Imagine being convicted of a crime you didn't commit and spending years behind bars. Since 1989 more than 1,400 Americans who experienced this injustice have been exonerated. Some of the people who have won their freedom include Ronald Cotton, who was falsely convicted of raping a college student; Nicole Harris, who was unjustly imprisoned for the death of her son; and intellectually disabled Earl Washington Jr., who was unfairly sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a young mother. Wrongful convictions shatter lives and harm society by allowing real perpetrators to potentially commit additional crimes. How can such injustices happen? Overturning Wrongful Convictions recounts stories of individuals who served someone else's prison time due to mistaken eyewitness identification, police misconduct, faulty forensic science, poor legal representation, courtroom mistakes, and other factors. You'll learn about the legal processes that can lead to unjust convictions and about the Innocence Project and other organizations dedicated to righting these wrongs. The sciences—including psychology, criminology, police science, and forensic science—work hand in hand with the legal system to prosecute and punish those people whose actions break laws. Those same sciences can also be used to free people who have been wrongfully convicted. As a society, can we learn from past mistakes to avoid more unjust convictions?

Fueled by more than 2,000 exonerations of wrongfully convicted men and women, the "innocence revolution" has shaken the criminal justice system to its core. By gathering the leading research, law, and policy analysis into one volume, The Wrongful Convictions Reader explores the core contributing factors to wrongful convictions: false confessions, witness misidentifications, cognitive bias, junk science, police and prosecutorial misconduct, racial bias, and ineffective assistance of counsel. The second edition provides an expanded treatment of certain critical topics. The reader now includes an entire chapter devoted to race and wrongful convictions and provides expanded treatment of the intersections between gender, sexual orientation, and disability and wrongful conviction. The addition of these topics in expanded form creates new options for instructors to explore timely topics in the field of compelling concern to many contemporary students. As before, the book remains more than a mere 'reader' of literature in the field, but rather a book that can serve as the principal text in doctrinal as well as experiential courses. Each chapter is divided into three sections that include: readings, current law overview--which summarizes the key cases in the area; and legal materials, exercises, and media--which provides relevant experiential activities. Examples from the legal materials, exercises, and media sections includes: Recommended listening and viewing: timed excerpts from podcast episodes, films, and television clips; Oral advocacy exercises: mock bail arguments, parole hearings, testimony before the state legislature, presentations to the state rules committee, appellate oral arguments; Written advocacy exercises: practice motions and comparing state statutes; Issue spotting exercises: transcripts from interrogations and in-court testimony; Review: reflective essays, short answer questions, and true/false questions; Team exercises: plea negotiations; Discussion prompts; and Actual wrongful conviction case documents.

In Examining Wrongful Convictions: Stepping Back, Moving Forward, the premise is that much can be learned by "stepping back" from the focus on the direct causes of wrongful convictions and examining criminal justice systems, and the sociopolitical environments in which they operate. Expert scholars examine the underlying individual, systemic, and social or structural conditions that may help precipitate and sustain wrongful convictions, thereby "moving forward" the related scholarship.

This volume brings together the world-class scholarship of 23 widely acclaimed and influential contributing authors from North America and Europe. The latest research is presented in 18 chapters focusing on the frequency, causes, and consequences of wrongful convictions and other miscarriages of justice and offering recommendations for both legal and public policy reforms that can help reduce the causes of these errors while protecting public safety as well.

