How are people wrongly accused and convicted? There are television shows full of people who are spending time behind bars who claim innocence after confessing to the crime. Why does a person who is innocent confess to a crime they did not commit? Many things can happen very quickly once a person is suspected of committing a crime. The police come knocking on your door and read you your Miranda rights while putting you in handcuffs. Your heart is probably pounding, your confused, scared and before long you are sitting in an interrogation.
According to the “Innocence Project,” a project founded in 1992 by two lawyers, Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck to help bring justice to those wrongly accused and to help put an end to future injustice, they say every interrogation should be recorded. This is done so that the information given during the interrogation is irrefutable and transparent. This also helps to prevent coercive techniques and allows other law officials, judges, attorneys, and juries to gather whether the suspect has any mental impediments. Recording the interrogation also has benefits for the law enforcement agencies.
Why people are wrongfully accused has something to do with the cross-race effect. This means people are more likely to recognize someone of their own race than another. (Gruman, 2017) Another reason could be due to the nature of the lineup. Putting together a lineup without the use of foils, aka innocent people, makes it more likely for an innocent person to be picked out of the lineup also only one person should come out at a time so the witness does not have to compare all the faces at once with the face they are remembering from the crime. (Gruman, 2017)
The reasons behind confessing to a crime a person did not commit are many, such as, age, coercion by the investigating officers, bribery, exhaustion… the list continues. Reasons behind people being wrongfully accused are not enough forensic science, eyewitness misidentification, not enough money for a good defense and criminal history. (LaPorte, 2017) According to The Innocence Project’s webpage, 46 percent of the cases they are working on have had improper forensic science. Listed above are the many contributing factors that play a part in wrongful convictions confessions by people who did not commit a crime. Improper forensic science is just a big part of the reason. (LaPorte, 2017
Gerald M. LaPorte, “Wrongful Convictions and DNA Exonerations: Understanding the Role of Forensic Science,” September 7, 2017, nij.ojp.gov:
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/wrongful-convictions-and-dna-exonerations-understanding-role-forensic-science
https://www.innocenceproject.org/false-confessions-recording-interrogations/