perjury contribute to wrongful convictions where innocent people suffer imprisonment for a crime that they did not participate in. Any witness’s credibility might be tampered with using coercion and threats where witnesses are forced to take an oath and make false arguments and statements against a defendant basically to ensure that the individual is convicted. A witness can be bribed to give false statements concerning what he/she observed, influencing the investigations that are in place directing them elsewhere. Later the defendant is wrongly convicted (Garret, 2018). In this kind of scenario is where the real perpetrator can act as an eyewitness to use his/her understanding of what transformed in the crime scene and uses it to manipulate the court, putting an innocent person into a criminal by falsely providing wrong statements.

There exist several elements which characterized perjury. The first distinctive feature is that perjury occurs only under an oath. The witnesses involved must have vowed to tell only the truth in the presence of the commissioner of oaths. The proceedings must also be competent and within the limits of a qualified legal advisor. Secondly, perjury requires a statement that denies any form of changes that might be needed. Many times, the suspects fail to understand what should be done and what should not be done as far as the conviction is concerned. An understanding of the statement that must be made by suspects removes them from the risks of perjury.

There are situations in which statements can be recanted or corrected after they have been made. This is common among witnesses whether deliberate or voluntarily. Voluntary occurs when the witnesses have realized that whatever they had posted, was not correct or was insufficient. On the other side, the witnesses might be forced to make changes to the statements by force. Some witnesses might be bribed to make changes to the statement. The witnesses might be paid or guaranteed a certain form of the payment, motivation, or drop some charges. Presenting the two statements in a court order might contradict the solutions which might be made.

Annotated Bibliography

Albright, T. (2017). Why eyewitnesses fail. Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, 114(30), 7758-7764. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1706891114.

The article studies eyewitness misidentification and focuses on how court proceedings can get influenced by any wrongful witness account. The author explains the correct way eyewitness should get interrogated so that the accuracy of court cases would not be limited. The article illustrates the need to have a procedure to follow to ensure justice is served (Albright, 2017). The interrogation of eyewitnesses and having a procedure in place minimizes the possibility of misidentifications. The material will be relevant to the research paper because it will uphold the understanding of the activities the eyewitnesses are involved in.

Dodier, O., Melinder, A., Otgaar, H., Payoux, M., & Magnussen, S. (2019). Psychologists and Psychiatrists in Court: What Do They Know About Eyewitness Memory? A Comparison of Experts in Inquisitorial and Adversarial Legal Systems. Journal Of Police And Criminal Psychology, 34(3), 254-262.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-019-09339-0

The post has expressed how psychologists and psychiatrists play an important role in evaluating eyewitness statements. The article shares the assumptions that psychologists understand the science of memory and can differentiate between the correct witness information and give an advisory report to the jury or judge for further analysis. Understanding of the science about memory ensures that witness information used is credible to avoid making wrong convictions (Dodier et al., 2019). The use of expert witnesses is part of the revolution against wrongful convictions.

FindLaw (2019). Nothing but the Truth: What Happens When You Lie Under Oath. Retrieved 30 January 2021 from

https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/perjury.html

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The article examines common examples of perjury and the effect they have on court proceedings. Perjury is detrimental to the entire justice system since criminals often go free while some individuals remain incarcerated. The criminals become a threat to the public where they engage in other criminal activities harming innocent citizens (FindLaw, 2019). The government would use additional resources to tame the criminals that were left free in wrongful convictions.

Garret, B. (2018). Brendan Dassey’s false confession shows we need to be more careful when interrogating juveniles. Retrieved 30 January 2021 from

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2018/06/09/brendan-dasseys-false-confession-supreme-court-column/652915002/

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The interrogation of juveniles is criticized by the article since there often negative outcomes of such court cases. The article focuses on the false confession by Brendan Dassey where he stated that he murdered a woman, yet further research revealed that the lady did not die due to any physical altercation. The article points out the negative decisions which can be made by several courts based on the eyewitness’s support.

