Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 2020
Abstract
Wrongful convictions are inherently antithetical to a key tenant of the system of criminal justice in the United States, which former Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland shrewdly articulated as to ensure that "guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer." Reaching even further into the foundations of the common law, the great legal commentator William Blackstone stated of wrongful convictions that "the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer." This core principle of American justice was bolstered by the statements of two key Founding Fathers, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Adams stated of wrongful convictions during his defense of the British soldiers accused of murder as a result of the Boston Massacre, "[i]t is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished . . .." Meanwhile, Franklin, writing to his friend and member of the British Parliament Benjamin Vaughan, espoused a ratio even more profound than Blackstone's saying, "[i]t is better 100 guilty Persons should escape, than that one innocent Person should suffer .... " These quotations from some preeminent legal scholars, as well as a couple of the central figures in the founding of the United States, reveal the immense significance of preventing wrongful convictions in this country. Yet, as this paper will demonstrate, not nearly enough has been done, or is being done, to stem this tide of injustice. Thus, pragmatic action is required to guarantee that innocent persons are not being incarcerated as a result of erroneous evidence.
Recommended Citation
Bailey D. Barnes,
Preventing Wrongful Conviction Caused by Eyewitness (Mis)Identification: Establishing a Presumption of Unreliability, 18 Dartmouth Law Journal 6
(2020).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/facpubs/1283