King, Perry1

The United States of America was founded on a set of fairly straight forward freedoms
from birth, all citizens enjoy such privileges as freedom of speech, freedom to bare arms, and
freedom of religion and it is and has always been the duty of the government to vigorously
protect those freedoms. However, in the past decades, better technological advances in the area
of DNA testing and extensive research have uncovered a rising threat to one such freedom. The
Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution declares that every citizen shall posses the
right to a fair trial; in other words, they will always be given the chance to have the details
surrounding the crime they are being accused of, presented in front of a judge and/or jury, whose
opinion ultimately decides their fate. Unfortunately, there are a multitude of factors that are
involved in criminal cases that can lead to errors in the information that is presented to a judge or
jury for consideration and it is these errors that most often lead to the wrongful conviction of
someone who is innocent. One of the most prevalent causes of error within a case is eyewitness
misidentification, which results from the inability of witnesses to accurately recall what
happened or who was involved in a crime, which leads to contaminated evidence. Another
common cause of error in criminal cases is forensic testing methods, which are often used in the
absence of any concrete scientific validation or proof of their significance or reliability.8 In order
for each citizen to truly receive a fair trial, there must be a level of accountability in order to
insure there is no instance of misinformation, otherwise a judge or jurys decision of whether to
convict a defendant or not is no longer based in fact. Although it is the responsibility of the
government to work towards eradicating the instance of such errors, it is sometimes the case that
these defective methods of evidence collecting still remain tools that the government use on a
regular basis. The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the instances of error that have
been recorded in a collection of cases that involve a wrongful conviction and ultimately evaluate

King, Perry2
the role that the United States government plays in the occurrence of such errors. In addition, this
research paper hopes to discover any factors that potentially play a significant role in the
occurrence of said government errors in criminal cases.
Literature Review:
The issue of government error in wrongful convictions is popular topic of discussion
among political scientists todaythere have been many articles written to describe the types of
wrongful convictions and their cause for their prevalence over the years. The findings of these
articles give some insight into what this research paper is attempting to uncover. The information
given in these articles will give background of the issue of wrongful convictions in the United
States.
The Death Penalty Information Center did a survey in 2001 that studied 86 cases where
the defendant was found guilty, sentenced to the death penalty and later found innocent due to an
error, governmental or otherwise. The reasons that were given were eyewitness error, snitch
testimony, government misconduct, false confession, unqualified experts, and any other errors
that could have been made. According to this study, most cases had more than one error that was
used in proving a defendants innocence. The most common error among the cases in this study
was an eyewitness error that led to the conviction of the defendant. Another statistically
significant factor in this study was the government misconduct. Seventeen of the eighty-six cases

King, Perry3
were found to have some form of government misconduct.1

Figure 1. From Causes of Wrongful Convictions

King, Perry4
Another source of information on the subject of wrongful convictions is called, The
Problem of Convicting Innocent Persons: How Often Does it Occur and How can it be
Prevented? by Leon Friedman. Friedman says that wrongful convictions happen about 0.5% of
the time in the United States each year. This comes out to about thirty thousand cases a year that
end in a wrongful conviction. Friedman suggests that the rate of wrongful convictions is caused
by the fact that the police investigation tries to move too fast on cases that are the most serious
because they feel tremendous pressure to get the criminal behind bars as soon as possible. This
leads to errors in the investigation process, which sometimes leads to a wrongful conviction.
Another problem is that it is unlikely that the government would spend anymore money on the
criminal justice system just to fix a problem that happens 0.5% of the time, even if that means
thirty thousand people a year are wrongly convicted.2
Another article about the issue of wrongful conviction is called, Race, Wrongful
Conviction and Exoneration, by Earl Smith. This study focuses on cases since 2010. In that
timeframe, there have been two hundred and fifty exonerations for wrongfully convicted people.
Of those two hundred and fifty people, ninety percent of them were men and of that ninety
percent, seventy-five percent were minorities. Smith says that it is possible that as many as six
percent of the population in prison are factually innocent, but there is no way of knowing
because there is no proof that can be used in a court of law. There has, however, been a spike in
exonerations since DNA testing has been available as evidence. In some cases, this allowed the
defendants attorneys to find new evidence that leads to their exoneration after many years.
Smiths argument in this article is that a persons race has a large part to do with their likelihood
of receiving a wrongful conviction.3 While this is a possible explanation, it is likely that there are
other factors that are more influential in wrongful convictions. It is difficult to prove that people

