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Study: Juries often get it wrong
Posted: June 20, 2007 3:24 pm
A new Northwestern University study shows that juries in criminal cases are reaching incorrect verdicts. The study, which looked at 271 cases in four areas of Illinois, found that as many as one in eight juries is making the wrong decision – by convicting an innocent person or acquitting a guilty one.
In each case, while the jury deliberated, the judge filled out a questionnaire detailing what his or her verdict would have been had it been a bench trial. The verdicts only matched in 77 percent of cases. The study assumed that judges are at least as likely as a jury to make a correct verdict, leading to the conclusion that juries are only correct 87 percent of the time or less.
The study was conducted by Bruce Spencer, a Northwestern statistics professor, and will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. Spencer said in a statement that it would take a much larger study to truly predict the accuracy of jury verdicts nationwide in all cases.
Read the full report here.
Tags: Illinois
Chicago Tribune: Unscientific report on eyewitness reforms in Illinois was so flawed it is unreliable
Posted: July 30, 2007 1:13 pm
Social scientists were surprised last year when a non-scientific report from several Illinois police departments challenged the effectiveness of major eyewitness identification reforms taking root nationwide. The Illinois report was used to defeat reform legislation in several states – but a new analysis by some of the nation’s leading social scientists says the Illinois report’s methodology was so flawed that it is unreliable. The Chicago Tribune reports today that a new peer-reviewed psychology article “panned” the Illinois report and called for more research in this field to produce data that is scientifically valid and reliable.
While the debate raged on, a panel of social scientists and experts, including Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University, who had no previous stake in the issue, started a peer review of the study. They analyzed the Illinois pilot program's report, as well as critiques and support of the report, before writing the review, which is being published in the APA's Law and Human Behavior journal.Read more about eyewitness identification reforms in our Fix the System section.
If the Illinois pilot program had been designed correctly, it would have compared "sequential" lineups, in which a witness is shown a person or photo one at a time, to "simultaneous" lineups, in which potential suspects are shown in a group, but it would have used an administrator who doesn't know who the suspect is in both. That method is called the "double-blind" method.
Comparing group and individual lineups, while at the same time using some administrators who knew suspects and some who didn't, was like comparing "apples to dolphins," said James Doyle, director of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice's Center for Modern Forensic Practice, which coordinated the panel review.
"Just putting the two of them together doesn't make it a scientific review," Doyle said. "You've changed two variables at once. You can't do that."
Read the full article here. (Chicago Tribune, 07/30/07)
Get involved: Watch a video of exoneree Marvin Anderson describing the questionable lineup procedure in his case, and send us your own video clip explaining why eyewitness identification reform matters to you.
Tags: Illinois, Eyewitness Identification, Eyewitness Misidentification
NY Times calls for recording of interrogations
Posted: January 14, 2008 11:12 am
“What did Martin Tankleff look and sound like when he confessed in 1988 to bludgeoning and slashing his parents to death?” the New York Times asks in a Saturday editorial. “We’ll never know. There is no video or audio recording, just an incomplete narrative, handwritten by detectives, which Mr. Tankleff signed, quickly repudiated, and spent nearly two decades trying to undo.”
DNA exonerations have proven that false confessions happen. In more than 25% of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing, a defendant confessed to a crime they didn’t commit. And electronic recording of interrogations prevents false confessions. Recording also aids prosecutors and law enforcement investigations – preserving a true account of an interrogation, allowing officers to focus on questions and not note-taking, and providing a training tool for future interrogations.
Illinois, Alaska and Minnesota – along with more than 500 local jurisdictions – record interrogations in some or most investigations. A bill stalled in the New York legislature last year, and the Times calls for passage of recording legislation this year.
The Tankleff case and the recent high-profile exoneration of Jeffrey Deskovic, who spent 16 years in prison for a rape and murder he confessed to but did not commit, both argue strongly for fixing this glaring flaw in New York’s justice system.Download the Innocence Project’s 2007 report on critical reforms to the New York criminal justice system.
Read the full editorial here. (New York Times, 01/13/08)
Read more about Marty Tankleff’s case.
Read more about Jeffrey Deskovic’s case.
Does your state have a law requiring recording of interrogations? Find out in our interactive map.
Tags: Alaska, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Jeff Deskovic, False Confessions, Marty Tankleff
For some exonerees, the "sentence goes on"
Posted: April 28, 2008 1:11 pm
An article on the front page of today’s Washington Post explores the struggles endured by people cleared of convictions and released from prison but not officially exonerated for years, if ever. At least a dozen people in Illinois have been exonerated by evidence proving their innocence but have not received an official pardon from the governor’s office. Illinois is one of 23 states with a compensation statute, but a pardon is required before compensation can be paid. One woman – Tabitha Pollock – served six years in prison before her conviction was overturned. She applied for a pardon in 2002 and hasn’t heard anything.
When the authorities do not certify innocence, "in effect, the sentence just goes on," said Stephen Saloom, policy director of the Innocence Project. Noting that legislators are recognizing "the lingering problems" of the exonerated after their release.
"A recent trend is not only to compensate at a monetary value per year incarcerated, but also to provide immediate services upon release," said Saloom, who said the project's clients spent an average of 11 years in prison. Advocates say the exonerated need help making the transition back into society, especially finding a job.What’s your state’s stance on exoneree compensation? View our interactive map here.
It's not enough to let the person out of prison," Saloom said.
