"Than That One Innocent Suffer": Evaluating State Safeguards Against Wrongful Convictions
This article collects and describes the legislative and other binding policy directives in effect in each of the fifty states that function as safeguards in the following areas against the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of innocent persons: (1) eyewitness identification; (2) forensics; (3) interrogation and confessions; (4) informant testimony; and (5) forming an Innocence Commission. It then assesses the individual states’ measures of commitment to Blackstone’s expressed intolerance for allowing the innocent to suffer, evaluating their respective efforts against a checklist of prescribed reforms.
