The role of innocence in the exoneration process Essay

The role of innocence in the exoneration process - Essay Example However, this is not always to be, and there is always the likelihood that an innocent person is convicted2. This paper attempts to explain ways that people wrongly convicted get proof of their innocence. The causes of wrong convictions are wide ranging and comprise all features of the pre-trial and trial stages of the criminal justice process ranging from false allegations, incompetent police investigation, police misconduct, erroneous forensic science and evidence, and poor representation from criminal defense lawyers. Once an alleged victim of an unjust conviction has lost their appeal, there is a slight opportunity that the courts will be in a position to stop the conviction3. In these cases, victims of wrongful convictions are likely to have exhausted the legal aid unit and it will be up to them, their friends, supporters, families, pro-bono lawyers and voluntary groups to uncover the evidence of innocence and present it to the relevant authorities such as the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). 2Investigating a suspected wrongful conviction is a long and challenging process. Cases of high profile injustices like the Cardiff Newsagent Three and Sean Hodgson show that it can take several years of investigation before the evidence that leads to the quashing of the conviction is found4. Many projects that attempt to exonerate innocent people out of prison have come up. One such project is the Innocence Network project founded in 1992 whose principle objective is to get as many innocent people out of prison as possible and turn the experience of these people into a learning experience that could help repair the systematic failings in the criminal justic e system5. The project exonerates people by use of post-conviction DNA where the DNA from the crime scene is tested against the DNA of the accused. Often, people wrongly convicted of serious crimes like homicide or abuse has