King, Perry5
are convicted simply because they are minorities, but it will be interesting to find what factors
are the most important when looking at wrongful convictions and if race is one of the most
important.3
Along with problems of false eyewitness testimonies and government misconduct,
problems related to tainting of evidence in forensic labs are a significant when discussing
wrongful convictions. In the Law Journal Library, Paul Giannelli talks about the problem that
some cases have with the DNA testing. Giannelli points out that in 2005, twenty-four wrongful
prosecutions were a result of forensic scientists committing perjury.4 According to Giannelli,
forensic errors happen due to sloppy procedures, as well as on purpose to prove a defendant
guilty. Giannelli cites errors in forensic labs that include, Forged fingerprints, faked autopsies,
false laboratory reports and perjured testimony, including falsification of credentials.4 Along
with this, technological advances have helped exonerate people that were wrongfully convicted.
An example of this comes from Brandon Garretts article, Invalid Forensic Science Testimony
and Wrongful Convictions. In this article, Garrett talks about a sexual assault case in 1979 that
found a man guilty on the basis of DNA evidence. By 1989, technology advanced to the point
that the man, named Gary Dotson, was found not guilty and became the first person to be
exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing. Garrett explains that, Her genetic markers could
have overwhelmed, or masked, those from the semen; as Blake put it, no genetic information
was obtained about the semen donor. Thus, based on the testing methods available at the time,
any male could have been the donor.6 Because of instances like these, it is clear that forensic
labs are a significant cause for concern when dealing with wrongful convictions.
One of the most disturbing types of government error in wrongful convictions is
prosecutorial misconduct. This is when the prosecutor is able to prove an innocent person guilty,

King, Perry6
even though they know that the evidence is wrong or they omit key pieces of evidence in order to
win their case. Peter Joy talks about this error in his article, The Relationship Between
Prosecutorial Misconduct And Wrongful Convictions: Shaping Remedies for a Broken System.
The reasons Joy gives for this misconduct is that there is a lack of transparency in the system,
and vague ethics rules to keep them under control.5 These prosecutors value winning the case
more than getting a correct verdict.
Police error is also important when thinking about wrongful convictions. It is one of the
most common government errors. According to Sandra Westervelt in her article, Wrongly
Convicted: Perspectives on Failed Justice, there are usually three circumstances to police error
in wrongful convictions. 1) The case placed significant pressure on authorities to resolve with a
conviction, 2) the accused was a marginalized outsider, or 3) the case rested on suspect or
inherently unreliable evidence.7 These factors almost always lead to a wrongful conviction.
Cases like this are often high profile cases and put a lot of scrutiny on the police department if
they do not arrest someone. There are also low profile cases where police officers simply do not
care what happens, so their police work becomes more unreliable.
Hypothesis:
It is the governments duty to ensure that every person having a case brought against
them has the opportunity to a fair trial and above all else, it is the governments responsibility
make sure that the trial is conducted based on evidence of fact and not opinion. Despite this,
studies continue to show that there is significantly larger number of minority defendants being
convicted of federal crimes and an equally larger number of these defendants being sentenced to
the death penalty compared to their white counterparts. Although it is more likely that such racial
biases in convictions are to happen in southern states, it is still a bias that exists nonetheless. It

