Miscarriage of justice
[3] Academic studies have found that the main factors contributing to miscarriages of justice are: eyewitness misidentification; faulty forensic analysis; false confessions by vulnerable suspects; perjury and lies stated by witnesses; misconduct by police, prosecutors or judges; and/or ineffective assistance of counsel (e.g., inadequate defense strategies by the defendant's or respondent's legal team).
[7] A 2014 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences made a conservative estimate that 4.1% of inmates awaiting execution on death row in the United States are innocent.
[12] According to Professor Boaz Sangero of the College of Law and Business in Ramat Gan, most wrongful convictions in Israel relate to less serious crimes than major felonies such as rape and murder, as judicial systems are less careful in dealing with those cases.
[14][15] These include eyewitness misidentification, faulty forensic analysis, false confessions by vulnerable suspects, perjury and lies told by witnesses, misconduct by police, prosecutors or judges and inadequate defense strategies put forward by the defendant's legal team.
[18] Elizabeth Loftus, a leading researcher in the field, says memory is so unreliable "the end result can be a highly confident witness testifying in a persuasive manner at trial about a detail that is completely false".
[19] Wrongful convictions can also occur when items which become evidence at crime scenes become contaminated in the process of packaging, collection and transportation to a secured facility or laboratory.
The credibility of expert witnesses depends on numerous factors - in particular, their credentials, personal likability and self-confidence which all impact on how believable they are.
The confidence with which experts present their evidence has also been noted to influence jurors, who tend to assume that a witness who is anxious or nervous is lying.
For example, Charles Smith was head of the Ontario Pediatric Forensic Pathology Unit from 1982 and the most highly regarded specialist in his field.
An inquiry into his conduct concluded in October 2008 that Smith "actively misled" his superiors, "made false and misleading statements" in court and exaggerated his expertise in trials.
Confirmation bias is a psychological phenomenon whereby people tend to seek and interpret information in ways that support existing beliefs.
This may encourage a rush to judgement - in a process described by psychologists as involving a high need for cognitive closure (NFC) - the desire for a clear-cut solution which avoids confusion and ambiguity.
[32] Second, after spending considerable time and resources trying to build a case against a particular suspect, it becomes difficult for police to admit they may be going down the wrong track.
The embarrassment and loss of prestige that follows from admitting erroneous decisions may motivate investigators to continue down a chosen path and disregard evidence that points in a different direction.
Four broad approaches allow for the payment of compensation following a miscarriage of justice: tort liability in common law; claims for a breach of constitutional or human rights; statutory relief where specific legislation exists to compensate individuals who are wrongfully convicted; and non-statutory relief by way of ex-gratia schemes based on the largesse of the government.
[38] The significant benefits of statutory schemes is that they provide money and services in compensation to individuals who have been wrongfully convicted without regard to fault or blame; they do not require claimants to prove how the prosecution or police committed their mistakes.
[39] In cases where a large-scale audience is unknowingly witness to a miscarriage of justice, the news-consuming public may develop false beliefs about the nature of crime itself.
[56] The case has been described as "a compendium of official error—from inaccurate eyewitness testimony and police tunnel vision, to scientific bungling and the suppression of evidence.
Enzo Tortora, a TV host on national RAI television, was accused of being a member of the Camorra and drug trafficking.
The committee concluded that confirmation bias led the police to ignore and misinterpret scientific evidence, specifically DNA.
In those three cases, independent researchers (professors Wagenaar, van Koppen, Israëls, Crombag, and Derksen) concluded that confirmation bias and misuse of complex scientific evidence led to miscarriages of justice.
This is currently limited by statute to a maximum sum of £1,000,000 for those who have been incarcerated for more than ten years and £500,000 for any other cases,[65] Between 2007 and 2023 there could be deductions for the cost of food and accommodation during that time.
Richard Foster, the Chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), reported in October 2018 that the single biggest cause of miscarriage of justice was the failure to disclose vital evidence.
English law has no official means of correcting a "perverse" verdict (conviction of a defendant on the basis of insufficient evidence).
[citation needed] In 2002, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal made an exception to who could avail of the right to a fair trial in R v Walsh: "... if a defendant has been denied a fair trial it will almost be inevitable that the conviction will be regarded unsafe, the present case in our view constitutes an exception to the general rule.
5. c. 26) increased the jurisdiction of the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal following the miscarriage of justice surrounding the Trial of Oscar Slater.
Reflecting Scotland's own legal system, which differs from that of the rest of the United Kingdom, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) was established in April 1999.
All cases accepted by the SCCRC are subjected to a robust and thoroughly impartial review before a decision on whether or not to refer to the High Court of Justiciary is taken.
[83] Leo Frank, who was kidnapped from prison by an antisemitic mob and lynched in 1915, was pardoned by the state of Georgia in 1986; Fulton County's new Conviction Integrity Unit opened a re-investigation of the case in 2019.
[84] Theater critic Jesse Green referred to 2023's Tony-winning Broadway production of "Parade" as focusing on "the marriage instead of the miscarriage of justice".