Garrett, B. (2020). Wrongful Convictions. Annual Review Of Criminology, 3(1), 245-259.

https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-criminol-011518-024739

The article by (Garrett, 2020) expresses the response to wrongful convictions where revolutions have started targeting the criminal procedure used. More research is directed to the law and science behind it. The article shows the research on known convictions to assess the causes of the wrongful convictions and the use of the information in coming up with the reforms that help detect and prevent criminal errors in the criminal justice system. Scholars have discovered various interdisciplinary topics that include law, criminology and discovered and came up with a better understanding of wrongful convictions and recommended ways to prevent errors. There was a wide range of jurisdictions that have been adopted basically to help in safeguarding crucial types of evidence that include eyewitness, police investigations, and confessions.

Garrett, B. L., (2017). Actual Innocence and Wrongful Convictions. Academy for Justice, A Report on Scholarship and Criminal Justice Reform (Erik Luna ed., 2017 Forthcoming), Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series, Available at SSRN: 

https://ssrn.com/abstract=2959570

The author (Garrett, 2017) has researched the possible responses to the rising cases of wrongful convictions and came to realize that there is a revolution in the criminal procedure adopted targeting on eliminating the possible causes of wrongful convictions. Interdisciplinary research was conducted. What emerged is that there is a potential change when the used procedures are reviewed to make sure that the issues of false confessions and police investigations are more evaluated before relying on them for decisions. The scientific bodies have made some recommendations and adopted some changes and jurisdictions when giving confessions, eyewitness statements, and police investigations.

Griffin, L. K. (2019). Why Republicans Are Refusing to Testify. Retrieved 30 January 2021 from

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/perjury-truth-courts/603727/

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Griffin explains that many Americans, especially Republicans, have often been committing perjury due to the level of knowledge concerning court cases. The acts are usually committed under oath as the suspects do not have high regard for the justice system and consider it like interviews and social media. Lack of trust in the criminal justice systems contributes to a lack of seriousness for the Republicans to testify in court cases. The article expresses that the failure of the Republicans to testify is a threat to our justice systems.

GOULD, J., & LEO, R. (2010). ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER: WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS AFTER A CENTURY OF RESEARCH. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 100(3), 825-868. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25766110

The article expresses the challenges experienced in the criminal justice system where wrongful convictions are experienced. An innocent person is arrested for a period to find that he/she did not commit the crime. The authors have confirmed there are various sources of errors that occur in the criminal justice department and it includes eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, perjured testimony, and forensic errors. Each source of errors requires considerations and strict procedures because manipulation is common in the justice system where eyewitnesses can be coerced to give false statements, or the defendant threatened to give a wrong confession. Any of the actions lead to wrongful convictions where innocent individuals are imprisoned for another person’s mistakes.

Kassin, S. M. (2017). False confessions: How can psychology so basic be so counterintuitive? American Psychologist, 72(9), 951–964. 

https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000195

The author (Kassin, 2017) has illustrated that recent research based on DNA technology advances has proved that there are various thousands of innocents wrongfully convicted for crimes they did not commit. The unfair convictions of innocent people are contributed by the fact that some of them were coerced or threatened to confess to being guilty of the crime where the confessions influence the decisions made by the jury or judge and the police investigations. Since the defendants are considered possible suspects for the crime, then their confession increases the judge’s chances to believe them. The scientific research on false confessions has proved them to be paradoxical. The research has confirmed that false confessions are not easily understood based on their root cause. The article has expressed the psychology behind false confessions is something that goes beyond logic and the judges are not likely to ascertain the difference between a genuine confession and one that is coerced.

