In the US, the "Innocence Project" is systematically using modern forensic tests such DNA analysis to reinvestigate old convictions. Since 2001, forty-one people have been shown to be wrongly convicted. Some of these were on Death Row.
In Australia, we have our 'infamous' case where Lindy Chamberlain was wrongly convicted of killing her infant daughter, Azaria, while the family was on a camping trip to Uluru in 1980. She always claimed that a dingo had taken the baby, and many years later after she had spent the time in jail, an open finding was given – there is no determination that the dingo did it, or that the parents didn't do it- even now, although the implications are clearer now that it 'probably' was the dingo, and certainly the conviction has been overturned.
As well as the new evidence, DNA analysis that was not available in 1980 showed that a substance found in their car and thought by the prosecutors to be blood was, in fact, not blood. There was certainly some sloppy forensic work back in 1980. Her conviction was overturned in 1988, the same year a film was made about the case (called, in different countries, 'A Cry in the Dark' or 'Evil Angels') starring Meryl Streep as Lindy Chamberlain.
This followed a book written in 1985 by John Bryson and there have been many other media, film and book and documentary versions, including a book by Lindy herself.
Her marriage, her life, her relationship with her children (including a new baby born while she was in jail and immediately taken from her care), all broke down. Although she and her former husband have forged new lives and remained strong Christians, they certainly have been affected and disrupted more than any of us could imagine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azaria_Chamberlain_disappearance
In a more recent well-publicised case, a Texas man has been declared innocent of a rape and robbery, the original conviction of which had put him in prison for 30 years.
Cornelius Dupree Jr was just 20 when he was sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1980. Now 51, he has spent more time wrongly imprisoned than any other DNA exoneree in Texas.
"Our Conviction Integrity Unit thoroughly reinvestigated this case, tested the biological evidence (including DNA analysis); and based on the results, concluded Cornelius Dupree did not commit this crime," Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said.
Mr Dupree has since had his aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon conviction overturned at an exoneration hearing in a Dallas court. Mr Dupree was charged in 1979 with raping and robbing a 26-year-old woman and sentenced in 1980 to 75 years in prison for aggravated robbery. He was never tried on the rape charge.
Mr Dupree and the suspected accomplice Mr Massingill were arrested in December because they looked similar to two suspects being sought in another sexual assault and robbery. The 26-year-old woman picked both men out of a selection of photos. Mr Dupree was convicted and spent the next three decades appealing. The Court of Criminal Appeals turned him down three times.
www.couriermail.com.au/news/world/dna-clears-us-man-after-30-years-in-jail/story-e6freoox-1225981616925
Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson commented that here is a man, now 51, who spent three decades in prison for a crime he did not commit. The reality is that the system broke down.
The story is not uncommon. The public want high conviction rates so this puts pressure on police to get fast quick outcomes.
Of course, this case was first tried more than 30 years ago, so we do not and cannot know how rigorous the prosecutors and defence lawyers were at that time, nor the political situation that 'may' or 'may not' have been 'more or less' punitive than the climate today. We can assume, however, that everyone did their professional best – but that the technology was not available then, as it is now, to verify or deny the 'witness statements'.
Mark Tronson assumes that the fictional Cold Case television programs are based on situational cases (of like); and they show the process of the painstaking effort that goes into tracking down the clues that were long missed by the attending offices of the time; as well as indicating the new techniques that can now be used.
Ours (and the US) heritage of British justice is predicated on the doctrine commonly ascribed to William Blackstone in Commentaries on the Laws of England (1769), who wrote that "the law holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer." Also, in his book on Evidence (1824), another British scholar, Thomas Starkie, insisted "that it is better that ninety-nine ... offenders shall escape than that one innocent man be condemned."
www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-135337535.html
Clearly mistake are made. Whenever humans are involved, mistakes will sometimes be made. However, when such a situation occurs and someone is wrongly convicted the consequences are phenomenal.
Consider the parents, the broken hearts and embarrassment, being unable to look friends of a life time in the eye, and of course, knowing "those whispers". If it is a young person, as in this example above, their next 30 years have been destroyed. No marriage, no children, no grand-children, no career, no place to truly call home.
The pain and loss are more acute if the innocent accused person is married, and/or has children. What more than likely follows is divorce and separation from family members. They are deprived of the joys of human communities: watching the children grow and develop, having an influence in their achievements, joining their sports and cultural experiences. It's all lost and taken from the person under false pretences.
There is of course, always the other side to any human story. The consequences are also phenomenal when a family has been subject to a crime, and the suspected perpetrator has been acquitted, maybe on some technicality or maybe due to lack of evidence, and the family knows that the person 'they believe' has committed the crime is still living in the community, still potentially able to commit more crimes of the same nature. Their families and lives are sometimes equally as curtailed, because of inadvertent or inevitable mistakes.
Imagine knowing, or suspecting, that the person who robbed and bashed your grandfather, or inappropriately interfered with your primary-school-aged daughter, or even stalked your teenager and sent threatening texts was still living in the next street, completely 'exonerated' by the courts because there was not enough evidence to 'prove without reasonable doubt' that he was the perpetrator. Imagine what that would do to the lives of all your family members.
It is also to be noted that forty-one overturned cases in the US, in a population of over 300 million (more than 10 times the population of Australia), where there would be thousands upon thousands of correctly-accused criminals in that same twenty-year time period, is perhaps proof that the system works well most of the time – even if the occasional human mistake is made.
However, this does not detract from the injustices done to those truly innocent. Now we have new technology and better communications and records, can we go back and re-investigate the case adequately?
Thirty years later the jurors are either themselves dead, too old or have long forgotten the case. The judge is more than likely also dead or retired and not partaking of public life any more. The prosecutor whose job it was to get a conviction, who may have played every card in the book to get it, inevitably excuses him/her self that it was up to the jury. The defence lawyer is finished with the case after the conviction.
In a democratic society under the rule of law, there is compensation for those who have be wrongly convicted and incarcerated. The question therefore becomes that of the best justice available. To date, there are special funds available when the courts determine a monetary award. But it does not, and cannot ever, make amends for what was lost or taken away.
Society can put a 'reasonable' price on this compensation, which is only a token for lives ruined, and this is always up for appeal in the courts, where 'costs' could be levied against particular parties if they are proved to have been professionally negligent.
Why should a Christian be concerned about this issue? Through the Bible there is an intense emphasis upon justice being done. From the Law of Moses to the prophets justice is so important. Amos 5 verse 24 – Let justice roll down like the waters and righteousness as an ever flowing stream.
This quest for justice will continue to be at the heart of the Judea-Christian faith. As long as we live in an imperfect world there will be injustices and failures of the legal system that effect people's lives, but this only strengthens the convictions of those who want to see justice prevail in all areas of life and in society. If it were not for this a great deal more injustice would be evident.