Law Summative

Good evening everyone to help talk more wrongful convictions in

Canada and the United States.

So were the important aspects of bronco convictions, important aspects

of local connections.

So the legal term of wrongful conviction is miscarriage of

justice. So it occurs when a person is convicted and

punished for a crime that they did not commit false

confession by psychological vulnerable defendants are one of the main

causes of wrongful convictions.

Sometimes exaggerated by coercive.

Police integration.

Integration. Yeah.

A conviction may be classified as wrongful for two reasons.

The first convicted is factually innocent of the charges or

there were procedural errors that violated the convicted person's rights.

Our conviction is usually overturned by DNA testing of wrongful

conviction based on possible factual innocence can sometimes be detected

using post conviction.

DNA testing.

So what are the cause of wrongful convictions?

First, it's perjury, false testimony from witnesses, understand false confession

sometimes for reduced sentences or have been coerced faulty technology,

faulty forensic procedures, unreliable, unreliable sources like science and or

flawed expert testimonies.

There's also lost a guilty plea.

Members of Canadian judiciary have expressed concerns about cases where

defendants have pleaded guilty to serious criminal offenses there.

They did not commit.

This was to avoid the risk of a higher potential

lengthier sentence if convicted after trial.

Yeah. So let's talk about our their biases in into

wrongful convictions.

So we'll be talking first.

So yes, there are, there is confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for interpret favor

and recall information in a way that confirms or support

one prior belief or values.

Confirmation bias call is called a key reason for wrongful

convictions. So we were talking to the guy on there

right over here.

His name is Bruce Lee's car.

So the most likely suspect was less cars.

Uh, he was convicted for his death of his mom.

So the police said the most likely suspect for less

cars, uh was 17 year old Bruce whose hands were

covered in blood when a police officer first arriving scene.

Although Lasker had himself called 911 local cops had long

considered him a troublemaker when he confessed to the crime,

confessed in quotation marks, that seemed to see the point

lister wasn't guilty, But he spent 26 years in prison,

so that's 2.5 decades.

Well, he spent 2026 years in prison before a federal

judge threw out his conviction ruling that he had been

prosecuted with false evidence.

This is an example of confirmation bias, since the cops

that were first on scene would testify that his hand

was covered in blood and that he was a troublemaker

first day, so that would make him guilty with or

without evidence in the cops mind.

So confirmation bias causes people to seek recall and even

interpret data and ways to support their prior beliefs.

So should old cases be reopened and try it again

when there was a question of D.

N. A.

Let's talk about.

But only can A D.

N. A.

B can can be used to convict criminals.

It cannot.

It also has successfully been used to exonerate individuals, some

of whom were wrong, fully wrongly imprisoned for more than

two decades.

The legislation in the criminal code has been expanded both

in the US and Canada and the United States.

They have been expanded and now makes it possible to

be obtained.

DNA orders falling convictions in relation to more offenses.

DNA Exoneration represents only a portion of 15 of all

exoneration in the United States and and also in Canada.

So this person all right, is robert Duvall.

So DNA uh DNA evidence exonerates him of him in

the 1983 rape and killing Robert Dubois 55.

He has spent 2/3 of his life behind bars for

the 1983 rape in killing of a woman in Tampa

florida Reversing the conviction seemed to evaporate in 1990 when

the evidence from his trial was destroyed as part of

a routine procedure.

Yeah. The county's medical examiner office office have preserved a

rape kit sampled in a case that we're not now

that we're not used in Mr Dubose trial.

So, DNA testing of the samples confirmed what Mr Dubois

had long said that he was not responsible for the

rape and murder of the woman.

Barbara Graham's 19 years old.

So, D.

N. A.

Evidence exonerated this guy.

So if this is the case, I'm really thinking that

most old cases should be reopening, Try it again.

So what psychological impact does it have on one's life?

Yeah that are wrongly convicted often suffer post traumatic stress

disorder and psychological problems.

Your reputation is ruined.

Even if you're not even if you haven't um committed

that act or uh felony, your deposition er is ruined

no matter what you've been tried and convicted of murder

and you have not been committed and you feel hopeless

as you're handcuffed and hauled off to prison.

This has very major psychological impact on one's mind and

that they cannot recover from.

So this lady on the right is mary a shepherd.

She was wrongfully convicted of a manslaughter in the death

of her stepdaughter in 1992.

Due to the flawed testimony from Charles smith.

