Unit 6 Assignment
Unit 6 Assignment
Christian Detmer
Kaplan University
CM107
Professor Bone
November 21, 2014
Dear Ned W. Mangum, I am writing to you today to talk about a hot button issue right now, and that issue is wrongful conviction. It has been 25 years since the first DNA test exonerated a convict, and back in 2009 there had been 286 people freed by DNA testing. There are a few reasons that I am writing to you about this, for starters I would like to inform you of the many reasons that wrongful convictions occur. There are people out there that are taking steps to either free the wrongfully convicted or are making sure that wrongful convictions don’t happen in the first place, I would like to inform you of things you can do to prevent wrongful convictions. Also, most of the people that are exonerated are not compensated for their years of incarceration, and this is unacceptable. There are several reasons that wrongful convictions happen, and essentially what it boils down to is errors of either the criminal justice professional, or the eyewitness testimony. In many of the cases of wrongful conviction there were a lot of the same errors that led to the conviction of innocent people. Errors in eyewitness identification; in some cases the eyewitness was pressured into identifying someone, even if they were not sure. Antiquated forensic testing; in many cases outdated equipment and methods had been use during forensic tests, which lead to inaccurate results. Testimony by questionable informants; during the trials there were witness testimonies that were questionable, because their stories were not straight, or the witness themselves had a background that would make their story questionable. These are just a few of many reasons why innocent people were incarcerated. Since you are a District Attorney, there are certain things that you can do to prevent wrongful convictions from happening. Earlier I talked about antiquated forensic testing leading to inaccurate
Christian Detmer
Kaplan University
CM107
Professor Bone
November 21, 2014
Dear Ned W. Mangum, I am writing to you today to talk about a hot button issue right now, and that issue is wrongful conviction. It has been 25 years since the first DNA test exonerated a convict, and back in 2009 there had been 286 people freed by DNA testing. There are a few reasons that I am writing to you about this, for starters I would like to inform you of the many reasons that wrongful convictions occur. There are people out there that are taking steps to either free the wrongfully convicted or are making sure that wrongful convictions don’t happen in the first place, I would like to inform you of things you can do to prevent wrongful convictions. Also, most of the people that are exonerated are not compensated for their years of incarceration, and this is unacceptable. There are several reasons that wrongful convictions happen, and essentially what it boils down to is errors of either the criminal justice professional, or the eyewitness testimony. In many of the cases of wrongful conviction there were a lot of the same errors that led to the conviction of innocent people. Errors in eyewitness identification; in some cases the eyewitness was pressured into identifying someone, even if they were not sure. Antiquated forensic testing; in many cases outdated equipment and methods had been use during forensic tests, which lead to inaccurate results. Testimony by questionable informants; during the trials there were witness testimonies that were questionable, because their stories were not straight, or the witness themselves had a background that would make their story questionable. These are just a few of many reasons why innocent people were incarcerated. Since you are a District Attorney, there are certain things that you can do to prevent wrongful convictions from happening. Earlier I talked about antiquated forensic testing leading to inaccurate