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The Problem: A Broken System
A Broken System
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If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed…Serious questions are being raised about whether the death penalty is being fairly administered in this country. Perhaps it's time to look at minimum standards for appointed counsel in death cases and adequate compensation for appointed counsel when they are used.
-- Sandra Day O'Connor 7/2/2001, speech to the
Minnesota Women Lawyers group |
The American criminal justice system is broken. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the 1970s, 123 people have been exonerated from death row in 25 states – roughly one for every eight executed. In fact, the most comprehensive study of capital trials ever conducted found that nearly seven of every 10 death sentences handed down by state courts from 1973 to 1995 were overturned due to "serious, reversible error," including egregiously incompetent defense counsel, suppression of exculpatory evidence, false confessions, racial manipulation of the jury, snitch and accomplice testimony, and faulty jury instructions.
From prosecutors to victims' rights groups, from defense lawyers to judges to law enforcement, reasonable people agree that our system of justice must protect the innocent and punish the guilty—not the other way around.
Since 1999, The Justice Project has led several national campaigns and initiatives that have resulted in significant reforms to the death penalty system and the larger criminal justice system as a whole. We have also played a pivotal role in advancing state reforms by identifying potential opportunities in target states and adapting our four core strategies for reform -- legislative advocacy, communications, coalition building, and grassroots mobilization -- to each specific state.
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| Profiles of Injustice |
| Darby Tillis and Perry Cobb |
 It took three trials to convict Cobb and Tillis of murder. The first two ended in hung juries, but the third resulted in convictions and death sentences. The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the case based on error by the trial judge, Thomas J. Maloney, who was later convicted of taking bribes in criminal cases. Despite new accusations that pointed to someone else, the two men were nevertheless tried two more times before being acquitted.
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| Kirk Bloodsworth |
 In June of 1993, Kirk Bloodsworth's case became the first capital conviction in the United States to be overturned as a result of DNA testing. Bloodsworth, of Cambridge, Maryland, served almost ten years in prison, including two on death row, for the rape and murder of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton. After years of fighting for a DNA test, evidence from the crime scene was sent to a lab for testing. Final reports from state and federal labs concluded that Bloodsworth's DNA did not match any of the evidence received for testing. On September 5, 2003, the Maryland State's Attorney announced that a DNA match had been made in the nearly 20-year-old case. Another man has been convicted and sentenced in the murder for which Bloodsworth was wrongfully convicted.
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| Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez |
 After spending more than 10 years on Illinois' death row, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were finally cleared of a crime that another man had confessed to committing a decade earlier. On November 3, 1995, on the basis of DNA evidence, recanted testimony, and lack of any other substantial evidence against him, a circuit judge acquitted Cruz. Hernandez's case was later dismissed on the same grounds. In his ruling, the judge held that the 10-year legal odyssey of both men defied "common sense."
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| Reports and Studies |
Reforming The System - TJP Policy Reviews
The Justice Project issues comprehensive policy reviews on eyewitness identification procedures and electronic recording of custodial interrogations – two areas of enormous import within the field of criminal justice policy and reform. The policy reviews, which detail recommendations for procedural improvements, the latest scientific research, pertinent case studies, costs and benefits, and model state policies, are designed to inform action by policymakers, local law enforcement agencies and others who wish to address the systemic causes of wrongful conviction.
March 15, 2007 Convicting the Innocent: Aberration or Systemic Problem?
In an upcoming article in the Wisconsin Law Review, a University of Missouri law professor argues that wrongful convictions are more prevalent in the American criminal justice system than people believe and identifies systemic failures leading to these miscarriages of justice.
November 3, 2006
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