Exoneration

Imagine being served a life sentence for a crime you didn't commit. Recently our class looked into this, as well as the process of releasing wrongly convicted suspects. This process is called exoneration. Through watching TED talks, listening to a story on NPR, and watching other various shows, we were able to get a grasp on not only the science behind exonerations (which mostly dealt with DNA evidence), but were also able to learn about the permanent impacts of being wrongly convicted and the reasoning in cases of rushing to imprison a suspect.

A major focus of this research was learning about the Innocence Project, which describes itself as "a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongly convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice." Featured on the Innocence Project's website is an incredibly extensive list of the victims of inadequate conviction that appealed to have their cases reconsidered. With the help of the Innocence Project, these people were freed through reevaluating DNA evidence taken from the crime scene (no matter how old) and comparing it with the DNA of the supposed perpetrator. This was most helpful in cases of sexual assault, as DNA samples could be extracted from semen left on the body.

Personally, I found studying exoneration to be very interesting. I was initially astonished at the prevalence of subjectivity in our criminal justice system, as I learned that convictions can largely depend on a variety of different variables. These included pressure to make an arrest, authoritative bias, and mistaken eyewitness reports. However, I was reassured by the Innocence Project's ability to disprove wrongful sentencing through DNA testing. I thought it was amazing that simply the acknowledgement or ignorance of a single piece of evidence could alter the course of someone's life so drastically.