Showing papers in "Golden Gate University Law Review in 2006"

The Prevalence and Potential Causes of Wrongful Conviction By Fingerprint Evidence

Abstract: This paper discusses a problem that might at first glance appear to be either non-existent or unimportant: wrongful conviction by fingerprinting. Latent print individualization, more commonly known as “fingerprint identification,” has long enjoyed a reputation as one of the most powerful and trustworthy forms of evidence available to the criminal law. For most of the past century, in which latent print evidence was used in criminal justice systems of the United States and the rest of the world, it was widely assumed that wrongful convictions by fingerprint were either impossible or so rare that the problem

Beyond Unreliable: How Snitches Contribute to Wrongful Convictions

Abstract: There is increasing evidence that our criminal system often convicts the innocent. Criminal informants, or "snitches," play a prominent role in this wrongful conviction phenomenon. The criminal system, however, is heavily dependent on snitches, particularly in connection with the investigation and prosecution of drug offenses, and police and prosecutors are often not well-positioned to know when their informants are lying. This Comment, which was prepared in connection with the ACLU of Northern California's conference on wrongful convictions, describes the institutional relationships between snitches, police, and prosecutors that makes snitch falsehoods so pervasive and difficult to discern with the traditional tools of the adversarial process. It offers a litigation suggestion for providing a judicial check on the use of unreliable informant witnesses, namely, a Daubert-style pre-trial reliability hearing. The Appendix provides a sample motion requesting and justifying such a hearing.

Exoneration and Wrongful Condemnations: Expanding the Zone of Perceived Injustice in Death Penalty Cases

Abstract: Dramatic exonerations of death-sentenced and other prisoners have had a significant impact on the public’s view of our criminal justice system. For many citizens, an aura of infallibility has been shattered. This, in turn, has certainly affected their views on capital punishment,1 and helps to account for modestly but consistently declining death penalty support over the last decade or more.2 In particular, the previously wide-