Home

Innocent Defendants Pay Heavy Costs

Submitted by Gunner Retired on Sat, 2008-11-08 07:47.

Not only a news article... it is very pertinent to our cause. Article here. Excerpt:

'USA 2008 – Estimates on citizens falsely prosecuted for criminal offenses each year range from 12% to 35% according to qualified statisticians. This is an alarming, factual occurrence – one which should be dealt with sooner than later, but will probably be much later. To ignore or postpone an appropriate response to this travesty of justice allows the criminal justice system to nibble away at our rights as citizens living in a free society. Eventually, the apathy will lead to a pandemic of innocent victims suffering under the boot of despots, because no one will be left to give a damn.

Knowledgeable researchers from the Michigan University Law School, studying false convictions found 545 individuals were exonerated, for crimes they did not commit, between 1989 and 2003. Their claim is, “Judging from our data, any plausible guess at the total number of miscarriages of justice in America in the last fifteen years could run into the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, in felony cases alone.”'