Even if a wrongfully convicted person is not executed, years in prison can have significant and irreversible effects on the person and their family. The risk of miscarriage of justice is therefore also an argument against long prison sentences, such as life imprisonment, and cruel conditions of detention. False convictions can also occur when items that become evidence at crime scenes are contaminated during packaging, collection, and transportation to a secure facility or laboratory. Contamination can be caused unintentionally by equipment that was not present when the crime was committed by someone who entered the crime scene after the event – by uninvolved witnesses who may be suspected, and by rescuers, firefighters, police officers and investigators themselves. [20] If proper protocols are not followed, evidence may also become contaminated when analyzed or stored. A miscarriage of justice can occur when procedures to prevent contamination are not applied carefully and accurately. [21] Richard Foster, Chair of the Criminal Review Board (CRCC), reported in October 2018 that the leading cause of miscarriages of justice was failure to disclose important evidence. [59] A miscarriage of justice occurs when a manifestly unfair result occurs in criminal or civil proceedings,[1] such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. [2] Miscarriages are also known as false convictions. Innocent people sometimes ended up in jail for years before their convictions were finally overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or if it is established that the police or prosecutor`s office committed a fault during the initial trial. In some jurisdictions, this results in the payment of compensation. [3] Wrongful convictions appear first as „lawful“ arrests and subsequent convictions and also include a public statement about a specific offence and a specific person or persons who committed that offence.
If the conviction turns out to be a miscarriage of justice, then one or both of these statements are ultimately considered false. [40] In cases where a large public unknowingly witnesses a miscarriage of justice, the public consuming news may develop false beliefs about the nature of the crime itself. It can also lead the public to mistakenly believe that certain types of crimes exist, or that certain types of people tend to commit these crimes, or that certain crimes are more frequent than they actually are. Thus, false convictions can ultimately shape a society`s popular beliefs about crime. Because our understanding of crime is socially constructed, it has been shaped by many factors other than its actual occurrence. [41] The second method of estimating wrongful convictions is voluntary disclosure. Researchers ask prisoners if they have ever confessed to a crime they did not commit. Self-disclosure makes it possible to investigate all crimes for which a false conviction may have taken place, not just cases of murder and rape for which DNA is available. Two Icelandic studies based on self-reports conducted ten years apart found that the rate of false confessions was 12.2% and 24.4%, respectively.
These figures provide an approximation of miscarriages of justice, as „false confessions are very likely to lead to false convictions.“ [10] A recent Scottish study found that the rate of self-reported false confessions among a group of inmates in a prison was 33.4%. [11] The Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Act 1927 extended the jurisdiction of the Scottish Court of Appeal following a miscarriage of justice in the trial of Oscar Slater. A series of miscarriages of justice uncovered in the 2010s have undermined public confidence in China`s judicial system. [54] [55] [56] The Spanish Constitution guarantees compensation for miscarriages of justice. Some unjustly sanctioned individuals join organizations like the Innocence Project and Witness to Innocence to publicly share their stories to counter these media distortions and advocate for various types of criminal justice reforms. [44] In the early 1990s, a number of high-profile cases turned out to be miscarriages of justice. Many have resulted from police fabricating evidence to convict people they believed guilty, or simply to achieve a high conviction rate. The West Midlands Serious Crime Squad became notorious for such practices and was dissolved in 1989. In 1997, the Criminal Case Review Commission[60] was established to investigate possible miscarriages of justice. However, there is always a need for either new solid evidence of innocence or new evidence of a miscarriage of justice on the part of the judge or prosecutor.
For example, it is not enough to insist on his innocence, to claim that the jury made an error or to claim that there was not enough evidence to prove his guilt. It is not possible to question the jury`s decision or ask on which themes it was based.