Week 9

Hey guys! SRP is nearing its end and so I had to grab my chance to talk to Kinda Helferich, one of the full time attorneys at the Justice Project who also manages federal grants. The Justice Project helps provide exonerations to those who are wrongfully convicted. The Justice Project is specific to Arizona and it was the 5th one in the U.S. that was created. I was able to ask her many questions that related directly to my topic. I learned that the whole exoneration process takes anywhere from 3-12 years, the Innocence Project is the father and the smaller projects are specific to each of the states, and that this particular one based in Arizona takes on all sorts of exonerations.

Things I learned:

• DNA exonerations are the majority of exonerations but non- DNA ones include: false confessions, eyewitness misidentification, witness recantations and advancements in science (junk science)
• Justice Project provides post-conviction help, once the inmate has exhausted all appeals
• One of the causes of wrongful convictions involve the victim identifying the wrong assailant; solution: during the pretrial lawyers can ask for victim testimony to be thrown out
• Lots of states have DNA testing statutes which have guidelines: 1) is DNA available to test? 2)Has it been tested before? 3) How is the DNA going to change the result of the case?
• Prosecutorial Misconduct: rarely uncovered; sometimes they don't turn over material- this is called Brady material (from the case Brady v Maryland)
• Police do condone false confessions but this stems from two things 1) how they are trained;police training always involves: "get the bad guy, get the bad guy" (sometimes even without thinking "is this really the bad guy?") 2) Police have their own agenda- some are in it just to get power and so they exercise it through long interrogations without taking into account age, mental health or IQ of the supposed perpetrator) or not even reading Miranda rights
• Majority of exonerees are minorities 
• One of the board members is an exoneree himself who served 17 years in prison for murder conspiracy (which wasn't true, clearly)

Story of the Day: In 1970 the Pioneer Hotel was supposedly set on fire. Convicted of arson, Louis Taylor spent FORTY-TWO years in prison for a crime that turned out to not even be arson. After re-opening the case, the Justice Project lawyers showed that the snitch testimony provided for this case was false, and that the fire occurred because of natural causes, not arson! In 2013 Louis Taylor became a free man. 

The Justice Project has amazing stories of those who were exonerated. Be sure to check them out on this link:    http://azjusticeproject.org/

Week 8

Hi everyone! The SRP weeks are winding down and thus research is getting less and the writing is becoming more. Nonetheless new facts are to be uncovered every day. This week's blog I am just going to go over some facts that may come as a surprise to you, and others that might not. Next week I hope to meet with the Justice Project representative who can provide insight into this amazing organization.

Some facts:

• Defense attorneys can't talk to the victim at all! This is called the Victim's Bill of Rights.
• Most exonerations are sexual assault crimes- thus more men than women are exonerated
• Majority of exonerees are minorities
• Prosecutorial misconduct is rarely ever uncovered and when it is, it never rises to the level that it is harmful to the case. So basically prosecutors get off unscathed even though they are a big part of a wrongful conviction.
• There are more men than women in prison

Story of the Day: The shaken baby syndrome is something that can occur if someone shakes a newly born baby causing three major inward signs such as hemorrhaging. In 2002 Drayton Witt was convicted of second degree murder because everyone thought that he had "shaken" his baby till the baby died. The Phoenix Children's Hospital insisted the cause of death was shaken baby syndrome. However, in 2008 this case was taken up by some awesome lawyers in Arizona through the Justice Project who provided sworn testimony after reviewing the case that the baby died because of natural causes, proving Drayton Witt innocent. :)

Week 7

Hi! This week involved going back to my original research questions, as I might have started to deviate and delve into other territory like my last week's blog-DNA testing. This time I am going back to prosecutorial misconduct- a sad occurrence which happens countless times. I will guide you through a scenario.
1) Imagine you are a lawyer who is utterly convinced that your client was brutally murdered by his daughter.
2) You're fighting with the defense, in an effort to convince your jury to convict her.
3) You find new evidence that will completely jeopardize your case and you won't be able to get justice for your client.
4) Your duty is to hand over this information to the defense so they can defend the daughter, but your entire future and reputation rests on winning this one case. It will make you or break you.
5)You're supposed to be on the side of justice, you have to hand over this information to the defense. So what do you do? Conceal or don't feel? (after you lose your case that is.)

Story of the Day: Well that's exactly what happened in 1987 with a prosecutor who convicted Michael Morton of killing his wife. Morton's defense attorney was never given the police report which stated his three year old son has said that his dad did not kill his mother. After serving 25 years in prison, the police report was finally handed over and Morton was exonerated through DNA evidence found on a bandana at the site of the crime scene which implicated another man. Just remember though, there are always two sides to a story.

Week 6

Hi everyone! More research again this week. Hopefully in the coming weeks I can meet with the Justice Project of Arizona's representative to get personal experience with the project's goals and people. This week's research is made up of writing my rough draft and organizing my paper. The major method of exoneration occurs through DNA testing so I decided to look into that process and how it is admissible in court. Some courts will not even consider DNA test results post conviction. The only way to bypass this disadvantage is through DNA- testing statutes. Sometimes there is DNA that could have been tested at the site of the crime scene, but it doesn't even come into consideration! Preservation of the DNA is also very important, but there aren't many laws that address this issue. There are also denied petitions for testing, and some laws don't allow appeals for the denied petitions. Other laws say that DNA is completely inadmissible if the defendant plead guilty to a crime-which they were probably coerced into doing so- this results in a vicious cycle where they can not be exonerated.

