In 1923, the American judge, Lairnd Hand, said that the American judicial system "is always haunted by the specter of a guilty innocent man", indicating that the American judiciary is always investigating justice and that the wrong conviction is "the pipe of dreams." And began a serious study of the phenomenon of false conviction, less than a decade after the judge made his statements malicious. In contrast to his eloquent statements, time and technology have revealed that a large number of convicted persons have been sentenced to prison terms and even sentenced to death for crimes committed by others, even some of which have never occurred.
The number of convicted defendants in the United States is between 2 and 10 percent. This may seem low, but when compared to the estimated 2.3 million prisoners, this figure becomes staggering. Accordingly, America can have between 46 and 230,000 innocent people behind bars. Millions of cases are handled by US courts each year, and it is almost impossible to determine how many innocent people are already convicted. There are few ways to examine the cases and backgrounds of convicts who claim to be wrongly convicted. Once an innocent person is convicted, it is impossible to get him out of prison. Over the past 25 years, the so-called "patent project", which examines those convicted through DNA testing, has secured the release of 349 innocent men and women, 20 of whom have been executed before being acquitted.
Police corruption and prosecution behavior
There are many reasons that led to the sending of these innocent people behind bars. Among these reasons is the corruption of some policemen. Most of the policemen are honest and hard-working professionals, but some hide, alter or fabricate evidence, lie or contract against forged testimony; intimidate and intimidate witnesses; the accused hates recognition; or manipulates the identities of eyewitnesses.
There is also misconduct of the prosecution. Most prosecutors are also honest professionals who work hard. However, it is known that some of them conceal evidence that would acquit the accused, encourage witnesses to testify falsely; lie to jurors, judges and defense lawyers; use false testimony or ignore relevant evidence in favor of the accused.
False confessions and witnesses do not remember
Most jurors find it impossible to believe a suspect who admits a serious crime he has not committed. However, the juror may be surprised by what the accused will say if he is transferred to the basement room and subjected to abusive interrogation techniques for 10 consecutive hours by experienced police officers. Of the 330 people cleared by DNA evidence from 1989 to 2015, about 25 percent gave false confessions after lengthy interrogations, but each retreated almost immediately after making false confessions. More often than not, witnesses find it difficult to remember the facts accurately and identify those involved. They may be confused by the physical picture during the identification of suspects, because police manipulate images to focus suspicion on suspects they prefer.
Poor performance of lawyers and the interests of political judges
Criminals rarely have money to pay for experienced lawyers who can defend them. Many of them have been appointed by the Tribunal as lawyers to defend them, but many of them also sign their luck with lawyers appointed by the Tribunal, with little or no experience. Most often they are overcome by highly experienced defense lawyers. Judges are supposed to investigate integrity and ensure fair trials. They should exclude evidence that is not in conformity with material evidence, obtained by dubious means; the exclusion of the testimony of offenders whose motives are questionable; the demand of prosecutors to provide evidence; and the examination of the documents and testimony of all experts not members of the jury. Unfortunately, judges do not always do what they should. The reasons are many and varied, and in fact the actions of many elected judges do not help to improve the situation. Because they are considering the upcoming re-election campaigns, and how the decisions they make affect the results of those elections.
Experts doubtful of their qualifications
Over the past five decades, America's courtrooms have been crowded with a group of unreliable experts with dubious qualifications who charge for all the theories they draw from their alleged scientific analysis of hair, fibers, wounds, burns, fingerprints, blood stains and shells. Of the 330 people cleared by DNA testing between 1989 and 2015, 71 percent were convicted on the basis of a false forensic doctor's certificate, many of which were flawed, unreliable, exaggerated or sometimes fabricated.
Defective behavior
He studied law professor at the University of Virginia, Brandon L. Garrett, almost all the almost convictions, which were subsequently revealed in DNA-based acquittal judgments. "There is a national epidemic of overly forensic science," he wrote in The Pavler last year. "There is a flood of criminal convictions that have turned into patents after the removal of flawed physical evidence for decades." "The real scope of the problem has become apparent, for now."
A new book by Radley Balco and Tacker Carrington, entitled "The King of the Dead and the Dentist," tells the story of two of the most daring experts the courtroom has seen. Stephen Hayne was a controversial forensic science specialist and once boasted more than 2,000 autopsies in one year. His friend, Michael West, a dentist in a small town, had taken the role of an expert in a number of other fields. Together they collaborated on cases of rape and murder in Mississippi and Louisiana, which led to the convictions of large numbers of defendants. Many of these convictions have been overturned, and others are still on their way back to the courts in search of innocence.
The book is a strong condemnation of the dilapidated US criminal justice system, where prosecutors are allowed - or even encouraged - to take a flawed forensic certificate, because it has been tailored to the theory of crime they believe. The atrocities in the states of Mississippi and Louisiana do not apply to a specific time or place. Medical investigators, police officers, prosecutors, judges and others who control the criminal justice system throughout the country have failed to achieve justice to a large extent.
• Serious crime suspects rarely have the money to pay to experienced lawyers who can defend them.