Wrongfully Convicted: Miscarriage of Justice and Its Lasting Effects - Research Paper

Introduction

Miscarriage of Justice, otherwise called justice failure, occurs when an individual is imprisoned and punished for crimes he or she did not take part in. It is used as a legal defense in deportation and criminal trials. Many criminal justice systems have implemented methods of quashing or overturning wrongful convictions, which is hard to accomplish. In some situations, wrongful convictions are not overturned for many years. Sometimes the convictions are overturned when an innocent individual has been released from custody, died, or executed (Bell, 2015). Wrongful convictions are marked by death penalty opponents as a means of avoiding the execution of innocent individuals. In the past decades, DNA evidence has applied in the clearing of most of the falsely convicted individuals. The cause and nature of wrongful convictions in Canada make it challenging to understand its prevalence. Statistics Canada offers data that show that in 2010, there were over 403, 340 criminal cases that were decided by courts in Canada. Out of these cases, 262,616 led to guilt findings, while others were dismissed, discharged, or withdrawn.

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Reasons Why Wrongful Convictions Happen in Canada

Eyewitness Identification Error

In Canada, like any other jurisdiction, eyewitness testimony leads in causing wrongful convictions. The Innocence Project Canada stated that eyewitness identification errors have led to over 70% of the convictions that were overturned using DNA testing (Innocence Canada, 2019). The witness provided by eyewitnesses is not reliable for different reasons, including emotions, distance issues, memory recall, lighting, and stress. The public has tendencies of knowing very little concerning the risks of depending on this kind of proof, emphasizing more assurance in it. This results in issues during trials since the juries can make bias decisions. In addition, the cross-race impact increases the undependability of testimony provided by eyewitnesses. Research on cross-race effect have demonstrated that an individual is highly likely to correctly identify, remember the faces of the person of the same ethnicity compared to that of another race.

False Confessions

False confessions happen whenever innocent people admit guilt. Confessions are an important proof of guilt, and this is why they result in wrongful convictions. People find it difficult to believe that someone confessed to a criminal act that they did not take part in. Regardless of this knowledge, there are no rules that established procedures for adult interviews that protect against untrue admissions. The only available safeguard against false confessions that are utilized in the court of law is the magistrate having the powers of declining to allow admissibility of the confessions. However, even courts have expressed reluctance in excluding confessions gathered through interrogations or made by people who have serious intellectual disabilities or psychological wellbeing problems (Innocence Canada, 2019). Canadian Supreme Court has formulated standards where all the revelations are admissible in court. The standard is called Confessions Rule or voluntariness. Through this standard, the Court admits an admission as proof when there are no risks or threats, no oppression or police trickery, and where the suspect admits willingly without coercion. The rule focuses on guarding against false confessions' dangers. However, the courts could ensure that every confession is caught live on videotapes or they risk inadmissibility. Instead, the courts have not taken on this chance and ruled that confessions are only admissible when they meet the voluntariness standard.

Mr. Big Stings

The standard of Mr. Big Stings refers to police taking part in trickery for people to confess. The concept was an undercover operation that was formulated during the 1990s in Canada. While the exercise is not used in other nations such as Britain and the United States of America, it is still widely applied in Australia and Canada (Dufraimont, 2015). Police officials spend weeks up to months in undercover, collecting as much evidence regarding the suspect, including their favorite hanging joints, behaviours, and friends. After gathering the required data, police set up fake criminal operations. To convince the suspects to become part of their group, a police officer must make friendship. The final stage in this practice is asking for confession to crimes as evidence of allegiance to the group. There is always a promise of proving their blamelessness to crimes by having other gang members confess. Confessions to Mr. Big does not have any repercussions on the perpetrator, who could have faced threats, making them fear about their security and even seducing them into confessing further.

Pleading Guilty Without Due to Fear

The false guilty pleas happen when innocent individuals seek to have their freedom back. Plea bargaining and guilty pleas are often regarded as a necessity for the judiciary to effort appropriately and promptly. Most of the cases that are brought before a jury often end in plea bargains. The estimations place these numbers (95%) of the cases that go through trials (McLellan & Frederick, 2016)). It is challenging to comprehend why innocent people falsely plead to commit crimes they did not. Nevertheless, people take plea deals for other reasons. With the possibility of facing life imprisonment when one is convicted of a murder, the accused could choose reduced sentences or even lesser charges for manslaughter. A compelling and convincing expert or eyewitness testimony could make the accused believe they will not influence the jury about their innocence.

