What Factors Lead To Wrongful Convictions?

Wrongful convictions are a horrible injustices that occur when innocent defendants are found guilty in criminal trial cases. People spend many years wrongfully convicted and are even put on death row. This has been an issue in the United States for a long time because there was no DNA testing. There are many factors which can lead to wrongful conviction such as false eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, forensic science issues, government misconduct, poor lawyering, etc. The innocence Project tells me a lot about our judicial system. Eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of false convictions and it is a national issue. Humans cannot record or recall events exactly the way they see them. People have false memories and
We have learned about systems variables which are the way the police and state officials do things that they have control over such as lineups, procedures, interrogation. Estimator variables are things that are outside of our control such as age, race, distance, lighting which the system has no control over. By having effective systems variables such as lineups and interrogation process many witnesses can play a big role in whether if someone gets convicted for a crime or not. That is why there cannot be any kind of systematic manipulation which can cause an eyewitness to give a false response. Another big factor is false confessions because people believe they commit a crime that they never did. They start to believe this over time to comply with authorities. The evidence seems so strong and they believe that they have repressed their memory about the crime that is why they cannot remember. Another reason can be because of coercion, authorities may feel like they have a suspect and try so hard to persuade the “suspect” that they have committed the crime. Another factor is wrongful conviction by government
It is difficult for those people to start a normal functional life because for so many years they have been behind bars and do not fully understand what the real world is like. They are given housing, food stamps, transportation, etc. For example, According to the Innocence Project, “the state of Texas only compensates people who were wrongfully convicted $80,000 per year of incarceration and an annuity set at the same amount, whereas Wisconsin gives $5,000 per year of incarceration, with a maximum of $25,000 total, no matter how many years were spent in prison. And, worse yet, 18 states have no compensation laws whatsoever.” Policy makers need to have reform against unjust laws and policies that put these innocent people in prison in the first place. Once those laws and regulations are legislated they need to research and test it out to see if it is working. I learned that there are flaws in our judicial system and the justice system because we rely heavily on eyewitness testimony and we know that relying on memory alone can be 50/50 chance due to many