Since 1989, DNA testing has exonerated more than 360 people who were convicted of crimes but later proven innocent through the magic bullet of science. Nearly 2,000 other wrongful convictions have also been overturned without the benefit of DNA technology during that period.
A close look at these cases reveals what went wrong in the first place and informs efforts to prevent future miscarriages of justice. The key factors in documented wrongful convictions include eyewitness misidentifications, weak forensic evidence, false confessions, informant testimony, ineffective assistance of defense counsel and prosecutorial misconduct.
Indeed, grave errors committed by our nation’s prosecutors, those erstwhile ministers-of-justice entrusted with the task of charging people with crimes and litigating those matters in court, have contributed to scores of wrongful convictions.