Miscarriage of justice
When justice fails: understanding miscarriages of justice
Last updated
A miscarriage of justice happens when a criminal or civil case ends in an unfair result. This can mean an innocent person is convicted, a guilty person escapes punishment, sentences are inconsistent, or justice is delayed. Innocent people have sometimes spent years in prison before their convictions are overturned. This can happen if new evidence emerges or if it is found that police or prosecutors acted improperly during the original trial.
Contributing factors
Some jurisdictions then pay compensation to the wrongfully convicted. Research shows that the main causes of miscarriages of justice include: witnesses identifying the wrong person; flawed forensic work; false confessions from vulnerable suspects; witnesses lying under oath; misconduct by police, prosecutors, or judges; and poor legal representation for the defendant. There are two main ways to estimate how often wrongful convictions occur: by looking at exonerations (where a conviction is thrown out) or by asking prisoners if they have ever falsely confessed.
Exoneration
Since 1989, the Innocence Project has used updated DNA evidence to overturn 375 convictions in the United States. However, DNA testing is only possible in 5 to 10% of criminal cases, and these exonerations are limited to murder and rape cases. This suggests many more wrongful convictions may exist without the evidence needed to prove innocence. Studies cited by the Innocence Project estimate that between 2.3% and 5% of all U.S. prisoners are innocent.
A 2017 study of Virginia convictions from the 1970s and 1980s, matched with later DNA analysis, put the rate at 11.6%. A 2014 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences conservatively estimated that 4.1% of inmates on death row in the U.S. are innocent. The second method asks prisoners directly whether they have confessed to a crime they did not commit. This approach can examine any crime, not just those with DNA evidence.
Self-report
Two Icelandic studies, conducted ten years apart, found false confession rates of 12.2% and 24.4%. These numbers are important because false confessions often lead to wrongful convictions. A 2021 Scottish study of inmates in one prison found a self-reported false confession rate of 33.4%.
Up to 10,000 people may be wrongfully convicted of serious crimes in the United States each year. According to Professor Boaz Sangero of the College of Law and Business in Ramat Gan, most wrongful convictions in Israel involve less serious crimes, because the judicial system is less careful with those cases. Academics identify six main factors: unreliable eyewitness testimony, faulty forensic analysis, false confessions from vulnerable suspects, perjury by witnesses, misconduct by police, prosecutors, or judges, and inadequate defense by the defendant’s legal team. Eyewitness identifications are highly unreliable and contribute to 70% of wrongful convictions.
Unreliability of eyewitness testimony
Starting in the 1970s, psychologists studying memory found that the way police lineups are conducted can alter a witness’s memory of a suspect, often leading to misidentification. Witnesses also struggle to accurately identify suspects from different ethnic groups, and the rate of mistaken identification is much higher than most people think. Researcher Elizabeth Loftus says memory is so unreliable that a confident witness can testify persuasively in court about a detail that is completely false. Wrongful convictions can happen when evidence from a crime scene is contaminated during packaging, collection, or transport to a lab.
Contamination can be introduced by anyone entering the scene after the crime—uninvolved witnesses, emergency responders, firefighters, police, or crime scene investigators. If proper protocols are not followed, evidence can also be contaminated during analysis or storage. A miscarriage of justice can occur when contamination prevention steps are not carried out carefully.
The Innocence Project says 44% of wrongful convictions result from faulty forensic analysis. This happens when experts accidentally or deliberately misrepresent the significance, validity, or reliability of scientific evidence. Over the years, such misrepresentations have occurred in serology, microscopic hair comparison, bite mark analysis, shoe print analysis, soil analysis, fiber analysis, and fingerprint analysis. Overly confident experts can also contribute to wrongful convictions.
Lore & Background
Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation. 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.
Reader's Guide
Prevalence: There are two main methods for estimating the prevalence of wrongful convictions, by examining cases in which an exoneration has occurred, or by analyzing self-reports of false confessions. Exoneration: Since 1989, the Innocence Project has helped overturn 375 convictions of American prisoners with updated DNA evidence; however, DNA testing occurs in only 5 to 10% of all criminal cases, and exonerations achieved by the Innocence Project are limited to murder and rape cases. Studies cited by the Innocence Project estimate that between 2.3% and 5% of all prisoners in the U.S. are innocent; a 2017 study looking at convictions in Virginia during the 1970s and 1980s and matching them to later DNA analysis estimates a rate of wrongful conviction at 11.6%. 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.
Self-report: Two Icelandic studies based on self-report conducted ten years apart found the rates of false confession to be 12.2% and 24.4%, respectively. A 2021 Scottish study found the rate of self-reported false confessions among a group of inmates in one prison was 33.4%. According to Professor Boaz Sangero, most wrongful convictions in Israel relate to less serious crimes than major felonies such as rape and murder.
More in Social Issues
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Miscarriage of justice (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced