A Record Number Of People Were Exonerated In 2015 For Crimes They Didn’t Commit
"Making A Murderer" isn't just a problem in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
HuffPo. So King can deny its real.
Selected paragraphs.
Quote:
Researchers found that 149 people were cleared in 2015 for crimes they didn't commit -- more than any other year in history, according to a report published Wednesday by the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the University of Michigan Law School. By comparison, 139 people were exonerated in 2014. The number has risen most years since 2005, when 61 people were cleared of crimes they didn't commit....
Here are some patterns the organization found in 2015 exonerations:
Official Misconduct
About 40 percent of the 2015 exonerations involved official misconduct, a record. About 75 percent of the homicide exonerations involved misconduct.
The wrongful conviction of Debra Milke, detailed in the report, was among them. Authorities accused Milke of conspiring with two men who shot her son in the back of the head to keep him from her ex-husband and to cash in on an insurance policy. Milke’s conviction was built largely on the testimony of now-retired Phoenix police Detective Armando Saldate Jr., who said Milke offered him sex during questioning and confessed to the murder. The interrogation wasn't recorded, and Milke’s defense argued Saldate had a long history of misconduct that the state had concealed. In multiple other cases, the defense lawyers said, judges had tossed out confessions or indictments because Saldate had lied or violated defendants' rights....
False Confessions
Almost 20 percent of exonerations in 2015 were for convictions based on false confessions -- a record. Those cases overwhelmingly were homicides involving defendants who were under 18, intellectually disabled, or both.
Bobby Johnson, of New Haven, Connecticut, was 16 years old with an IQ of 69 -- just below the threshold for intellectual disability -- without a parent or guardian present when he confessed to two detectives that he murdered 70-year-old Herbert Fields....
Guilty Pleas
An innocent person pleading guilty to a crime they didn’t commit may seem unfathomable. But the National Registry of Exonerations said the number of false guilty pleas has been increasing for seven years, and has risen sharply in the past two years.
More than 40 percent of people exonerated in 2015 were convicted based on guilty pleas made by an innocent defendant, a record. The majority of these cases involved drugs. Some were homicide cases....
Plea bargains can be an efficient way to resolve cases without draining taxpayer resources. They aren’t always bad. But a 2013 Human Rights Watch study found the U.S. system often creates situations where a federal prosecutor will "strong-arm" a defendant into a plea deal. And the deep fear of a harsh sentence -- one “so excessively severe, they take your breath away,” in the words of Judge John Gleeson of the Eastern District of New York -- can lead a defendant to plead guilty in order to obtain a shorter prison term, even if they're accused wrongfully....
No Crime Was Actually Committed
In about half of the exonerations in 2015, no crime was actually ever committed by the people put behind bars -- a record, according to the report. Most of these cases involved drugs. Some included homicide or arson....
Flawed Forensic Evidence
Many of last year's exonerations involved flawed or invalid forensic evidence. According to the Innocence Project, improper forensic science is a leading cause of wrongful conviction.
Too often, the group says, forensic experts speculate when they testify, asserting conclusions that stretch the science. Further, some forensic techniques aren't backed by research, but are nevertheless presented to juries as fact. And there are honest mistakes. The FBI has admitted that from 1972 to 1999, almost every examiner in the bureau's elite forensics unit gave flawed testimony in nearly every trial in which they presented evidence....
Faulty Eyewitness Identification
False identifications of innocent people happened in several cases the exoneration registry report outlined.
The Innocence Project says eyewitness misidentification of a suspect plays a role in more than 70 percent of convictions that are later overturned through DNA evidence. Hundreds of studies have shown that eyewitness identification is frequently inaccurate and that human memories are not reliable, especially with traditional identification procedures. While simple reforms have been proposed, only about 14 U.S. states have implemented them, according to Innocence Project....
Here are some patterns the organization found in 2015 exonerations:
Official Misconduct
About 40 percent of the 2015 exonerations involved official misconduct, a record. About 75 percent of the homicide exonerations involved misconduct.
The wrongful conviction of Debra Milke, detailed in the report, was among them. Authorities accused Milke of conspiring with two men who shot her son in the back of the head to keep him from her ex-husband and to cash in on an insurance policy. Milke’s conviction was built largely on the testimony of now-retired Phoenix police Detective Armando Saldate Jr., who said Milke offered him sex during questioning and confessed to the murder. The interrogation wasn't recorded, and Milke’s defense argued Saldate had a long history of misconduct that the state had concealed. In multiple other cases, the defense lawyers said, judges had tossed out confessions or indictments because Saldate had lied or violated defendants' rights....
False Confessions
Almost 20 percent of exonerations in 2015 were for convictions based on false confessions -- a record. Those cases overwhelmingly were homicides involving defendants who were under 18, intellectually disabled, or both.
Bobby Johnson, of New Haven, Connecticut, was 16 years old with an IQ of 69 -- just below the threshold for intellectual disability -- without a parent or guardian present when he confessed to two detectives that he murdered 70-year-old Herbert Fields....
Guilty Pleas
An innocent person pleading guilty to a crime they didn’t commit may seem unfathomable. But the National Registry of Exonerations said the number of false guilty pleas has been increasing for seven years, and has risen sharply in the past two years.
More than 40 percent of people exonerated in 2015 were convicted based on guilty pleas made by an innocent defendant, a record. The majority of these cases involved drugs. Some were homicide cases....
Plea bargains can be an efficient way to resolve cases without draining taxpayer resources. They aren’t always bad. But a 2013 Human Rights Watch study found the U.S. system often creates situations where a federal prosecutor will "strong-arm" a defendant into a plea deal. And the deep fear of a harsh sentence -- one “so excessively severe, they take your breath away,” in the words of Judge John Gleeson of the Eastern District of New York -- can lead a defendant to plead guilty in order to obtain a shorter prison term, even if they're accused wrongfully....
No Crime Was Actually Committed
In about half of the exonerations in 2015, no crime was actually ever committed by the people put behind bars -- a record, according to the report. Most of these cases involved drugs. Some included homicide or arson....
Flawed Forensic Evidence
Many of last year's exonerations involved flawed or invalid forensic evidence. According to the Innocence Project, improper forensic science is a leading cause of wrongful conviction.
Too often, the group says, forensic experts speculate when they testify, asserting conclusions that stretch the science. Further, some forensic techniques aren't backed by research, but are nevertheless presented to juries as fact. And there are honest mistakes. The FBI has admitted that from 1972 to 1999, almost every examiner in the bureau's elite forensics unit gave flawed testimony in nearly every trial in which they presented evidence....
Faulty Eyewitness Identification
False identifications of innocent people happened in several cases the exoneration registry report outlined.
The Innocence Project says eyewitness misidentification of a suspect plays a role in more than 70 percent of convictions that are later overturned through DNA evidence. Hundreds of studies have shown that eyewitness identification is frequently inaccurate and that human memories are not reliable, especially with traditional identification procedures. While simple reforms have been proposed, only about 14 U.S. states have implemented them, according to Innocence Project....
