July 13 USA: Exonerations in the United States, 1989 through 2003 SAMUEL R. GROSS -- University of Michigan Law School KRISTEN JACOBY -- University of Michigan Law School DANIEL J. MATHESON -- University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Law School NICHOLAS MONTGOMERY -- University of Michigan at Ann Arbor SUJATA PATIL -- Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 95, No. 2, 2005 Abstract: In this paper we use reported exonerations as a window on false convictions generally. We can't come close to estimating the number of false convictions that occur in the United States, but the accumulating mass of exonerations gives us a glimpse of what we're missing. We located 340 individual exonerations from 1989 through 2003, not counting at least 135 innocent defendants in at least two mass exonerations, and not counting more than 70 defendants convicted in a series of childcare sex abuse prosecutions, most of whom were probably innocent. Almost all the individual exonerations that we know about are clustered in the 2 most serious common felonies: rape and murder. They are surrounded by widening circles of categories of cases that include false convictions that are rarely detected, if ever: rape convictions that have not been reexamined with DNA evidence; robberies, for which DNA identification is useless; murder cases that are ignored because the defendants were not sentenced to death; assault and drug convictions that are forgotten entirely; misdemeanor convictions that arent even part of the picture. Judging from our data, any plausible guess at the total number of miscarriages of justice in America in the last 15 years must run to the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, in felony cases alone. We can, however, see some clear patterns in those false convictions that have come to light. For rape the dominant problem is eyewitness misidentification - and cross-racial misidentification in particular, which accounts for the extraordinary number of exonerations in rape cases with black defendants and white victims. For murder, the leading cause of the false convictions we know about is perjury - including perjury by police officers, by jailhouse snitches, by the real killers, and by supposed participants and eyewitnesses to the crime who knew the innocent defendants in advance. False confessions also played a large role in the murder convictions that led to exonerations, primarily among two particularly vulnerable groups of innocent defendants: juveniles, and those who are mentally retarded or mentally ill. Almost all the juvenile exonerees who falsely confessed were African American. In fact, one of our more startling findings is that 90% of all exonerated juvenile defendants were black or Hispanic, an extreme disparity that, unfortunately, is of a piece with racial disparities in our juvenile justice system in general. Nearly a quarter of exonerated defendants had been sentenced to death, despite the fact that death row inmates make up only about 1/4 of 1 % of the population American prisoners, and a much smaller proportion of the those who pass through our prisons over time. This appears to reflect 2 simultaneous patterns: capital defendants are more likely to be convicted in error, and false convictions are more likely to be detected when the defendants are on death row. That means that capital defendants who are not sentenced to death, or defendants in similar murder prosecutions in which the death penalty was not sought, may be in the worst position of all: they may suffer the same high risk of false conviction as death row inmates, but get no benefit from the comparatively high chance of exoneration after conviction. (source: Social Science Research Network) NORTH CAROLINA: True justice: Death-penalty study considered North Carolina lawmakers have backed away from a proposed moratorium on the death penalty. That's too bad because recent cases in which longtime prisoners have been exonerated show the state's record on justice is far from perfect. There is some good news, however. The General Assembly may adopt a plan to study the way death-penalty cases are administered. A clause in the compromise legislation suggests that prisoners on death row may win a stay of execution if they can convince a judge that the study could have a bearing on their cases. That, at least, gives a court another chance to review the circumstances of a particular case. The idea of making sure death-penalty cases are properly carried out isn't at odds with the very notion of capital punishment, as some critics have suggested. But the wrongful imprisonments of Darryl Hunt and Allen Gell, to name two, show that North Carolina's criminal justice system can and does make mistakes. The death penalty remains a just punishment for criminals whose actions have proved them to be an unreproachable danger to society. Acting on the results of a study will make sure the state is closer than ever to 100 % accuracy on death-row cases. Not only will that ease the consciences of North Carolinians, it should result in a more efficient path to justice. That's a worthy aim for a system that too often flounders with mistakes and delays. (source: Opinion, Rocky Mount Telegram) CALIFORNIA: Prosecutor reveals witnesses to call if Vincent Brothers convicted The attorney prosecuting a Bakersfield man accused of shooting 5 of his family members is revealing how she'll seek the death penalty in the case. Documents filed by Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green in the case against Vincent Brothers says she might call Shann Kern, if Brothers is convicted. Kern is the mother of Brothers' only surviving child. She has alleged Brothers beat her while she was pregnant in 1988. The documents also show that prosecutors might call Nadia Berniard. She claims Brothers threatened to kill her in 1993. The two witnesses could be called if Brothers is convicted of 1st degree murder with special circumstances. Brothers is charged in connection with the deaths of his mother-in-law, 70-year-old Earnestine Harper, his estranged wife, 39-year-old Joanie Harper, and their children, 4-year-old Marques, two-year-old Lyndsey, and 6-week old Marshall. Brothers has pleaded innocent to the charges. (source: Associated Press)
