Wrongful Convictions

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Justice system was and is fundamentally establish to administer justice and protect the innocent from the dangers of law breakers. However, some laxities have crept into this system and its supporting organs leading to the suffering of the innocent through wrongful convictions. The increasing exoneration of wrongfully convicted individuals begs for an answer to the possible causes of such convictions. The proceeding sections of this paper will provide some answers to these questions.
Reasons Why Innocent Individuals Get Convicted
Some of the reasons for wrongful convictions are discussed as under;
1. Inaccuracy of Eyewitnesses
Even though man’s fallibility is our established feature, prosecution process still holds testimonies by eyewitnesses as ne plus ultra in dealing with criminal cases. It has been established that eyewitnesses are likely to misidentify real perpetrators and even misjudge occurrences in a crime scene (Krieger, 2011). Crime scenes are more often than not characterized by emotional animosity that is likely to alter people’s judgment on subjectively defined features such as people’s weight, complexion and height. These are key information in which any slight error may lead to convicting an innocent individual. As Williams (2012) expounds, stress also diminishes witnesses’ …show more content…
The confessions can sometimes result from coercion by the investigation officers or voluntary from psychological disorders of the suspect. Given that most of investigation officers believe that innocent people do not confess, false confessions are hardly detected unless there are very strong evidences pointing otherwise (Krieger, 2011). Judges are likely to be convinced by confessions with conceivable story line supported by the suspect’s knowledge of the crime, emotional expressions and some possible explanation of events surrounding the criminal
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