Leuschner, F., Rettenberger, M., & Dessecker, A. (2019). Imprisoned but Innocent: Wrongful Convictions and Imprisonments in Germany, 1990-2016. Crime & Delinquency, 66(5), 687-711.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128719833355

The author states that the issue of wrongful convictions in the United States has raised many concerns and they have been subjected to more research to ascertain the real causes to develop credible reforms. In Germany, the case is different where cases of wrongful convictions from 1999-2016 were ignored for decades, indicating that the issues are not likely to be resolved. The research proved that about 31 cases of wrongful convictions occurred in 29 independent cases showing a serious threat in the criminal justice systems globally. The authors also proved that the causes of the wrongful convictions are like those that are in the United States that includes eyewitness misidentifications and false confessions. Surprisingly, what emerged to be critical is the rapid cases of false allegations resulting from wrongful convictions. The issue of eyewitnesses in the court system should rely upon much because it is misleading, as proved in the article. Finally, the article also showed the cases of wrongful convictions that are contributed by incorrect expert testimony. Still, the issue has a limited number of cases, even in the United States justice system.

Loeffler, C.E., Hyatt, J. & Ridgeway, G. (2019). Measuring Self-Reported Wrongful Convictions Among Prisoners. J Quant Criminol 35, 259–286.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-018-9381-1

The article has proved that wrongful convictions are mostly sourced from self-reporting, where the convicted individuals claim they are innocent based on the court charges. According to the research, there is an indication that most of the convictions were done following the requirements of the law. The study shows that several wrongful convictions were 6% of the total participants. Most of the wrongful conviction cases are contributed by the weaknesses in the criminal justice procedures.

Niland, H. & Ortu, D. (2020). Confessions Selected by Consequences: An Operant Analysis of False Confessions and Interrogation Techniques. Behav. Soc. Is. 29, 162–194.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-019-00025-8

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The cases of false confessions have been common in the U.S.A. since criminals often confess to crimes then later get exonerated after DNA investigations get conducted. The article focuses on analyzing how false confessions negatively impact criminals’ wellbeing and the validity of the justice system. The article confirms false confessions and the real criminals also confess to reduce their jail term. According to the article, criminals are affected by their decisions to confess falsely.

Norris, R., Bonventre, C., Redlich, A., Acker, J., & Lowe, C. (2017). Preventing Wrongful Convictions: An Analysis of State Investigation Reforms. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 30(4), 597-626.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403416687359

The article discusses the research conducted to ascertain the number of rising innocent people being incarcerated and expresses more information on the causes of the increasing cases of wrongful convictions. The authors argue that in mid-2016, the research indicated that the leading sources of wrongful convictions include eyewitness misidentifications, forensic errors, and interrogations. Eyewitness identification shows that witnesses become overwhelmed by fear during a criminal activity and fail to concentrate on identifying the person responsible for the criminal act. The additional aspect is that the eyewitness may lack the brain capacity to remember all that happened at a crime scene. Forensics methods used during investigation to collect evidence are not well tested and approved and might give misleading results that offer wrong results subjecting an innocent person to imprisonment. The article also explains the possible wrongful conviction reforms that are done by conducting more research about the issues that contribute to the errors to have good reforms.

Norris, R., Weintraub, J., Acker, J., Redlich, A., & Bonventre, C. (2019). The criminal costs of wrongful convictions. Criminology & Public Policy, 19(2), 367-388.

https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12463

The researcher examined the outcome of wrongful convictions that affect innocent people leaving the real perpetrators free. The outcome indicated that the wrongful convictions’ consequences are costly because the real perpetrators become a threat to society. Most of them engaged in different criminal activities and later convicted of the previous crime to escape (Norris et al., 2019). The real criminals that survived convictions where other innocent citizens were convicted have caused harm in the society targeting innocent people and the government must deploy more resources to target the same criminal that would have been incarcerated if not because of the wrongful convictions done. There is a need for the government to consult for public opinion on developing reforms against wrongful convictions.

Rossmo, D. K. (2018). Criminal Investigative Failures. Salus Journal, 6(1), 82-84. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1706891114.