King, Perry7
remains unknown whether it is this discrepancy in non-white criminal convictions that has
created the attitude of fear towards African Americans, specifically African American males,
within the US, or if this attitude exists outside of the influences of conviction trends. Regardless,
as a contractual entity, the government exists to serve the people and without the support of the
people it would not existfor this reason, it is not unreasonable to believe that the government
does what it can to manipulate the criminal justice system to serve the interest of the publics
opinion. As extensions of the government, prosecutors, forensic labs, and police officials may
intentionally misrepresent or withhold information in order to increase the chances of the
defendant being convicted. Therefore, regardless of the prevalence of any particular type of error
in the data set of criminal cases, this error could be traced back to an intentional manipulation
made by a governmental institution in order to satisfy the public's expectations and biases
towards race. With this idea in mind, it is reasonable to infer that after analyzing the data, there
will be a significant correlation between error within one or more governmental institutions and
whether the case involved a non-white defendant, with or without a white victim. In addition,
there is expected to be a correlation between the instance of government error and whether the
cases was conducted in a southern state, especially given the racial biases that this region has
generally held throughout history.
Data & Method of Analysis:
The data set in question comes from the research of Isaac Unah and includes a collection
of four hundred and fifty-six cases of defendants that were found to be innocent after being
convicted. The data set covers a sample of cases across all fifty states, including the District of
Columbia and includes a timeframe that is represented by four presidential terms that span from
that of Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush.When looking at the data collected for wrongful

King, Perry8
convictions, it is clear that there are three main categories or types of government error that
occur: Prosecutor errors refers to any misconduct or mistakes made by the State prosecutors and
includes withholding of evidence, perjury, improper influence of witness, improper remarks
during trial or misrepresenting evidence, racial biases in jury selection, and overzealousness.
Police error refers to any misconduct or mistakes made by the arresting police officer or
investigators during the arrest or crime scene investigation and includes withholding of evidence,
misrepresentation of evidence, improper influence over witness, tampering with or fabricating
evidence, perjury, and confessions made as a result of abuse of coercion by the police. Finally,
Lab error refers to any misconduct or mistake made by the forensic team who handles the
evidence in the lab. Although there is not a variable included in the data set that details each type
of lab variable that was witnesses, one can assume they are similar to the errors of the police and
prosecutorsmisrepresentation of evidence and the use of testing methods that have less than
adequate reliability are sure to be types of error that were seen in these recorded cases. In order
to better organize the findings from the conducted regression models, these three types of
governmental error were analyzed separately, each against the other variables that were likely to
reveal a causal relationship. Then, each error variable was analyzed against each other in order to
see if there was any particular correlation between the three types of government error. Among
the independent variables that were considered were several typical factors including race and
gender of both the defendant and victim. There were also variables of things like whether the
case took place in the south, whether there was an eyewitness involved, and whether there were
multiple victims or crimes involved. Because each type of error represented a dichotomous
variable, mostly binary logistic regressions were used to analyze the date set. In order to assess
what type of each category of error was most common, a simple linear regression was run on

King, Perry9
each dependent variable to reveal which type of error occurred the most. The only problem that
was encountered during the analysis of the data set was the inability to compare each separate
type of prosecutor, police, and lab with the various independent variables in order to see whether
any particular factor caused any specific type of error.
Discussion of Results:
Given that this particular method of analysis of data is dissected into three parts-prosecutor error, police error, and lab error--so too will be the following discussion of the
findings of the data after running a multitude of regression models to find possible causal
relationships between various factors the occurrence of error by each of the government entities.
When it comes to the prevalence of error on the part of the acting prosecutor, there were several
unexpected findings as well as several findings that seem to align with what most people would
expect. First and foremost, the data shows that the most common type of prosecutorial error
among all the cases was withholding of evidence. Although such an error can be considered to be
extremely unethical given the responsibility of the law to ensure a fair trial based on facts, a
prosecutors ultimate goal is still to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty
of the crime; therefore it is not surprising to see that a large number of prosecutors are
manipulating and excluding evidence in order to strengthen their cases. The data also suggests
that there is very significant correlation between the occurrence of an error in the forensics lab
and errors with prosecutors. Again, this finding seems to make sense considering that when it
comes to criminal trials, especially murder trials, a prosecutors case is only as strong as the
evidence that is produced by a lab analysisif there is an error made within the lab, there is
going to be an error in the prosecutors case. After looking at the data, it can also be noted that
there is a significant drop in the number of prosecutorial errors that occur during a trial when

