I agree, the most disturbing reason for these unjust prosecutions is the misconduct by government officials and bad science. I can understand that our criminal justice system is a human system and is subect to errors but the fraud is unacceptable.

The Duke rape case is but one very high profile example of what can go wrong. I think the suggested reforms by the Innocence Project are very reasonable. It should be very expensive to the government if it wrongly prosecutes someone. The Nifongs of the world need to be prosecuted for failing to perform thier duties; prosecutors have a higer duty to justice than defense lawyers.

Not only is prosecuting the wrong person an injustice to the person doing the time but also an injustice to the victims. Failing to put the wrong person behind bars gives the real criminal a pass. All I know is the criminal justice system needs some serious reform.

5 death row inmates have been cleared by DNA

9 additional prison inmates, who had previously been on death row, but who had been, for various reasons, taken off death row, and were resentenced to prison terms, were cleared by DNA.

Do we know how many prosecutors have been tried and convicted for intentional wrongdoing in a criminal case?

Because innocents are at risk of executions, some wrongly presume that innocents are better protected implementing a life without parole sentence, instead.

What many forget to do is weigh the risk to innocents within a life sentence. When doing that, we find that innocents are more at risk with a life sentence.

First, we all know that living murderers, in prison, after escape or after our failures to incarcerate them, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.

Secondly, no knowledgeable party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law. Therefore, it is logically conclusive, that actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.

Thirdly, 10 recent studies find for death penalty deterrence. Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 10 studies. They don’t. Studies which don’t find for deterrence don’t say no one is deterred, but that they cannot measure those deterred, if they are.

Ask yourself: “What prospect of a negative outcome doesn’t deter some?” There isn’t one, although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one. However, the premier anti death penalty scholar accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. I find the evidence compelling that death is feared more than life – even in prison.

In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to put more innocents at risk.

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Furthermore, possibly we have sentenced 20-25 actually innocent people to death since 1973, or 0.3% of those so sentenced. Those have been released upon post conviction review.

COMPLETE REPORT UPON REQUEST

Trying to get an innocent person convicted of a crime should be punished depending on the sentence sought:
1) Attempts to get someone executed = attempted murder,
2) Attempts to get someone jailed = attempted kidnapping,
3) Attempts to get someone fined = attempted theft.

I think a lot of prosecutorial misconduct would be less attractive if getting caught meant being charged with one or more felony counts.