Failures during police investigations often occur due to the suspects’ mental status, discrepancies during interview processes, and errors in the justice system based on the techniques used to solve the case. The article proposes that investigators exercise more care when dealing with court cases so that it would be possible to maintain the credibility of police investigations during court cases. Retrieved 2 February 2021 from

https://salusjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/McKinley_Salus_Journal_Volume_6_Number_1_2018_pp_82-84

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Vick, K., Cook, K., & Rogers, M. (2020). Lethal leverage: false confessions, false pleas, and wrongful homicide convictions in death-eligible cases. Contemporary Justice Review, 1-19.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10282580.2020.1755845

The article expresses the aspects of wrongful convictions being there since the 1990s. The factors that are considered the main cause are false confessions and this affects criminal justice decisions. The article has proved that false confession or false guilty pleas impact wrongful homicide convictions. The issue of false confessions affects the jury perceptions and the relationship of the attorneys. The wrongful convictions that have been pointed out in the material involved African Americans who have been accused of homicide. Vick, Cook & Rogers (2020) depicts that “guilty pleas were most likely produced in death-eligible jurisdictions, net of control factors. And third, death sentences were most likely to have been imposed on male exonerees where the homicide victims were mostly female, where official misconduct was present, and who had falsely confessed.”

Wixted, J., Mickes, L., & Fisher, R. (2018). Rethinking the Reliability of Eyewitness Memory. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(3), 324-335.

https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617734878

The article raises the concern of the overreliance on eyewitness evidence. It shows that human memory, like other evidence sources, is credible, but there should be proper testing procedures to ascertain that the information is legit. The article has proved that there are wrongful convictions associated with eyewitness memory and have put the wrong people in prison. An uncontaminated memory test for eyewitnesses is necessary for giving reliable evidence (Wixted, Mickes & Fisher, 2018). There is a need to put in place the best procedures to ensure that evidence sources are tested before approving the information.

Wuthichai T. (2017). Factors affecting the effectiveness of police performance in Metropolitan Police Bureau. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 38(1). 39-44.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.kjss.2016.07.001

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The article explains that discrepancies in police investigations often occurred to the lack of equipment for conducting effective research. The lack of proper manpower also affected court proceedings’ validity since that influences the capability of accuracy in court proceedings. The authors further reveal that there is a need to offer proper training to the police officers before deploying them to various stations. This will ensure that whatever actions they are involved in works well with them as well as the people they are supposed to be taking care of. According to Wuthichai (2017), “The Metropolitan Police officers in all divisions felt strongly that enough equipment was a factor facilitating an increase in work performance, whereas the imbalance of manpower and scarcity of modern equipment were factors which were obstacles to work performance.”

Zalman, M. & Larson M., (2016). Elephants in the Station House: Serial Crimes, Wrongful Convictions, and Expanding Wrongful Conviction Analysis to Include Police Investigation, 79 Alb. L. Rev. 941.

The authors (Zalman & Larson, 2016) expressed a miscarriage in the justice system where they expanded the view and perception that the police investigation is the source of some wrongful convictions. The article has focused much on how the police help differentiates between innocent and guilty victims using their investigations. The research has indicated that police investigations are slow and complex for the investigators to solve some cases and some might decide to fake some reports to meet the court timeline to show the professionalism where they are subjected to a dilemma of speed and accuracy. The research uses a sample of forty-four convictions to ascertain the report and check the validity and causes of unsolved cases and what might contribute to that challenge and whether a suspect is a serial criminal.

Zhong, L., & Dai, M. (2018). The Politics of Wrongful Convictions in China. Journal of Contemporary China, 28(116), 260-276.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2018.1511396

The paper focuses on wrongful convictions that have taken place in China. According to the authors, the convictions have undermined the public confidence in the criminal justice system, just like in the United States especially, for high-profile cases like murder. Based on China’s research, some defendants are declared factually innocent though they were convicted for serious crimes they did not commit. According to the article, wrongful convictions are associated with mistaken eyewitness identification and forensic errors (Zhong & Dai, 2018). Also, there is the political-legal influence that resulted in wrongful convictions guided by the state/party with the political objective of maintaining stability.