Comparative Analysis of Wrongful Convictions in Justice Systems

This essay delves into the pervasive issue of wrongful convictions within criminal justice systems, comparing the approaches of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Israel. It highlights the challenges in accurately determining the occurrence of such errors and the varying degrees of success in preventing them. The essay explores factors contributing to wrongful convictions, including biased investigations, prosecutorial misconduct, public pressure, and flaws in trial procedures. It examines the role of eyewitness testimony, forensic evidence (particularly DNA), and legal reforms in influencing conviction rates and the potential for miscarriages of justice. The analysis underscores that while some systems may be better at preventing wrongful convictions, all systems have weaknesses, with the ultimate measure of a justice system being its capacity to administer justice fairly. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of improved investigative methods and technology in reducing the risk of convicting innocent people. This assignment is contributed by a student to be published on the website Desklib, a platform which provides all the necessary AI based study tools for students.

Running head: WRONGFUL CONVICTION 1
Wrongful Conviction
Name
Institution

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Wrongful Conviction
Introduction
Wrongful convictions in the system of criminal justice remain not only a United States
Problem but an issue present in many countries. Many researchers argue that numerous justice
systems do not know when wrongful convictions happen. As such, it often makes a debate on
whether some legal system is better as compared to others at correcting and preventing errors of
wrongful conviction since there remain no methods of finding out if such cases happen. If the
system did, then most of the innocent people would not go to prison. Even in the United States,
where there remains an excellent focus on the legal system to prevent errors, innocent people still
find their way to prison. It remains similar to the United Kingdom who has witnessed its fair
share of wrongful convictions. Conversely, Israel and Canada only attempt to prevent wrongful
convictions on major offenses such as rape and murder, but avoid examining minor offenses
against wrongful convictions.
Arguing that one system remains better as compared to the other would be faulty because
all systems remain unique as well as have their own weaknesses and strengths. The weakness or
strength of a justice system remains measured by its capability of administering justice fairly as
expected. Numerous trial procedures, such as in the Canadian judicial system, remain prone to
errors (Weir, 2013). Determining the truth of any case depends on the investigations performed
by the law enforcement officers. Consequently, such partial investigations might lead to a
wrongful conviction since the prosecution side remains biased, and it remains the duty of the
prosecutor to take the accused person to prison. Thus, the prosecutors would distort the evidence
to enable them to convict the accused. Besides, during the trial, the court may order the

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prosecutor to produce records, provide more evidence, as well as prove their case. These mix-
ups, together with the pressure from the general public and the effect are wrongful convictions.
Israel criminal procedures are not created on any law that allows a review of a case.
Because of this, the trial process offers an avenue for abusing by the officials of the state. It can
be fair if all the cases in Israel are reviewed to check any fault that could be made by the
prosecutors. It is true that the rigidity of the legal system of Israel does not allow for reversing
the faulty conviction. Besides, there remain unfair laws that prevent the avenues for appeal. So,
people who have been accused of wrongly cannot seek an appeal. However, there remains a
body that examines wrongfully convicted cases; this body remains not transparent and
independent, which restricts the opportunity of reversing unfair convictions. Therefore, unlike
the United States, the sanctity of Israel's criminal laws remains questionable, as well as cannot be
trusted to provide a remedy to unfairly convicted people.
The recent judicial reforms in Wales and England were created to favor the victims of
crime hence increasing the chances of unfair convictions. In fact, reforms that remain contained
in the white paper remain a threat to most of the suspects (). It is true that the criminal justice
system in England has a conviction rate of approximately 95 percent and does not require more
laws to improve the convictions. Thus, the White Paper remains likely to create rooms for
wrongful convictions since it disregards the fact that not all individuals brought before any court
remain guilty. England indeed has a bad history of the unfair sentence, as can be seen in the
cases of Bridgewater Four, Guildford Four, and Birmingham, among others. Some statistics
provided by many researchers indicated that the Court of Appeal quashed more than eight

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thousand criminal convictions between the years 1989 to 1999. Also, there are more than three
thousand prosperous appeals against criminal convictions, more so at the lower courts.
Canada has a legal system that remains similar to the U.S. It is true that the Canadian
system has much more centralized policing as well as forensic science system as compared to the
United States. The main strength of the Canadian legal system is the availability of bail pending
appeal.
The genuineness of the criminal justice system remains founded on effectiveness and
fairness. The measurement of the efficiency criminal justice system remains its ability to
investigate and detect crime, identify criminals, as well as create suitable punishment for
convicted criminals. The evaluation of the fairness of criminal justice depends on the
thoroughness as well as the effort the system puts in place to address the crime cases. Thus, any
wrongful conviction weakens the fairness and effectiveness of the criminal justice system.
Some legal systems are indeed better in preventing a wrongful conviction. This is
because countries used different procedures for detecting crimes. For instance, in the United
States, the use of moral panic phenomena has contributed to the wrongful conviction of blacks as
thieves and Muslims as a terrorist. Also, countries use different technologies to detect crimes.
Some of these technologies are more efficient in detecting crimes, and others are not efficient in
detecting crimes. For instance, DNA evidence remains efficient than fingerprints and eyewitness
testimony. Whereas eyewitness accounts and fingerprints have inaccuracies as well as inherent
flaws, DNA remains perfect mainly for matching biological samples of the convicted individual.
Because of the accuracy of DNA, most lawyers depend on it mainly to argue their cases in court.

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However, DNA evidence can also be made of susceptible errors that could encourage wrongful
convictions.
According to some research conducted in Canada and the United States, misidentification
remains the leading cause of unfair convictions (Huff & Killias, 2010). Most of the innocent
individuals are being put in jail for a crime they never committed. The criminal justices in
numerous nations, including Israel, depend heavily on an eyewitness account, and this makes it
difficult for the legal system to prevent wrongful conviction in countries that use eyewitness
account.
In conclusion, various factors can lead to wrongful convictions of people, such as
misidentification, improper forensic evidence, as well as a false confection. The ability of the
legal system to prevent wrongful convictions depends on the procedures and methods used to
investigate crimes by law enforcement officers.

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References
Huff, C. R., & Killias, M. (Eds.). (2010). Wrongful conviction: International perspectives on
miscarriages of justice. Temple University Press.
Weir, B. S. (2013). Human Identification: The Use of DNA Markers. Dordrecht: Springer.