How does this happen?

By studying past cases where formerly wrongfully convicted inmates have been exonerated of the crimes they did not commit, researchers have identified various ways that people have been wrongfully convicted. 

The answer is error. Error by eyewitnesses, by police officers, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. 

The first common error that leads to wrongful convictions is eyewitness error. This means that someone who testified in court as to having seen the defendant commit the crime was mistaken, or lied about seeing the defendant.

Another factor that has the potential to lead to a wrongful conviction is police and prosecutorial error. Author Dianne L. Martin writes of the many ways that police play a part in wrongful convictions. She identifies three circumstances that often lead a police officer to attempt and convict a person that did not do the crime: “the case placed significant pressure on authorities to resolve with a conviction, the accused was a marginalized outsider, or the case rested on suspect or inherently unreliable evidence.”

Furthermore, errors by the defense including inadequate counsel can lead to wrongful convictions. The right to counsel is part of the United States’ Bill of Rights, however, in the case of the wrongfully convicted, the right to counsel is not the issue, but rather the counsel’s adequacy.

It is impossible to know if someone is telling the truth or not. Therefore, not only is it impossible to know whether or not a wrongful conviction was done intentionally, but it is also impossible to know whether or not a person who claims they are innocent is actually innocent. This makes it incredibly difficult to obtain exact statistics regarding how many people have been wrongfully convicted in the past and how many prisoners currently sit behind bars today for crimes they did not commit. As I wrote in the introduction to this blog, the Innocence Project estimates that there are between 55,622 and 120,917 people behind bars for crimes they did not commit.

Our justice system is flawed and needs reformation so that innocent people are not sitting behind bars any longer.