A witness he once distinguished uh not right now.

Witness. Far from Charles smith pd actor, forensic pathologist.

So his testimony convicted this lady but that testimony was

actually flawed.

So the Ontario Court of Appeal on February 29, 2016

quashed Marius shepherds, manslaughter conviction and entered an acquittal in

this place.

She even says I haven't even heard an apology yet.

I'm not so sure if anyone who participated in my

prosecution is really even sorry.

She later fulfilled her dream to becoming a paralegal and

to help more people that were in her shoes.

This is a person that I have minimal psychological impact

on her life because that didn't letters that didn't stop

her from fulfilling her dreams to becoming a lawyer, chile

Iran becomes a lawyer and helps innocence like her.

So compensating their wrongfully convicted.

Okay, there are no legal requirement for compensating wrongfully convicted.

In Canada And in the United States, only 35 states

and the federal government recognizes that there should be some

sort of compensation.

President George W.

Bush endorsed the Congress recommended amount of $50,000 per year

with an up to additional $50,000 per year spent per

year spent on death row.

Okay. Justice for inflation, that would be 63,000.

Give alleges take that in for a second.

Legally. 15 states.

In the United States, an entire Canada have no legal

recourse. A wrongful convicted, wrongful uh convicted felon can do.

So if there is no legal recall that somebody can

take, who are we do, how can we help keep

them responsible for it?

The thing with this is that people um it sets

precedent. So if other cases have been awarded awarded millions

of dollars, um the government officials will also composite the

next victim as well.

But legally there is nothing that we can do.

So there should be some sort of legal recourse.

Someone can do this guy on the right his image.

Wilton Dedge in oh four.

He's from florida florida.

And uh Wilton did was exonerated after having being forced

to spend 22 years in prison for a rape and

burglary that he did not commit mr deeds was entitled

to absolutely nothing from the state to take that.

And he was absolutely entitled nothing from the state because

florida doesn't have a law That need to compensate uh

around two convicted.

So uh he tried to he tried to make a

lawsuit against the state but was later dismissed by a

trial court.

The only alternate to his situation would be to take

it to a private companies engine built from the legislation.

So take it to the like city hall or somewhere

in their legislation body.

So later on um uh the legislation initially refused to

pass the private bill necessary to compensate them.

This sparked an outrage with citizens as well that um

when it was refused both in trial court and in

the legislation.

But later on florida did eventually pass a private bill

for Mr dodge.

In 2108, he passed an universal statute up waiting that

the need for extra extraordinary advocation that needed for Mr

dodge. So this would be some sort of a, I

guess we should put it.

This would be some sort of a compliment or because

there is no legal thing that you can do against

the state, so look pretty outrageous that someone that spent

years and years in jail for something that they did

not commit and for something that the state convicted them

of, they don't have any legal because that they can

take. Okay, so what steps cannot court take to reduce

or eliminate wrongful convictions?

Honestly, I don't think there's any way to eliminate them.

But let's see if we can reduce it.

So what I think is confession should not be automatically

accepted as evidence of guilt.

Eye witness testimony must be treated with caution.

It should not be an immediate a verdict of guilt.

Appeal court should be more active.

If someone is uh, if the verdict is to charge

a person, an appeal courts should be really active.

That would, that would overturn a case.

There's also the defendant's choosing not to testify should be

not held against them because they will be forced recommendation

to help prevent numerous conviction in the future.

These I include recommendation on defense practice, ex cooperative Rory

evidence i with this identification, false confessions, forensic forensic error,

police misconduct, weak prosecution evidence, systemic failure and tunnel vision

athlete. The conclusion all in all a wrongful conviction of

a person questions our legal system and put in jeopardy.

They also uh, put the legal system of our neighbors

to the south in question as well.

I think the confirmation by should be eliminated and each

cases should be treated differently and without president set for

each cases.

Also, old cases with DNA in the questions should be

all reopened and we tried with the new technologies out

there to acquit or to charge the queues.

There should be many, many steps taken with each case

prior to handing out the verdict because a person wrongfully

convicted would face many psychological event that would not cure

in the future.

They can suffer from PTSD their entire life.

Lastly, I think every government or court should be held

responsible legally, Not just from president set.

There should be a law that falsely convicted person can

be protected by rather than just a precedent set.

Thank you so much for listening today and have a

great

Law Summative

Chapters

Audio TranscriptAuto-generated