Wrongful Convictions

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Innocent individuals imprisoned in the U.S suffer majorly for crimes not committed by them. Between 2.3% and 5% of all the prisoners in the United States are innocent, meaning that more than 20,000 innocent people are put in prison. (innocentproject.org). Approximately 25% of cases where DNA testing which were done by the FBI during the course of the investigations. That does not mean that 25% of convictions are incorrect, but when coupled with the fact that DNA testing is only possible in 5 through 10% of all criminal cases(innocentproject.org).This leads to the conclusion that science does not always clear all innocent suspects, which can result a wrongful convictions. In addition, more than two hundred fifty wrongfully convicted prisoners had been absolved in the basis of DNA testing in the United States (innocentproject.org). In 2005, David Butler, a man was accused for murdering a woman, Anne Marie Foy. He willingly gave his DNA sample as a part of an investigation a few years back. The DNA sample was poor quality, but remained in prison despite of the cctv evidence that placed him in the area where the murder took place. It is believed that the current climate…show more content…
It is hard to articulate wrongful convictions and to determine whether the law is continuing to commit mistakes. One can only know if an injustice has occurred if the offender has been exonerated by exactly the same system which was responsible for the initial error. An appellate verdict of not guilty it does not inherently translate to innocence (Huff, 2002). A professor called Edward Borchard of Yale University did a book based on wrongful convictions, which addressed the legal causes of “miscarriage”. There has been about three hundred fifty wrongful convictions and twenty three of them had led to executions(death)(Leo & Gould,
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