Wrongful convictions and the DNA revolution : twenty-five years of freeing the innocent / [edited by] Daniel S. Medwed, Northeastern University School of Law.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Medwed, Daniel S., editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Judicial error--United States.

Judicial error.

Criminal justice, Administration of--United States.

Criminal justice, Administration of.

DNA fingerprinting--Law and legislation--U nited States.

DNA fingerprinting.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xix, 419 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Summary:

For centuries, most people believed the criminal justice system worked - that only guilty defendants were convicted. DNA technology shattered that belief. DNA has now freed more than three hundred innocent prisoners in the United States. This book examines the lessons learned from twenty-five years of DNA exonerations and identifies lingering challenges. By studying the dataset of DNA exonerations, we know that precise factors lead to wrongful convictions. These include eyewitness misidentifications, false confessions, dishonest informants, poor defense lawyering, weak forensic evidence, and prosecutorial misconduct. In Part I, scholars discuss the efforts of the Innocence Movement over the past quarter century to expose the phenomenon of wrongful convictions and to implement lasting reforms. In Part II, another set of researchers looks ahead and evaluates what still needs to be done to realize the ideal of a more accurate system.

Contents:

Foreword / Barry Scheck & Peter Neufeld

Talking about a revolution : a quarter century of DNA exonerations / Daniel S. Medwed

Innocence before dna / Michael Meltsner

Convicting the innocent redux / Brandon L. Garrett

Has the innocence movement become an exoneration movement? : the risks and rewards of redefining innocence / Richard A. Leo

Negotiating accuracy : DNA in the age of plea bargaining / Alexandra Natapoff

Reacting to recantations / Rob Warden

A tale of two innocence clinics : client representation and legislative advocacy / Jacqueline McMurtrie

How DNA has changed contemporary death penalty debates / Michael L. Radelet

What does innocence have to do with cruel and unusual punishment? / Robert J. Smith, G. Ben Cohen & Zoe Robinson

Flawed science and the new wave of innocents / Keith A. Findley

Prosecutors: the thin last line protecting the innocent / George C. Thomas III

Ineffective assistance of counsel and the innocence revolution : a standards-based approach procedural changes / Adele Bernhard

Post-conviction procedure : the next frontier in innocence reform / Stephanie Roberts Hartung

Can we protect the innocent without freeing the guilty? : thoughts on innocence reforms that avoid harmful tradeoffs / Paul G. Cassell

Retrospective justice in the age of innocence : the hard case of rape executions / Margaret Burnham

Outbreaks of injustice : responding to systemic irregularities in the criminal justice system / Sandra Guerra Thompson & Robert Wicoff

Exonerating the innocent : habeas for nonhuman animals / Justin F. Marceau & Steven Wise

The global innocence movement / Mark Godsey

Innocence at war / Erik Luna.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 21 Apr 2017).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-108-13830-6

1-108-13903-5

1-108-13915-9

1-108-13927-2

1-316-41711-5

1-108-13987-6

1-108-13939-6