Story of the Day: Exactly a month ago, on February 23rd, Vanessa Gathers was the first woman to have her conviction overturned by the Conviction Review Unit. In 1991, Gathers was convicted of robbing and assaulting a man and spent 10 years in prison. The evidence used in the trial involved her confession which she was most likely coerced into. This case came into review because the detective who was working the case and had received the confession was jailed and accused of putting innocent people in jail. The progress being made on cases is astounding, and with more resources, and funds the pain and suffering of countless numbers of people can end.

Week 5

Hey guys! This week has consisted mostly of writing my rough draft. Just 5 more weeks left till I have to have my final draft and so I have finished my outline, and now I am beginning to write the rough draft. My goal with this draft is to solidify the way I can write a research paper. Although the Capstone projects did help, the draft just serves as a reinforcement.  This week's research consisted of ways to prevent wrongful convictions. About three years ago, a combined team of forces released this report that recommends ways to reduce wrongful convictions. 1)  the climate that surrounds investigations should be changed. Supervisors are discouraged from interfering in investigations and this can lead to trouble. 2) law enforcement can stop arresting the wrong person by improving investigation protocols, and training policies. 3) slow down, and evaluate the person (for law enforcement officers) 4) re-evaluating closed cases. There are a huge array of recommendations that just need to be implemented. Next week I will analyze these recommendations, and prevention methods in-depth.

Story of the Day: Just yesterday on March 10th, Andre Hatchett was exonerated in Brooklyn after serving TWENTY FIVE years for a murder that he did not commit. The case was based on only one eyewitness who actually identified someone else on the night of the crime, but the defense lawyers failed to mention this in court! Plus, the defense lawyers were so incompetent that they didn't even present medical records to the jury that Hatchett was on crutches the night of the crime, and wasn't physically capable of committing a murder, let alone walking without support. He is now free thanks to the Ken Thompson the Brooklyn District Attorney, and his Conviction Integrity Unit. Happy ending :) 

Week 4

Hi everyone! As I got into Week 4 I uncovered more and more stories about people who had gone through this process themselves. The pain that they felt, and the steps they had to take to be set free. I wanted to find these autobiographies and stories because I wanted to add a more insightful and introspective touch to my essay. But first, I wanted to talk about solutions to the causes of wrongful convictions. Like I mentioned before, snitch testimony is a big cause of wrongful convictions, and there are a couple ways to solve this: 1) Written disclosures of witness compensation 2) Pretrial hearings that discuss whether the testimony of the informant is even reliable or not 3) Cautionary jury instructions that warn them about the reliability issues of the informant testimony 4) Requirement that in-custody informant testimony be corroborated. Solutions to eye-witness misidentification accounts are minimal. The only solution that I could particularly think of is to tell the jury to not place a disproportionate amount of weight on their story, as many factors such as state-of mind, and post traumatic stress could alter recall of events. Solutions to junk science have also not been yet found. One of the main parts of a trial is the jury. The fate of the defendant lies with the jury. My next week's task is to focus on the jury, how they are chosen, what the results entail, and what jury tampering is, and how this can be solved.

Since I wanted to add a introspective touch to my paper I have decided to add a story of the day to the end of each of my blog posts. At the end of the SRP, I will compile these stories to have the essay I want.

Story of the Day: In 1986 Herman Atkins was a recent high school graduate wanted to join the military. His dreams were altered as his adolescence was taken away from him by the State of California. He was accused of raping a woman during a robbery in a shoe store, and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. DNA testing was not available at the time of his trial, but in 1993 the Innocence Project requested to test the evidence. The semen found on the victim's sweater, turned out to be, surprise surprise, not Herman's. He was exonerated after serving TWELVE years for a crime he didn't even commit.

Week 3

Hi guys! Week 3 was research, research, and more research.In my previous blog post I mentioned how I was going to solidify my outline and then analyze the other causes besides false confessions, that contribute to wrongful convictions. So, some other causes involve junk science, eyewitness error, and snitch testimony. In some criminal cases, scientific results and facts hold great significance in making a determination. To present such evidence at trials, "expert" witnesses are called, and they might be unqualified, or present fraud data in order to sway the jury, the wrong way. Junk science consists of data which is fraudulent, or mishandled. Snitch testimony deals with informants or incentivized witnesses who have a specific motive to testify. They could testify for a few number of reasons: 1) they are paid money  2) will be released from prison. In some cases where DNA or other biological evidences are not possible to show, there is much weight or proof of guilt put onto these witnesses' testimonies, causing the jury to believe them, and wrongfully convict. I found this study which was put forth by the  Center of Wrongful Convictions in Chicago, which showed how these witnesses put THIRTY-EIGHT innocent Americans on death row. This study goes into further detail about snitch testimony. Another cause could simply be eyewitness error.This is the GREATEST contributing factor to wrongful convictions. Over SEVENTY percent of convictions that are overturned showed, how influential eyewitnesses are to the cases.

Story of the Day: In 1982, Marvin Anderson was called in to the police station to answer some questions about a rape that had occurred. Marvin did not know that the man who had raped the victim, told her he "had a white girl." Marvin was the only person that the investigating officer knew about that lived with a white girl. The victim was then shown 6 photos of both African American and white men. She picked Marvin. Then shown another lineup she picked Marvin again. Even though he had an alibi, Marvin was convicted of rape, sodomy, abduction, and robbery based mainly off of eyewitness misidentification, and was sentenced to 210 years, After 15 years he was finally exonerated through DNA testing.

Lesson: Eyewitnesses hold a lot more power than they really should.