In reading over your posts, I was particularly struck by what Cori wrote. To wit:
I believe that what happened to Adams was terrible, but I agree with Christian that this does not happen everyday. If there was a movie made about this, it shows that this was a big deal that it does not happen very often. I agree that it would be terrible if an innocent person was sitting in jail for something they did not commit, but it is difficult for people to be right all the time. Everyone makes mistakes, including the people working in law enforcement. As Jim and Elizabeth said, you have to have faith in the system and I believe that. The system has to work because if it didn’t there would be some other type of system that would exist with flaws. Also, the people following the system have the ability to change the system if it doesn’t work, so I think that we need to have faith in the system. I agree with everyone that this situation was terrible, but I also think that since a movie was made about it, it was a unique situation.
What I appreciate about this post is Cori's grappling with the ethical and social ramifications of what happened to Randall Adams. We have to have faith in the system--it is the system, after all, and the implications of it being imperfect are terrifying. Adams spending, what, 12 years in prison? 2 years waiting to be executed? And if this happened to him, who else has it happened to? And have innocent people been executed?
So take a look here. Just take 15 minutes or so to browse this sight. Look at some of the cases. Look at the reasons for why these cases happen. They actually support much of what Elizabeth talked about. What do you think?
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It's interesting how most of the reasons for wrong convictions aren't on the side of the law. The wrong person is convicted not because of a substantial flaw in technical workings, but because of any of the factors feeding into the technical side. Everyone can be trying to get evidence, and evidence helps find the right guy, but they make a mistake with the forensics. Witnesses can be very helpful, and it's good that they are a big factor in the case. However, if the witness has his own ideas, everything gets messed up. The suspect gets a lawyer, but the lawyer falls asleep. These are all examples of the system being essentially good, but little pieces having glitches. Then, there are the times when the government completely manipulates everything. It's hard to pinpoint a way to fix the problem because so many little things can go wrong which completely screw everything up.
ReplyDeleteIt’s amazing how much faith the system puts in eyewitness testimony – one of the most unreliable types of “contributing causes” to wrongful convictions. Not only is there solid proof against the validity of most eyewitness testimonies, it just seems logical that the human link would be the most malleable and potentially unreliable. People can be manipulated, fooled, paid off, and just plain wrong. Memories can change under stress and/or pressure – I’m sure that we’ve all had that happen to us on a minor scale. Yet time after time, juries and judges go with a single eyewitness testimony over compilations of evidence. The human link may be the most malleable and potentially unreliable, but it’s also the link that juries and judges, just people themselves, can connect with on a personal level. In the Randall Adams case, they crazy blond lady (clearly somewhat unstable and not believable in a court of law) and her husband almost single-handedly sent an innocent man to death row. The Innocence Project has eight exonerations in the state of Georgia. Every single one of them has eyewitness testimony as either the only or the main contributing cause to their wrongful conviction. Every single one.
ReplyDeleteThe innocence project seems like such a good thing, but it is scary to think that there are enough innocent people put in jail that this organization would be needed. An interesting fact on the website says that 75% of eyewitnesses identify the wrong person. This fact is disturbing because it then goes on to say that to a jury or judge the evidence could persuade. This is upsetting that the mind can’t remember faces, yet we want some one to be guilty so we choose some one to be guilty. Another thing about this project that is very good is the compensation the innocence project is promoting. An innocent person who is in jail will have their life goes to waste while they’re there. It is important that they are able to get their life back in some way and it seems like the innocence project is doing a good job promoting that.
ReplyDeleteI found it really interesting, like Rachel said, that 75% of the cases are wrong because of faulty eyewitness identification. I looked through a couple cases and most of them the cause of misidentification by an eyewitness. Another case I looked at said the cause was because law enforcement forced a 16 year old boy into a polygraph room all day with no food till they got him to confess even though he didn't do it. The case that shocked me the most was the guy that was convicted told who actually did it and the guy he snitched on fit the description perfectly but the police still didn't look into him. It turned out after 23 years in jail that the guy he named actually did it. These cases do show the system not working but most of the time it is because people are confused and I found it interesting that most of the time it wasn't actually the law enforcements fault.
