Author: Elizabeth A. Murray, PhD
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books
ISBN: 1467763071
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 124
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Book Description
Imagine being convicted of a crime you didn't commit and spending years behind bars. Since 1989 more than 1,400 Americans who experienced this injustice have been exonerated. Some of the people who have won their freedom include Ronald Cotton, who was falsely convicted of raping a college student; Nicole Harris, who was unjustly imprisoned for the death of her son; and intellectually disabled Earl Washington Jr., who was unfairly sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a young mother. Wrongful convictions shatter lives and harm society by allowing real perpetrators to potentially commit additional crimes. How can such injustices happen? Overturning Wrongful Convictions recounts stories of individuals who served someone else's prison time due to mistaken eyewitness identification, police misconduct, faulty forensic science, poor legal representation, courtroom mistakes, and other factors. You'll learn about the legal processes that can lead to unjust convictions and about the Innocence Project and other organizations dedicated to righting these wrongs. The sciences—including psychology, criminology, police science, and forensic science—work hand in hand with the legal system to prosecute and punish those people whose actions break laws. Those same sciences can also be used to free people who have been wrongfully convicted. As a society, can we learn from past mistakes to avoid more unjust convictions?
Author: Elizabeth A. Murray
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books
ISBN: 1467725137
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 124
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Book Description
Recounts stories of individuals who were convicted and served prison time for crimes they did not commit, and explains how advances in psychology, criminology, police science, and forensic science have led to overturned convictions.
Author: Lisa Idzikowski
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
ISBN: 1534505172
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 128
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Book Description
Since 1989, there have been over 2,200 exonerations in the United States. These have resulted from a number of factors, including the discovery of new evidence, perjury, false identification, and bad forensic evidence. Even when an individual is exonerated, is it possible to compensate them for their loss of time and money? This volume looks at the issue from varying perspectives, exploring causes of wrongful convictions, ways to increase exonerations for those who were unjustly imprisoned, strategies to decrease the number of wrongful convictions going forward, and appropriate compensation for those who have lost years of their lives.
Author: The Editors of Time
Publisher: Time Inc. Books
ISBN: 1683300394
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
TIME looks at those wrongfully convicted, and the fight to set them free.
Author: Justin Brooks
Publisher: Vandeplas Pub.
ISBN: 9781600422980
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 698
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Book Description
Wrongful Convictions: Cases and Materials is the first legal textbook to explore the complex and fascinating legal and scientific issues involved in wrongful convictions and the exoneration of the innocent. This exciting area of the law is developing at a rapid pace as we learn more about the causes of wrongful conviction with each exoneration. The book is designed to teach about procedure related to the cases, as well as give a broad overview of the causes of wrongful convictions including false eyewitness testimony, false confessions, ineffective assistance of counsel, police and prosecutorial misconduct, and false forensic evidence. In this third edition, there have been significant updates to the cases and statutes from the previous edition, including expanded notes at the end of the chapters, as well as additional chapters on infant deaths, sex crimes against children, and arson.
Author: Calvin C. Johnson, Jr.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820327846
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
"The only firsthand account of a wrongful conviction overturned by DNA evidence"--Cover.
Author: Scott Christianson
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 081471675X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Innocent graphically documents forty-two recent criminal cases to find evidence of shocking miscarriages of justice, especially in murder cases. Based upon interviews with more than 200 people and reviews of hundreds internal case files, court records, smoking-gun memoranda, and other documents, Scott Christianson gets inside the legal cases, revealing the mistakes, abuses, and underlying factors that led to miscarriages of justice, while also describing how determined prisoners, post-conviction attorneys, advocates, and journalists struggle against tremendous odds to try to win their exonerations. The result is a powerful work that recounts the human costs of a criminal justice system gone awry, and shows us how wrongful convictions can—and do—happen everywhere.
Author: Jennifer Thompson-Cannino
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 9781429962155
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
The New York Times best selling true story of an unlikely friendship forged between a woman and the man she incorrectly identified as her rapist and sent to prison for 11 years. Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape, and eventually positively identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken-- but Jennifer's positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars. After eleven years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA test that proved his innocence. He was released, after serving more than a decade in prison for a crime he never committed. Two years later, Jennifer and Ronald met face to face-- and forged an unlikely friendship that changed both of their lives. With Picking Cotton, Jennifer and Ronald tell in their own words the harrowing details of their tragedy, and challenge our ideas of memory and judgment while demonstrating the profound nature of human grace and the healing power of forgiveness.
Author: Hillary K. Valderrama
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1462014097
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 460
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Book Description
The exoneration of more than two hundred and fifty people who have been wrongfully convicted makes it clear that Americas criminal justice system isnt foolproof. Its important to understand the causes of wrongful conviction in order to find solutions to this growing problem. Edited by one of the nations leading legal scholars and two of her top students, this collection of essays examines critical issues, including what American justice in the age of innocence looks like; how to implement procedural mechanisms to ensure the integrity of the judicial system while safeguarding the public; whether or not the legal system is doing a good enough job uncovering wrongful convictions. This anthology provides insightful lessons based on cutting-edge research and legal analysis. Wrongful convictions are not a foregone conclusion, but the justice system must break free from a pattern of punishing innocent people and go after the true culprits. Written for judges, lawyers and scholars alike, American Justice in the Age of Innocence educates the public and helps current prisoners who are innocent contest their wrongful convictions.
Author: C. Ronald Huff
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 159213646X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 327
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Book Description
Imperfections in the criminal justice system have long intrigued the general public and worried scholars and legal practitioners. In Wrongful Conviction, criminologists C. Ronald Huff and Martin Killias present an important collection of essays that analyzes cases of injustice across an array of legal systems, with contributors from North America, Europe and Israel. This collection includes a number of well-developed public-policy recommendations intended to reduce the instances of courts punishing innocents. It also offers suggestions for compensating more fairly those who are wrongfully convicted.