King, Perry10
there were multiple victims involved in the crime, yet there was an increase in errors when there
were multiple crimes committed. This suggests that when there are multiple victims involved,
prosecutors are going to conduct a more thorough investigation in order to better their chances of
convicting a criminal that has instigated an abnormal amount of violence. On the other hand, the
decrease in errors that resulted from the occurrence of more than one crime suggests that when
there are multiple crimes committed in a case, it is more likely that prosecutors will focus on the
evidence and investigation against the criminal as a whole, rather than on each individual crime.
More tellingly, there were more prosecutorial errors recorded when the trial was conducted the
year before or during an election year, as well as when the case involved rape or other sexual
misconductthis is consistent with what one might expect, because prosecutors are more
worried about getting re-elected closer to election years and prosecutors are more likely to take
measures to ensure that defendants are successfully convicted in order to demonstrate their
toughness and commitment to stopping crime, regardless of whether the defendant is actually
guilty. It is reasonable to believe that withholding of evidence is a measure that a prosecutor is
willing to take in order to boost their reputation of successful convictions, especially if they think
they wont get caught. Most surprising of all the findings involving prosecutorial error was that
there was a decrease in such error when the case was conducted in a southern state and a
decrease in error when the defendant was a minority. It is hard to make an inference concerning
the decrease caused by the southern state variable, but it is possible that the decrease of errors by
prosecutors when the case involves a non-white defendant can be attributed to the governments
intent on convicting black criminals in order to appease the public. Prosecutors are likely to
perform more extensive investigations and include more potentially incriminating evidence when

King, Perry11
they are attempting to convict a non-white defendant, leading to a decrease in evidence
withholding.
When it comes to the analysis of police errors involved in wrongful convictions, the
findings are fairly similar to the findings of the prosecutorial error analysis. There is a significant
correlation between the number of police errors and the number of victims involved in the case,
as well as the number of actual crimes that the defendant is being accused of. The occurrence of
police errors in a case decreases when there are multiple victims involved in a case, but increase
when the defendant is attributed with more than one crime. Just as with the prosecutorial error
analysis, this suggests that when there are multiple victims involved, police are more likely to
conduct extensive investigations that are likely to uncover more evidence and police are likely to
conduct less extensive investigations with individual crimes when there are multiple crimes to
consider for one case. The data also shows that police error is more likely in a case when the
accused has previously been arrested or when the accused was non-whitethis, alongside the
fact that the most common police error is the misrepresentation of evidence, suggests that police
could hold some level of bias towards non-whites and those that have previously been arrested of
a crime. Misrepresentation of evidence can include a multitude of factors such as false discovery
of a weapon, false identification of the defendant by a so-called reliable witness, and
placement of the defendants vehicle at the crime scene. Given that police are the first to come in
contact with a crime scene, they maintain a certain level of flexibility when it comes to collecting
evidence and witness accounts. Studies have shown that there is a significantly larger number of
non-whites being arrest and whether or not this is a product of public expectation and fear of
African American criminals, it aligns with the growing notion that police officers often engage
in racial profiling. Taking all of this into consideration, it is reasonable to conclude that the

King, Perry12
police may coerce witnesses to give false testimony or misrepresent evidence in various other
ways to strengthen the case against a defendant that is non-white or who has previously been
arrested, all in attempt to convict someone they deem more likely to be guilty. As a result, and as
the data reveals, there is a significant correlation between the increase in police errors and the
increase of lab errorgiven that the quality of a forensic-lab analysis depends on the amount and
quality of evidence collected by the police, a police error involving evidence is likely to lead to a
lab error of the same variety.
This particular data set involving wrongful convictions in criminal cases does not include
an account of the different types of lab error, but an analysis of its impact has been attempted
nonetheless. In the instances of lab error, as expected, there was a strong correlation between the
actual occurrence of a lab error and the occurrence of a police error. The data also shows that
there is an increase of lab errors when the victim is a male. This suggests that lab analyses are
more carefully conducted when the case involves a female victim, which is what one would
expect considering the increased intensity people have when it comes to cases involving violence
towards a female. The data also shows that there was an increase in lab error when there was an
eyewitness account during the case. Because we do not have a record of the types of lab error
that were observed among all these cases, it is hard to make a insightful assumption as to what
type of error most commonly resulted from the involvement of a witness account. However, it
could be inferred that if there was a reliable witness account involved in a case, and error in
the forensic analysis could have occurred in the instances that analysts sought to confirm the
facts of the witness testimonial in an attempt to avoid controversial findings.
Independent
Variable