ReplyDeleteAfter looking at the innocent projects website the thing I found most interesting was the top of the home page. Rolling across the top it says The Faces of the Exonerated. They seem to have a lot people serving years in prison for forensic errors or having a DNA test prove them innocent years after they were convicted. I like that, just under the Faces of the Exonerated, they have the proof that they update the site daily. We know since they started they have freed 249 people. Which I think is really impressive. When I was cruising the website I found out that three states don't have access to DNA evidence built into their laws(Alaska,MASS, and Oklahoma). Alaska and Oklahoma I am honestly not that surprised, but Massachusetts seems totally random. This site does a good job sucking you into to the flaws of the justice system; that fact about Mass will bug me tonight.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is very unsettling that 75% of the cases are wrong because of eyewitnesses, because without eyewitnesses, a countless number of guilty people would go free. It seems like you have to choose to put guilty people in jail, but also innocent people, or keep innocent people out of jail, but also guilty people. I think that part of the reason our court system is so flawed is because one of our biggest strengths is also our biggest weakness. It makes it very hard to solve a problem when the solution just creates more problems.
ReplyDeleteOnce agian I find my self niether shocked nor apauled by this. As I stated in my prvious blog, people are people, and people screw up. The idea that eyewitness get it wrong not surprising to me, if you saw some one shot how much would you be able to describe acutraly. Your mind would be more ocupied by the fact that a person was shot in front of you. People are bound to screw up. I think it is important to remember that the police and the justice system has many more hits then misses. I would be interested to see how many of the convicted were actually guilty compareed to accidently innocent. The fact is, the normaly are right, and the keep murderers and drug dealers out of the streets, which is good for everyone.
ReplyDeleteagree with what Cory said that the justice system can make a few mistakes but those cases are more than a few mistakes. Some of these cases are just ridiculous. The evidence was totally ignored and in one case someone totally changed their description of the suspect after seeing him in custody.
ReplyDeleteI think what the Innocence Project is going is great. I think sometimes people have to much faith in the justice system and don't believe they make mistakes. In turn they ignore those who have been wrongly convicted and who are reaching out for help.
The thing I found most aggravating was that almost all of the cases I looked at the person was convicted of rape. There was always DNA evidence and sometimes it didn't match the suspect but the witness/victim testified that the person had done it. The identification by the witness/victim was more powerful than the DNA, science. I know that law enforcement does their best to keep the innocent out of jail. But I feel like they always want to close their case to quickly, or they want to do the best for the victim, and I have no problem with that. However when it gets in the way of finding the truly guilty and instead putting an innocent person in jail for life. They need to rethink if they are really helping the community or helping themselves and their reputation of being "tough on crime."
After browsing the Innocence Project website, I definetly believe that the criminal justice system is not fair. It's sad to read about so many people who were put away for a crime they did not commit. One cause that struck me the most was wrongful eye witness identification. Although lineups can be effective, there is a lot of room for error. A victim or witness might not remember every detail of a suspect.
ReplyDeleteAnother cause that struck me was corruption in law enforcement. There was one case where a man was accused of rape and the police officers threatened to kill him if he did not confess. The young man was 17 when he was convicted and he spent 19 years in jail. I can't even begin to imagine how horrifiying it would be to be sentenced to jail for a crime that you did not commit.
When I had Forensics last year Rick went over just how difficult it is to remember specific details days later. The class found out just how hard it is and how unreliable eye witnesses can be. I believe it is wrong to base a decision about a case on eye witness identification. Seeing as the reason that most of these people were wrongfully put in jail because of someone else making a mistake and the court believing them shows me that the justice system is flawed. All those cases in the Innocence Project were just cases where DNA evidence was involved, but you have to consider all the other people who are innocent sitting in jail. It makes me think that something like what happened in The Thin Blue Line happens more often than we think. I believe it is the error of the witnesses, but also of the court system because they believe these people who can often lie, forget, and are just plain unreliable. However, I do understand how important an eye witness can be to a case, but I do not believe the whole case should evolve around the eye witness. The eye witness testimony should only add to the case.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate what this group is doing and admire their hard work, but at the same time I feel shocked that this group is even needed. Many people keep saying that everyone messes up, and these cases are just examples of that, but I disagree. One of the cases I looked at on that website went wrong because the main, and practically only witness was incorrect, but this witness was already in jail for perjury. I find it unbelievable that lawyers and cops could base this case entirely on the testimony of a woman (who they knew to have lied on the stand before). True, cops and everyone else in the legal system are just ordinary people and ordinary people make mistakes. But their 'mistakes' are determining other, potentially innocent, people's lives. I also find it hard to believe that a room of trained professionals could look at the same evidence and not see the obvious truth, when people as unqualified as me could. I don't view these occurrences as 'mistakes' as much as things that were ignored. I think the smart people who enforce our legal system saw the evidence and chose to turn the other way. To me, it's not that they're mistakingly understanding the evidence, but seeing what they want to see in it.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people have said in their blog posts that it is sad that this group is even needed; I agree that I do not want so many innocent people going to jail, but at the same time nobody is perfect and the people who came up with the laws are not perfect. As civilians I think that we need to have faith in the system, but know that it isn’t always going to work. Although the system fails sometimes, it also works a lot of the time. I think our knowledge that the system does not always work is a good thing because as more people realize this, the more people there are going to be trying to prevent it. I think that innocence project is a great group and I think that biggest thing they do besides freeing innocent people is making other civilians aware that there are flaws in the system. This awareness can hopefully lead to a better system that is followed correctly. I do feel extremely sorry for all these people that have gone through this, but if we do not have faith in the system then what are we going to have faith in? It is a big debate and I do not know if it can be answered. I am extremely grateful for the innocence project because I think, not only are they freeing innocent people, but they are raising awareness of the mistakes people make to prevent them from happening in the future.
