Rape and Wrongful Conviction

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-56
Author(s):  
Matthew Barry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
National Registry ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Acquaintance Rape ◽  
Moral Outrage ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Victim Status ◽  
Investigation Methods ◽  
Innocence Project

This chapter focuses on the concentration of rape cases among confirmed wrongful convictions. How stranger rape differs from date and acquaintance rape with regard to the risk of wrongful conviction is presented. Innocence Project and National Registry of Exonerations data are examined as well as case illustrations. The chapter examines the pressures on law enforcement authorities and the role of primary evidence, secondary evidence, black box investigation methods, the continuum of intentionality, and victim status in stranger rape. In addition, a stranger rape thesis is presented to distinguish the unique challenges faced in the investigation of “stranger rape. The moral outrage associated with stranger rape produces a great demand on police for arrests and convictions yet reliable identification of the perpetrator is compromised in stranger rape.

Wrongful Conviction in Sexual Assault

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Barry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Sexual Offending ◽  
National Registry ◽  
Acquaintance Rape ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Dna Evidence ◽  
Sexual Offenses ◽  
Investigation Methods

Wrongful Conviction in Sexual Assault: Stranger Rape, Acquaintance Rape, and Intra-Familial Child Sexual Assaults examines the phenomenon of innocent defendants who are convicted of rape and related sexual offenses. It presents findings that indicate sexual offenses are highly overrepresented among confirmed wrongful convictions. Drawing from Innocence Project and National Registry of Exoneration data and supplemented by social science and historical sources, the investigation explores various processes that led to wrongful conviction, distinguishing the differential risk of wrongful conviction among stranger rape, acquaintance rape, and intra-familial child sexual assault. The book includes reference to established research on false confessions, eyewitness misidentification, erroneous expert and informant testimony, DNA evidence, racial bias, and “manufactured” evidence. The work also introduces new terms and concepts (such as “black box” investigation methods, the stranger rape thesis, the moral outrage–moral correction process, “spontaneous misidentification,” victim status paths, the differential investigation challenge related to capable vs. incapacitated rape victims, and the role of serial sexual offending in wrongful conviction) to clarify and illustrate unique aspects of wrongful conviction in sexual assault.

Prospective and Future Directions

2020 ◽  
pp. 143-148
Author(s):  
Matthew Barry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Moral Outrage ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Victim Status ◽  
Variable Distribution ◽  
Prospective Research ◽  
The Continuum

This chapter summarizes the findings from the various chapters and examines recommendations from other authors to outline directions for reform and further research. The value of various terms and concepts—variable distribution of wrongful conviction risk, “black box” investigation, the “continuum of intentionality,” victim status paths, moral outrage, and moral correction—in preventing and correcting wrongful conviction and for prospective research is presented. Obstacles faced in preventing and reducing wrongful conviction are also discussed. The chapter focuses on identifying common concerns and obstacles to reform that have been identified in the literature. It considers how the investigation of wrongful conviction in sexual assault, presented in this volume, contributes to the literature on reducing and preventing the conviction of innocents.

scholarly journals Edwin Borchard’s Innocence Project

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-146
Author(s):  
Marvin Zalman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Progressive Movement ◽  
Main Work ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Innocence Project ◽  
Compensation Law

The article recognizes the life and work of Edwin Montefiore Borchard, the founder of US innocence scholarship, as fitting for the Wrongful Conviction Law Review’s inaugural issue. The sources of his scholarship are located in his life and times in the early twentieth century US Progressive movement. The links between Borchard's other legal scholarship and his wrongful conviction writings are explained. Borchard's writings and advocacy leading to his main work, Convicting the Innocent, and passage of the federal exoneree compensation law are described. The article concludes that Borchard's lasting legacy is to refute innocence denial, a deeply help belief that wrongful convictions never occur or are vanishingly rare. 

scholarly journals Thirty Years of Innocence

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Norris ◽  
James Acker ◽  
Catherine Bonventre ◽  
Allison Redlich
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
National Registry ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
State Death ◽  
The Many ◽  
The U.S