Read the full article here. (Washington Post, 04/28/2008)
Tags: Illinois, Marcus Lyons, Exoneree Compensation
Illinois exonerated waiting for pardons
Posted: June 23, 2008 3:10 pm
DNA exoneree Marlon Pendleton of Chicago is among 1,600 people waiting for a decision from Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on his application for a pardon. Pendleton, who served 10 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit, is seeking to clear his name and collect about $140,000 under the state’s exoneree compensation law.
"They say once you pay your debt to society, it's over," said Pendleton, his voice bristling with anger. "But I didn't even owe a debt to society, and I paid it, and it's not over."A former federal pardon official said the pardon backlog in Illinois may be the nation’s largest, and a federal district judge ruled recently that Blagojevich must decide on pardon applications “within a reasonable period of time."
Read the full story here. (Chicago Tribune, 06/23/08)
Tags: Illinois, Marlon Pendleton, Exoneree Compensation
Twelve Years on Death Row
Posted: November 3, 2008 4:00 pm
Today marks the 13th anniversary of Rolando Cruz's exoneration in Illinois. In 1985, he another man, Alejandro Hernandez, were wrongfully convicted of the brutal rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl. The men spent 12 years on death row before DNA testing proved their innocence and led to their release. On February 23, 1983, Jeanine Nicarico disappeared from her Chicago home. The police discovered her body several days after she had gone missing. After months of investigation, Alejandro Hernandez became a suspect, and he directed police to Rolando Cruz in exchange for a reward. The two men incriminated each other in exchange for cash rewards.
Since the police had no physical evidence linking the men to the crime, the case against them was based on the men's alleged statements. Witnesses testified that Cruz and Hernandez seemed to have intimate knowledge of the crime. The most incriminating evidence came from the sheriff's detectives who testified that Cruz had confessed to having "visions" of the murder that closely resembled the details of the crime. Despite no record confirming these visions, it was used as evidence and a jury convicted them.
Cruz’s conviction was overturned on appeal, but he was retried and convicted again. Then, with the help of professors and students at Northwestern University, Cruz was finally able to overturn his conviction and secure DNA testing on sperm cells found near the crime scene. The results proved the men could not have committed the crime, but prosecutors retried Cruz again. On November 3, 1995, Cruz was finally acquitted after his the third trial. Charges against Hernandez were dropped a month later.
If DNA evidence from the crime scene had not been preserved in this case, Cruz and Hernandez may have been executed for a crime neither of them committed.
What’s the evidence preservation law in your state?
Other exoneration anniversaries this week:
David A. Gray, IL, (Served 20 years, Exonerated 1999)
Bruce Dallas Goodman, UT, (Served 19 years, Exonerated 11/3/2004)
Walter Smith, OH, (Served 10 years, Exonerated 11/8/1996)
Bernard Webster, MD, (Served 20 years, Exonerated 2002)
Tags: Illinois, Rolando Cruz
Illinois Governor Pardons Four Exonerees
Posted: November 4, 2008 12:00 pm
When Jerry Miller goes to vote in Chicago on Tuesday – the first time in his life he will be able to vote, having been exonerated just last year – he will do so as a fully cleared man.
Miller, who served nearly 25 years in prison before DNA proved his innocence, is one of four exonerees recently pardoned by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The pardons allow their criminal records to be expunged and pave the way for compensation.
Among those pardoned based on innocence were Marlon Pendleton and Jerry Miller, who were falsely convicted of sexual assault charges before DNA evidence exonerated them. Also pardoned was Luis Ortiz, convicted of a torture-murder in 1997 and exonerated in 2002, and Robert Wilson, pardoned after nearly a decade in prison for an attempted murder after he was falsely identified.
Read the full Chicago Tribune article here. (10/31/08)
Blagojevich had been heavily criticized by local press for delaying the pardon process. Pendelton was exonerated on Dec. 8, 2006 and immediately applied for a pardon, but faced a backlog of 16,000 other pardon applicants.
Since Pendelton’s original request, Illinois lawmakers passed legislation that allows exonerated individuals to seek certificates of innocence and immediate compensation as soon as courts find them innocent. The law had been vetoed by Blagojevich last September, but was overridden by the Illinois House and Senate to become state law.
What’s the compensation law in your state?
Tags: Illinois, Jerry Miller, Marlon Pendleton, Exoneree Compensation
A Mohammad Ali Fight and a Wrongful Conviction
Posted: November 20, 2008 3:40 pm
Students and attorneys at the Medill Innocence Project and the Center on Wrongful Convictions, both affiliated with Northwestern University, have uncovered evidence that could uncover a 1981 wrongful murder conviction.
Anthony McKinney was convicted of shooting a security guard on Sept. 15, 1978, the night Mohammad Ali defeated Leon Spinks for the heavyweight championship. McKinney was 18 at the time, and says he signed a false confession after police beat him with pipes.
Two witnesses, ages 15 and 18, allegedly told police they had seen McKinney kill the victim, shortly after the 10th round of the Ali fight. But the victim was dead, and the police had been called, before the fight reached the 9th round. Both witnesses have also said that police coerced them to testify against McKinney. Attorneys at McKinney’s trial knew about evidence pointing to other perpetrators, but the jury never heard it.
The journalism students were working on McKinney's case under the direction of David Protess, director of the Medill School of Journalism Innocence Project.
"Anthony's plight is about the most tragic I've ever seen," Protess said. "He not only has been locked up for almost two-thirds of his life for a crime he did not commit, but the actual perpetrators were known right from the start."Read more about the case at the Medill Innocence Project website.
Read the full story here. (Chicago Sun-Times, 11/20/08)
Tags: Illinois, False Confessions, False Confessions