ReplyDeleteLike some other people have said, the evidence that the cases are based upon is shocking. Many people went to jail based strictly on an eye witness, who may be unreliable, and others went to jail on 'maybe' evidence. I read one case of a man who went to jail because some fibers looked like they might be the same and he was in the right area and looked right. There was no evidence that he murdered a girl, just evidence that placed him near the scene, but there were many other people there too. It's shocking to me that people can go to death row because of that. Another man died in jail after over ten years because of a rape that was later proved he did not commit. I don't believe that this is because our system is a failure though. Like Cori said, no matter what system is in place, there are going to be flaws. There are going to be people who are supposed to uphold the system who go about their jobs in the wrong ways. There are going to be people who are convicted falsely. Although I hate to see it and would love to see a flawless system that always catches the bad guy and is always fair, I don't think that is possible.
ReplyDeleteI admire how hard the Innocence Project's job is, and the fact that they are willing to give prisoners a second chance. They really seem to pursue the innocent until proven guilty,and make sure there is no doubt. In the case I read, the man was convicted because of faulty eyewitness accounts, and because he lied earlier in his testimony. It seems like he was unfairly prosecuted on circumstantial evidence, which seemed to be the problem with most of the cases. It mostly appeared that he was convicted because it seemed like he was most likely the perpetrator, and he was the most convenient man to arrest. Also, they didn't have any other suspects.
ReplyDeleteIt blows my mind that this many people that are in jail are innocent. I could not imagine how hard that would be for them. Going to jail for something you didnt do but no one believes you because of a falty witness or being forced into a confession. That would ruin a persons life being confined from the people they love for that long. They would have to be around all the other hard core criminals. I am sure that being in jail period could change a person especially if they are there for the wrong reason. I feel bad for these people and its a good thing that we have the Innocence Project to help them.
ReplyDeleteWhile looking over some of the cases on the Innocence Project site, I was shocked to discover that 75% cases are wrong due to eyewitness misidentification. But, while I believe that this is terrible, I agree with what many others have said, that people are only people, and people make mistakes. As Coleman said, maybe the only way to put guilty people in jail is to sacrifice the innocent. But what it is still unbelievable to me is that so many mistakes could be made by our justice system. It is absolutely awful the amount of people that were convicted for rape when there was DNA evidence that was overlooked. Overall, I think that what the Innocence Project is doing is great because it gives people another chance, but the fact that we do need it to free innocent people is very unsettling.
ReplyDeleteLooking at this site for the Innocence Project I was intrigued that these people were incarcerated for so many years before their innocence was revealed. It really shocked me that 75% of these cases where caused because of eye witness misidentification, and that there were enough cases to devote a website about it. It was really interesting to me that so many of these cases were based off of eye witness evidence. At the same time I wasn't fully surprised. The system isn't fool proof and 100% right all the time. This really proves that. Another thing i found interesting was that only 27 of the 50 states offered compensation for the convictions. I admire that the innocent people that were convicted fought for their innocence for so many years. I'm really happy that this Innocence Project exists and gives these people the second chance they highly deserve.
ReplyDeleteI never realized that we put so much trust into eye-witness testimony. It seems like a dumb thing to do because that is probably the most likely piece of "evidence" to be wrong. It's much easier for a person to lie than it is for something like a DNA test. I don't think people should be allowed to be convicted on only witness testimony. There's just no way to know if that person is telling the truth or not. I guess the problem with that is some guilty people would end up going free because of that. I guess the question would be would you rather have fewer innocent people in jail but more guilty people free on the streets, or the opposite?
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