Tunnel Vision

The tunnel vision refers to focusing on a single suspect while excluding others. The idea poses significant threats and issues in the professional conduct of the jury and parties to the cases. The tunnel vision, as described in the Morin Examination, was the narrow and single-minded emphasis on a specific investigation or theory of prosecution. The goal of the focus is unreasonably coloring the assessment of data received and the conduct of an individual concerning the information (Jordan, Kaplan, Beety, & Findley, 2016). In some situations, prosecutors and police identify evidence that meets their theory compared to formulating a theory that is founded on the existing proof. Prosecutors and police who are influenced by the tunnel vision do not necessarily have ill-defined motives. The police also do not understand what the negative effects are catching up with them. The pressure of solving criminal acts and ensuring offenders face the law.

Systematic Discrimination

Systematic discrimination happens through gender bias, socioeconomic status, and racism. Studies have demonstrated that gender and race play crucial roles in illegal beliefs. According to Roach (2015), 70% of the exonerated individuals in the Innocence Project report are racialized prisoners. Over 61% are Caucasians, meaning that ethnic subgroups have higher risks of wrongful convictions. In Canada, the indigenous people are the most incarcerated. In 2016, Statistics Canada estimated that 26% of the total admissions to the territorial and provincial correctional facilities were aboriginal adults. At the same time, indigenous adults only make up three percent of the adult population in Canada (Roach, 2015). While there are no accurate statistics, there is a good reason for believing that the native people are wrongfully convicted at higher rates compared to non-native colleagues.

Forensic Science Methods Have Proved Costly

There is a clash in the criminal justice system's fight for finality and science's ever-dynamic nature. Analysis of DNA sequences was introduced during the 1980s to the judicial system, and since then, it has assisted in exonerating most innocent individuals. The outcomes of medical examination methods, including bite mark assessments, hair microscopy, shoe comparisons, blood typing, and firearm tool mark assessments that were earlier accepted as reliable, are nowadays faulty (Olney & Bonn, 2015). Most of these methods have been considered inadmissible and unreliable as proof in the court of law. Reliable forensic methods are still subjected to human identification and interpretation, which leaves room for human error.

Testimony From Jailed Informants

Incorrect or untruthful testimony leads to unlawful imprisonments when evidence is lacking. The Innocence Project estimates that 15% of the cases on wrongful convictions were overturned because of DNA analysis (Olney & Bonn, 2015). In these cases, the snitch attested against the offender during the initial trials. The "jailhouse snitch" is the most common type of informed testimony. They are often given incentives for testifying, including the removal of illicit burdens, money, or lighter sentences. In the past cases of wrongful convictions, deals provided to information in promises for testimony were kept a secret from the defense to fact trials.

Professional Misconduct

Police, forensic experts, and lawyers collude to cause wrongful convictions. The procedural issues linked to the ways cases are tried to have negative impacts on wrongful convictions. The professional conducts define the ways prosecution and police handle cases, alongside the diligence of mounting the defence. Even though Innocence Canada understands that most police officers and lawyers act to the best interests, the defense counsel could mishandle the cases of their client. Defense counsel, particularly those given to the people from low-income families, are timeworn and have a lot of caseloads than they can sustain. Being "spread too thin" causes mistakes in judgments. On the same note, police could also face pressures during the investigations of serious cases. Pressures come from the media, public, superiors, friends, and family of the victim (Olney & Bonn, 2015). While research has demonstrated that exerting pressure on people is beneficial and increases productivity, too much pressure causes tunnel vision and many negative effects. The prosecution takes part in professional misconduct through acts such as withholding evidence. With the little exclusion, the defendant and the advice have admittance to all proof, such as the exculpatory evidence. In the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, R. v. Stinchcombe, Justice Sopinka ruled that the Crown has a legal obligation of disclosing all relevant data to the defense.

The Case of Glean Assoun, Exonerated on 1st March 2019

Glen Assoun is a leading case about wrongful convictions after the accused was exonerated in 2019. Glen Assoun was convicted and imprisoned for a crime he has held for over twenty years that he did not commit. Brenda Way, his former girlfriend, died on 12th November 1995. Assoun spent over seventeen years behind bars, where he faced daily abuse and extremely challenging conditions. He showed his innocence daily with a hat that read wrongly convicted 1998, never losing hope that the truth would finally come. His case represented one of the most disturbing instances of wrongful convictions in the history of Canada. There was a failure of accountability from both Halifax Regional Police and RCMP (Nimens, 2019). These included questionable police methods, collusion among witnesses, and tunnel vision. The most apparent violation was burying and destroying evidence that was discovered by Dave Moore, a former RCMP analyst.

Moore worked in criminal profiling, where he used the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS) of RCMP, and carried out a comprehensive assessment into Michael McGray, the convicted serial killer locked up for the death of seven people. Moore went beyond what was needed of him and identified McGray was the man who killed Brenda Way. Mo...