The prosecutor's fallacy is a fallacy of statistical reasoning, typically used by the prosecution to argue for the guilt of a defendant during a criminal trial. Although it is named after prosecutors, it is not specific to them, and some variants of the fallacy can be used by defense lawyers arguing for the innocence of their client.
In jurisprudence, prosecutorial misconduct is "an illegal act or failing to act, on the part of a prosecutor, especially an attempt to sway the jury to wrongly convict a defendant or to impose a harsher than appropriate punishment." It is similar to selective prosecution. Prosecutors are bound by a sets of rules which outline fair and dispassionate conduct.
Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact—such as a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly—i.e., without need for any additional evidence or inference.
The presumption of innocence is the legal principle that one is considered innocent unless proven guilty. It was traditionally expressed by the Latin maxim ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat.
Harvey v. Horan, 278 F. 3d 370 is a federal court case dealing with felons' rights of access to DNA testing. The Eastern Virginia District Court originally found that felons were entitled access to DNA testing on potentially exculpatory evidence, but this finding was later overturned by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Nevertheless, the case paved the way for the Innocence Protection Act, which ensures that convicted offenders can try to prove their innocence by requesting DNA testing on evidence in government's possession that was used in their case.
Brady disclosure consists of exculpatory or impeaching information and evidence that is material to the guilt or innocence or to the punishment of a defendant. The term comes from the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland, in which the Supreme Court ruled that suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to a defendant who has requested it violates due process.
Exculpatory evidence is evidence favorable to the defendant in a criminal trial that exonerates or tends to exonerate the defendant of guilt. It is the opposite of inculpatory evidence, which tends to present guilt.
Peter J. Neufeld is an American lawyer, cofounder, with Barry Scheck, of the Innocence Project, and a founding partner in the civil rights law firm Neufeld Scheck & Brustin. Starting from his earliest years as an attorney representing clients at New York's Legal Aid Society, and teaching trial advocacy at Fordham School of Law from 1988–1991, he has focused on civil rights and the intersection of science and criminal justice.
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that established that the prosecution must turn over all evidence that might exonerate the defendant to the defense. The prosecution failed to do so for Brady and he was convicted. Brady challenged his conviction, arguing it had been contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Actual innocence, also known as plain error, is a special standard of review in legal cases to prove that a charged defendant did not commit the crime(s) that he or she is accused of, which is often applied by appellate courts to prevent a miscarriage of justice. What makes the actual innocence standard interesting is that it may be invoked at any time, and not only in criminal proceedings but also in immigration and other civil proceedings.
A motive is the cause that moves people to induce a certain action. In criminal law, motive in itself is not an element of any given crime; however, the legal system typically allows motive to be proven to make plausible the accused's reasons for committing a crime, at least when those motives may be obscure or hard to identify with. However, a motive is not required to reach a verdict. Motives are also used in other aspects of a specific case, for instance, when police are initially investigating.
Shareef Cousin is an African-American man from New Orleans who was wrongfully convicted of the first-degree murder of Michael Gerardi in 1996 and sentenced to death as a juvenile in Louisiana. At age 17, he became the youngest condemned convict to be put on death row in Louisiana, and one of the youngest in the United States.
Meri Jung is a 1985 Indian Hindi movie produced by N N Sippy and directed by Subhash Ghai. The film stars Anil Kapoor, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Nutan, Amrish Puri, Javed Jaffrey, A. K. Hangal, Iftekhar, Kushboo and Parikshat Sahni. The film's music is by Laxmikant Pyarelal. The film was a huge box office success and was critically acclaimed. It was a breakthrough performance for Anil Kapoor and put him into the big league. Kapoor's performance in the film is considered to be one of his best and he received his first Filmfare Award nomination; under the Best Actor Category. The film was also nominated under the Best Film category.
Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976), is a United States Supreme Court case regarding the Due Process rights of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419 (1995), is a United States Supreme Court case that held that a prosecutor has an affirmative duty to disclose evidence favorable to a defendant.
Catherine Flannagan and Margaret Higgins were Irish sisters who were convicted of poisoning and murdering one person in Liverpool, Lancashire, England and suspected of more deaths. The women collected a burial society payout, a type of life insurance, on each death, and it was eventually found that they had been committing murders using arsenic to obtain the insurance money. Though Catherine Flannagan evaded police for a time, both sisters were eventually caught and convicted of one of the murders; they were both hanged on the same day at Kirkdale Prison. Modern investigation of the crime has raised the possibility that Flannagan and Higgins were known or believed by investigators to be only part of a larger conspiracy of murder-for-profit—a network of "black widows"—but no convictions were ever obtained for any of the alleged conspiracy members other than the two sisters.
Harold Greenwood was an English solicitor who was accused and acquitted of murdering his wife by arsenic poisoning. He was tried at Carmarthen Assizes in 1920 and defended by Edward Marshall Hall; his case is a rare example of a legal professional being charged with murder.
Elizabeth Fenning, also known as Eliza Fenning (1792–1815) was a domestic servant whose controversial conviction for attempted murder became a cause célèbre.
Vincent Simmons is a life prisoner at Angola State Prison in Louisiana, where he was sentenced to 100 years in July 1977 after being convicted of the "attempted aggravated rapes" of 14-year-old twin sisters Karen and Sharon Sanders of Marksville. Simmons has maintained his innocence throughout. By 1999 Simmons had filed numerous habeas corpus writs, but had not gained an evidentiary hearing by a Louisiana court. After receiving a copy of his evidence file in 1993, he had found that it contained exculpatory evidence that was not given to his court-appointed attorney by the District Attorney, and that there were inconsistencies in reports and statements of victims and witnesses.
Michael Morton is an American who was wrongfully convicted in 1987 in a Williamson County, Texas court of the 1986 murder of his wife Christine Morton. He spent nearly 25 years in prison before he was exonerated by DNA evidence which supported his claim of innocence and pointed to the crime being committed by another individual. Morton was released from prison on October 4, 2011, and another man, Mark Alan Norwood, was convicted of the murder in 2013. The prosecutor in the case, Ken Anderson, was convicted of contempt of court for withholding evidence after the judge had ordered its release to the defense.
