In a case that was recently argued before the Supreme Court, questions have arisen regarding the reliability of eyewitness testimony. In Perry v. New Hampshire,  the State Supreme Court ruled that a trial judge “cannot exclude witness identification based on suggestive circumstances, unless there was improper police manipulation of the

After the release of a man that was wrongfully convicted of a murder, Florida’s Innocence Commission is rethinking the use of jailhouse informants in their felony cases.  The man, Chad Heins, spent 11 years in prison for a murder he was innocent of — his conviction was almost solely based on the

According to a new study recently published by the RAND Corporation,  just providing an indigent defendant a lawyer is not enough to “obtain justice”. The issues that directly affect the outcome include: whether the lawyer assigned is screened for quality, whether they are trained to handle the client’s type of case,

After spending 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Michael Morton was exonerated last month in Texas through the use of DNA evidence. In their attempt to prove Mr. Morton’s innocence, attorneys found evidence in court records that the prosecutor from his original trial had withheld critical evidence

Bob Bartels, faculty advisor for the Arizona Justice Project, takes the important issue of post-conviction review to the United States Supreme Court. – Question Presented: Whether a defendant in a state criminal case – who cannot raise an ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim (IATC) on direct appeal but must

Below, you’ll find an interactive resource courtesy of the Innocence Project in New York about the causes of wrongful convictions: The Innocence Project has also released a chart on the DNA exonerations that have occurred throughout the nation in which convictions were obtained involving unvalidated or improper forensic testing. Read more about 166