This volume addresses issues of law, science, and policy related to wrongful convictions in the American system of justice. Coverage includes the incidence, correlates, causes, and consequences of wrongful convictions, as well as recommended reforms. The materials are organized in the form of a casebook, comprising edited judicial decisions and complementary materials from law, psychology, criminal justice, and related disciplines. "Wrongful convictions are tragedies on multiple levels. By understanding how they occur, however, we can learn how to prevent them -- and better identify those that exist. This text is a valuable resource for anyone interested in advancing justice and safety through our systems of criminal justice."-- Stephen Saloom, Policy Director, Innocence Project "The ice has finally been broken. Acker and Redlich's Wrongful Conviction is the first casebook dedicated solely to the subject of wrongful convictions. It has set a high standard of excellence that will be a tough act to follow. Not only will this well-organized and easy-to-read casebook appeal to law professors who teach seminars in such subjects as wrongful convictions, criminal procedure, and psychology and the law, but it should also appeal to undergraduate professors who teach students interested in careers in law and criminal justice."-- Steven A. Drizin, Clinical Professor of Law and Legal Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern University School of Law "This book sets out an important and accessible track of study. Starting with the question of what is a wrongful conviction, the authors also explain the basic features of the criminal process and evidence law, and introduce contributions from the social sciences to help our understanding of sources of error. That journey will engage all interested in understanding what can cause wrongful convictions and what can improve the quality of criminal justice."-- Brandon L. Garrett, Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law "Acker and Redlich provide a current and comprehensive analysis of the legal procedures and standards that produce and resolve wrongful criminal convictions. Their presentation is part handbook for lawyers, part history lesson for scholars, and part quest for policy reforms. Their coverage is engaging and broad: from false confessions and faulty eyewitness identification, to flawed forensic evidence and, ultimately, compensation for those who are exonerated. I urge all defense attorneys to read and use this book; and I beg all prosecutors to do the same. Professors around the country: assign this book to all of your students!" -- Kimberly J. Cook, Professor of Sociology and Criminology, University of North Carolina Wilmington "Acker and Redlich have succeeded admirably in achieving their goals of selecting watershed and little-known, but important cases that define and illustrate the focal issues in each area of wrongful conviction and in discussing the results of relevant social science research and their policy implications. The notes and questions following each section are excellent. The notes provide supplemental material in a condensed fashion and the questions prompt thoughtful dialogue and encourage further study. ... an outstanding scholarly contribution to the field of wrongful conviction." -- Criminal Law Bulletin "An excellent book ... It should also be on the shelf of every scholar interested in wrongful convictions, as it provides a wealth of important materials." -- Criminal Justice Review

Understanding Wrongful Conviction: How Innocent People Are Convicted of Crimes They Did Not Commit identifies and discusses breakdowns in the criminal justice system that can have profoundly negative effects on individuals operating within or who are subjects of the system. The text also explores what can be done to successfully reduce the incidence of wrongful conviction. The opening chapter defines wrongful conviction, explains the importance of its study, and provides readers with context as to how often it happens within the American criminal justice system. Readers are provided with an overview of the history of wrongful conviction and the innocence movement. They read chapters that describe how errors and misconduct related to eyewitness testimony, forensic science, false confessions, false accusations, police error, prosecutorial error, and defense attorney error can lead to wrongful convictions. The final chapters address the aftereffects of wrongful conviction and what can be done to reduce instances of wrongful conviction. Providing readers with a unique and critical perspective, Understanding Wrongful Conviction is an ideal resource for courses and programs in criminal justice. Robert J. Ramsey, Ph.D. is an associate professor of criminal justice at Indiana University East, where he directed the Criminal Justice Program for 10 years. He holds a B.S. in political science from Miami University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Ramsey has published articles and book chapters on the topic of wrongful conviction in Forensic Science, Crime and Delinquency, Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies, and Criminal Justice, and has spoken at numerous professional conferences about wrongful conviction. His professional research interests include wrongful conviction, community corrections and restorative justice, faith-based correctional interventions, reentry, and Judeo-Christian bases of the law.

Wrongful Convictions: Cases and Materials is the first legal textbook to explore the complex and fascinating legal and scientific issues involved in wrongful convictions and the exoneration of the innocent. This exciting area of the law is developing at a rapid pace as we learn more about the causes of wrongful conviction with each exoneration. The book is designed to teach about procedure related to the cases, as well as give a broad overview of the causes of wrongful convictions including false eyewitness testimony, false confessions, ineffective assistance of counsel, police and prosecutorial misconduct, and false forensic evidence. In this third edition, there have been significant updates to the cases and statutes from the previous edition, including expanded notes at the end of the chapters, as well as additional chapters on infant deaths, sex crimes against children, and arson.