“But I Wasn’t There!”

Using the exoneree summaries in the Innocence Project and the documentation in the Innocence Record, we analyze the content of the alibis of those who have been wrongly convicted and exonerated with the use of DNA. Sixty-five percent of the 377 DNA exonerees had an alibi. Fifty-one percent reported that their alibi corroborators were friends and/or family members, while only about 10% presented physical evidence to support their alibi. Those with an alibi were significantly less likely to falsely confess than those without an alibi. Eyewitnesses were significantly more likely to be a contributing cause of conviction for those with an alibi than for those without an alibi, and 27% of the exonerees with an alibi had only eyewitness evidence to implicate them. Those that had an alibi were also more likely to claim that they had an inadequate defense than those that did not have an alibi. We conclude this paper with recommendations for reforms and future research.

Still Standing: Innocence work in England and Wales

This article examines the two categories that have evolved in the literature concerning Innocence Projects; the pedagogical value of innocence work and the problems with associating the term innocence with the English criminal justice process. This research draws upon a study undertaken in 2017 by the Innocence Project London (unpublished) and another in 2020. Both studies sought to understand the extent to which organisations are undertaking innocence work in England and Wales. This research is written from the perspective of the Directors of both the Innocence Project London and Manchester Innocence Project, and as a result, the projects are discussed at length in various sections. An effort has been made however, to discuss other organisations that undertake similar work in various parts of this article.

Language of Criminal Confessions

Confession evidence is powerfully persuasive, and yet many wrongful convictions involving false confessions have surfaced in recent years (Innocence Project, 2021; National Registry of Exonerations, 2021). Although police are trained to corroborate admissions of guilt, research shows that most false confessions contain accurate details and other content cues suggesting credibility as well as extrinsic evidence of guilt. Hence, a method is needed to help distinguish true and false confessions. In this study, we utilized a corpus-based approach to outline the linguistic features of two sets of confessions: those that are presumed true (n = 98) and those that have been proven false (n = 37). After analyzing the two corpora in LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) to identify significant categories, we created a logistic regression model that distinguished the two corpora based on three identified predictors: personal pronouns, impersonal pronouns, and conjunctions. In a first sample comprised of 25 statements per set, the model correctly categorized 37 out of 50 confessions (74%); in a second out-of-model sample, the predictors accurately classified 20 of 24 confessions (83.3%). A high frequency of impersonal pronouns was associated with confessions proven false, while a high frequency of conjunctions and personal pronouns were associated with confessions presumed to be true. Several patterns were observed in the corpora. In the latter set of confessions, for example, “I” was often followed by a lexical verb, a pattern less frequent in false confessions. Although these data are preliminary and not to be used for practical diagnostic purposes, the findings suggest that additional research is warranted.

Autobiographical accounts of students working on the Innocence Project London (IPL): students telling their story about how working on the IPL affected their lives

This reflection on a presentation at the Greenwich Learning and Teaching Conference (SHIFT) 2021 shows how powerful a sense of belonging can be, not only for students, but also for academics. By sharing their autobiographical reflections’ project, the student and staff presenters so powerfully connected with their audience that everyone was struck by the importance of collaborations that give students a voice. The occasion both produced some unanticipated outcomes and enabled everyone to relate personal experience to that of others.’

Considerações sobre as condenações injustas fundamentadas em provas periciais: análise do Innocence Project, do National Registry of Exoneration e mecanismos para redução de erros periciais

Este artigo pretende analisar a relação entre as provas periciais e as condenações injustas. Trata-se de tema ainda pouco explorado no Brasil, mas com amplo debate nos EUA. Por essa razão, utiliza-se como base o modelo estadunidense para responder às seguintes questões: 1) Quais são as principais organizações e bases de dados estadunidenses relacionadas às reversões de condenações injustas? 2) Quais os reflexos da abordagem estadunidense no Reino Unido, no Canadá e no Brasil? 3) Como as provas periciais relacionam-se às condenações injustas? 4) Existem critérios aplicáveis às provas periciais que possam ser implantados no Brasil com vistas a diminuir a chance de erros periciais e interpretações equivocadas por parte dos julgadores? Espera-se apresentar o ponto e o contraponto no uso da prova pericial, abordar o mérito de organizações que buscam reverter condenações injustas e sugerir critérios para aprimorar a forma como os peritos dialogam com os julgadores.

Exonerating the Wrongfully Convicted

Chapter 2 examines the critical role DNA analysis has played in exonerating the wrongfully convicted. Since the first DNA exoneration in 1988 of Gary Dotson, falsely convicted of rape in Illinois, hundreds of people have been exonerated through DNA analysis, including many who were on death row; minority groups have been disproportionately represented (approximately 70%). This chapter examines the various reasons that innocent people have been convicted, including coerced confessions and mistaken eyewitness identifications, and discusses several cases in which DNA evidence led to exoneration. It also discusses the establishment of the innocence movement, from the founding in 1983 of Centurion Ministries, an organization devoted to freeing innocent people from prison; to the formation in 1992 of the Innocence Project, which used DNA to free the innocent; to the global movement of today, in which more than 100 innocence organizations around the world work on reform and litigation.

Rape and Wrongful Conviction

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.

The Significance of Epistemic Innocence

In the concluding chapter, the author revisits the significance of the epistemic innocence framework in the light of the applications of epistemic innocence to distorted memory beliefs, confabulated explanations, elaborated delusional beliefs, motivated delusional beliefs, and optimistically biased beliefs in the preceding chapters. The somewhat counterintuitive conclusion is that some of the beliefs regarded as paradigmatic instances of epistemic irrationality can be attributed significant epistemic benefits, in the sense that they either enhance or restore epistemic functionality. The wider implications of the epistemic innocence project for research in philosophy and psychology are reviewed, and the limitations acknowledged.

The Epistemic Innocence Project

Human agents do not simply survive but navigate their world quite successfully despite being inclined to adopt and hang onto irrational beliefs. In this introductory chapter, the author justifies the new framework of epistemic innocence as an attempt to make sense of the idea that our undesirable and at times cringeworthy irrationality may be instrumental to succeed as imperfect agents. The challenge is to create the conceptual resources for evaluating the epistemic status of beliefs that violate standards of truth, accuracy, and epistemic rationality but play an important role in supporting epistemic functionality. The notions of epistemic irrationality, epistemic functionality, and epistemic innocence are introduced and the methodological assumptions guiding the discussion in the subsequent chapters are explained.