Systematic reporting of data about wrongful conviction cases in the United States typically begins with 1989, the year of the country’s first post-conviction, DNA-based exonerations. Year-end 2018 thus concludes a full thirty years of information and marks a propitious time to take stock. In this article, we provide an overview of known exonerations, innocence advocacy, and wrongful conviction-related policy reforms in the U.S. during these three decades. First, we provide a brief history of wrongful convictions in the U.S. before turning to the modern era of innocence. We describe the key sources of data pertaining to wrongful convictions and exonerations. Then, using case data from the National Registry of Exonerations, we offer a detailed analysis of national and state-by-state trends in exonerations, including annual totals, DNA- and non-DNA-exonerations, and capital case exonerations. Our examination includes factors corresponding to sources of error, state death-penalty status, and regional differences. We then discuss innocence advocacy organizations, with a particular focus on Centurion Ministries and members of the Innocence Network. This is followed by an examination of state-by-state trends in innocence-related policy reforms on key issues as identified by the Innocence Project. The final section of the article discusses the many important matters we do not yet know about wrongful convictions and poses thoughts, questions, and ideas for continued scholarship focusing on miscarriages of justice. The Appendix provides state-by-state summaries of select information relating to wrongful convictions and innocence reforms.

Wrongful Conviction in Sexual Assault: Stranger Rape, Acquaintance Rape, and Intra-Familial Child Sexual Assaults

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 708-712
Author(s):  
Marina Sorochinski
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Acquaintance Rape ◽  
Sexual Assaults ◽  
Unique Combination ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Sexual Crimes ◽  
Sexual Crime ◽  
Crime Investigation

This article reviews the recently published book by M. B. Johnson— Wrongful conviction in sexual assault: Stranger rape, acquaintance rape, and intra-familial child sexual assaults. The focus of the book is on the unique combination of factors specifically within sexual crime investigation and legislation that lead to the overrepresentation of this type of crimes within wrongful convictions. The book presents a detailed analysis of social context, and historical backdrop specific to wrongful convictions in sexual crimes. It is a highly informative and well-written book.

Introduction and Overview

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Matthew Barry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Acquaintance Rape ◽  
Sexual Assaults ◽  
Wrongful Conviction ◽  
Public Health Perspective ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Child Sexual Assault ◽  
Criminal Offenses

The Introduction and Overview provides an overview of the chapters and the approach in examining wrongful conviction in sexual assault. It identifies both rape and wrongful conviction as damaging and traumatic outcomes. Drawing from a public health perspective, it presents a link between rape and wrongful conviction illustrated by disaggregating wrongful conviction in stranger rape, from acquaintance rape, and intrafamilial child sexual assault, thus highlighting the concentration of wrongful convictions among stranger rapes. The Introduction and Overview also discusses the frequency of wrongful conviction and points out the significance of classifying sexual assaults together rather than relying on the prosecution approach of classifying criminal offenses by the highest charge, which obscures the relation of sexual assault to wrongful conviction.

Unresolved Questions of German Medicine and Medical History in the Past and Present

1992 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Kater
Keyword(s):  
Significant Influence ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Second Empire ◽  
Sociology Of Medicine ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Victim Status ◽  
The Third Reich

While in recent years a great deal has been written to clarify Germany's medical past, the picture is not yet complete in several important respects. In the realm of the sociology of medicine, for example, we still do not know enough about physicianpatient relationships from, say, the founding of the Second Empire to the present. On the assumption, based on the meager evidence available, that this relationship had an authoritarian structure from the physician on downward, did it have anything to do with the shape of German medicine in the Weimar Republic and, later, the Third Reich? Another relative unknown is the role of Jews in the development of medicine as a profession in Germany. Surely volumes could be written on the significant influence Jews have exerted on medicine in its post-Wilhelmian stages, as well as the irreversible victim status Jewish doctors were forced to assume after Hitler's ascension to power

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document