Prosecuto
r Error
Beta

Police
Error
Significanc

Beta

Lab
Error
Significanc

Beta

Significanc

King, Perry13

Victims Race
Defendants
Race
Minority Def.,
White Victim
Multiple Victims
Number of
Crimes
Victims Gender
Eyewitness
Present
Election Year
Prox.
South/ NonSouth
Sex Crime
Prior Arrest
Murder Case

-.746
.149

e
.337
.795

1.471
-.325

e
.105
.039

1.508
-1.768

e
.126
.011

-.08

.824

-.723

.083

-.829

.051

-1.018
.331

.007
.082

.922
-.218

.015
.003

.779
.032

.186
.767

-.320
-.063

.043
.866

.163
-.248

.619
.499

1.558
.890

.017
.048

.612

.048

-.014

.961

.384

.290

-.753

.017

.361

.197

-.175

.633

1.290
.127
-.452

.039
.719
.590

-1.067
.557
-1.778

.342
.049
.111

-17.446
-.007
-16.064

.996
.988
.996

Conclusion:
There a multitude of factors during any given case that can have an impact on the final
outcome, but it is the responsibility of the government to monitor and conduct trials within the
legal parameters of what is considered fair and just. Unfortunately, as the data analysis has
shown, it is often the government that causes error within a case that ultimately leads to a
wrongful conviction. Lab error, police error and prosecutorial error all fall within the real of
government misconduct and can result in the conviction of an innocent person. As expected, the
data suggest that the race of the defendant plays a significant role in the occurrence of
government error, but surprisingly this bias is contained within the police force and not the
prosecutors and labs. Expectations were also confirmed with the findings that errors were more
prevalent in instances involving repeat offenders, crimes involving sexual misconduct, or during
an election year because an increase in error represents an attempt by the government to ensure
these cases end in highly desired conviction. Most surprising of all the findings was that the

King, Perry14
southern states had less errors leading to wrongful convictions. Because most people associate
the south with racism, one would expect more government misconduct as an attempt to increase
the number of non-whites being put behind bars. Maybe this stereotype of the South is no longer
relevant, or maybe prosecutors and police are so intent on convicting non-whites that they would
rather forgo misconduct in the chance that it would be caught and result in an overturning of the
conviction and instead, conduct more rigorous investigations in order to better uncover evidence
to convict these defendants. Overall, it is safe to say that race is indeed still a significant factor in
the occurrence of government error, especially in the realm of the police. It would be time well
spent for researches to conduct further research of the extent to which race plays a role and what
specific types of error are most caused by race.
WorksCited

1.CausesofWrongfulConvictions|DeathPenaltyInformationCenter.N.p.,n.d.Web.16Apr.2014.

2.TheProblemofConvictingInnocentPersons:HowOftenDoesItOccurandHow...:EBSCOhost.N.p.,n.d.Web.16
Apr.2014.

3.Smith,Earl.Hattery,Angela.Race,WrongfulConviction&Exoneration.Web.17Apr.2014.

4.Giannelli,PaulC.WrongfulConvictionsandForensicScience:TheNeedtoRegulateCrimeLabs.HeinOnline.org.
Web.17Apr.2014.

5.Joy,PeterA.TheRelationshipBetweenProsecutorialMisconductAndWrongfulConvictions:ShapingRemediesfora
BrokenSystem.HeinOnline.org.Web.19Apr.2014.

King, Perry15
6.Garrett,BrandonL.Neufeld,PeterJ.InvalidForensicScienceTestimonyandWrongfulConvictions.Bepress.com.
Web.20Apr.2014.

7.Westervelt,SaundraDavis,andJohnA.Humphrey.WronglyConvicted:PerspectivesonFailedJustice.Rutgers
UniversityPress,2001.Print.

8."CausesofWrongfulConvictions."CausesofWrongfulConvictions.UniversityofMichiganLawSchool,n.d.Web.18
Apr.2014.<http://www.law.umich.edu/clinical/innocenceclinic/Pages/wrongfulconvictions.aspx>.