Innocence Protection Act

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In United States federal criminal law, the Innocence Protection Act is the first federal death penalty reform to be enacted. The Act seeks to ensure the fair administration of the death penalty and minimize the risk of executing innocent people. [1] The Innocence Protection Act of 2001, introduced in the Senate as S. 486 and the House of Representatives as H.R. 912, was included as Title IV of the omnibus Justice for All Act of 2004 (H.R. 5107), signed into law on October 30, 2004 by President George W. Bush as public law no. 108-405.

Contents

The Justice For All Act is the product of a bi-partisan, bicameral compromise led by then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Ranking Member Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), then-House Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA). It passed the House by an overwhelming vote of 393 to 14 on October 6, 2004 and the Senate by voice vote three days later. [2]

The text of the Act amended the United States Code to include procedures for post-conviction DNA testing in federal court. Through the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, the act established a federal grant program to provide money to states to defray the costs of post-conviction DNA testing. The program is named for the first man to be exonerated by use of post-conviction DNA testing. The act additionally contains provisions for increasing the quality of representation for indigent defendants in state capital cases, and for compensating victims of wrongful conviction.

Death penalty

The Innocence Protection Act is the first federal death penalty reform to be enacted. The United States Supreme Court in 1972 suspended use of existing death penalty statutes because of inconsistencies in how they were applied. It ordered the states to pass new legislation to address its concern, and affirmed a case in 1976 under new law, essentially allowing states to again sentence convicted persons to death under their laws. But by 2002, more than 100 people have been released from death rows across the United States after it was found that they were wrongfully convicted because of procedural errors or newly discovered evidence of their innocence. [3]

The Innocence Protection Act is a first attempt in federal legislation to ensure that innocent people are not put to death. Thirty-six states and the federal government have enacted legislation that permits the courts to impose death as a criminal sentence. [4] Of those thirty-six states, Texas executed the most inmates during 2009 with 24 executions. [4] The total number of executions in the United States in 2009 was 52. [4] In 2009, the total number of inmates serving a death sentence in the United States was 3,173. Many executions are delayed as inmates seek appeals to overturn sentences or convictions. [4]

Post-conviction DNA testing

Advances in science and in particular, DNA testing, have yielded more accurate forensic evidence. In some cases, post-conviction testing has helped innocent people establish that they were wrongfully convicted and to gain exonerations. In the process, comparisons to state and federal databases have sometimes led to identification of the perpetrators of such crimes. [5] DNA testing is a predominant forensic technique which makes it possible to obtain conclusive results in cases in which previous testing, such as analysis of hair or fingerprints, had been inconclusive or flawed. [5] Post-conviction testing has been requested not only in cases in which DNA testing was never done (because it did not exist as a practice before the late 1980s), and also in cases in which the more refined technology of the early 21st century may result in indisputable evidence. [5]

The Innocence Protection Act allows convicted individuals access to DNA testing if they meet certain conditions, such as the possibility that testing could produce new material evidence that would raise a reasonable probability that the individual did not commit the offense. [6] Among other restrictions, it limits new testing to evidence that was not previously tested and generally requires it to be done within 36 months of conviction. [6] All fifty U.S. states have passed statutes related to access to post-conviction DNA testing. It may be harder for inmates to access such testing in some states than others. [7]

Related Research Articles

Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. The group cites various studies estimating that in the United States between 2.3% and 10% of all prisoners are innocent. The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld who gained national attention in the mid-1990s as part of the "Dream Team" of lawyers who formed part of the defense in the O. J. Simpson murder case.

<i>Harvey v. Horan</i>

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.

A miscarriage of justice occurs when a grossly unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.

Darryl Hunt was an African-American man from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who, in 1984, was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and the murder of Deborah Sykes, a young white newspaper copy editor. After being convicted in that case, Hunt was tried in 1987 for the 1983 murder of Arthur Wilson, a 57-year-old black man of Winston-Salem. Both convictions were overturned on appeal in 1989. Hunt was tried again in the Wilson case in 1990; he was acquitted by an all-white jury. He was tried again on the Sykes charges in 1991; he was convicted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Neufeld</span> American attorney

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 to 1991, he has focused on civil rights and the intersection of science and criminal justice.

Actual innocence is a special standard of review in legal cases to prove that a charged defendant did not commit the crimes that they were accused of, which is often applied by appellate courts to prevent a miscarriage of justice.

Kirk Noble Bloodsworth is a former Maryland waterman and the first American sentenced to death to be exonerated post-conviction by DNA testing.

Henry Watkins "Hank" Skinner is a death row inmate in Texas. In 1995, he was convicted of bludgeoning to death his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and stabbing to death her two adult sons, Randy Busby and Elwin Caler. On March 24, 2010, twenty minutes before his scheduled execution, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of execution to consider the question of whether Skinner could request testing of DNA his attorney chose not to have tested at his original trial in 1994. A third execution date for November 9, 2011, was also ultimately stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on November 7, 2011.

Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Cases of wrongful execution are cited as an argument by opponents of capital punishment, while proponents say that the argument of innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.

<i>The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town</i>

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town is a 2006 true crime book by John Grisham, his only nonfiction title as of 2020. The book tells the story of Ronald 'Ron' Keith Williamson of Ada, Oklahoma, a former minor league baseball player who was wrongly convicted in 1988 of the rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter in Ada and was sentenced to death. After serving 11 years on death row, he was exonerated by DNA evidence and other material introduced by the Innocence Project and was released in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FBI Laboratory</span> Forensic laboratory of the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, United States

The FBI Laboratory is a division within the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation that provides forensic analysis support services to the FBI, as well as to state and local law enforcement agencies free of charge. The lab is located at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia. Opened November 24, 1932, the lab was first known as the Technical Laboratory. It became a separate division when the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) was renamed as the FBI.

Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate convicts are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especially where new evidence is put forth after the execution has taken place. The transitive verb, "to exonerate" can also mean to informally absolve one from blame.

Earl Washington Jr. is a former Virginia death-row inmate, who was fully exonerated of murder charges against him in 2000. He had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in 1984 for the 1982 rape and murder of Rebecca Lyn Williams in Culpeper, Virginia. Washington has an IQ estimated at 69, which classifies him as intellectually disabled. He was coerced into confessing to the crime when arrested on an unrelated charge a year later. He narrowly escaped being executed in 1985 and 1994.

The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the University of Michigan Law School, Michigan State University College of Law and the University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science and Society. The Registry was co-founded in 2012 with the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law to provide detailed information about known exonerations in the United States since 1989. As of February 6, 2020, the Registry has 2,551 known exonerations in the United States since 1989. The National Registry does not include more than 1,800 defendants cleared in 15 large-scale police scandals that came to light between 1989 and March 7, 2017, in which officers systematically framed innocent defendants.

In law, post conviction refers to the legal process which takes place after a trial results in conviction of the defendant. After conviction, a court will proceed with sentencing the guilty party. In the American criminal justice system, once a defendant has received a guilty verdict, he or she can then challenge a conviction or sentence. This takes place through different legal actions, known as filing an appeal or a federal habeas corpus proceeding. The goal of these proceedings is exoneration, or proving a convicted person innocent. If lacking representation, the defendant may consult or hire an attorney to exercise his or her legal rights.

The Illinois Innocence Project, a member of the national Innocence Project network, is a non-profit legal organization that works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people and reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Innocence Project</span> American legal non-profit founded 1999

The California Innocence Project is a non-profit based at California Western School of Law in San Diego, California, United States, which provides pro bono legal services to individuals who maintain their factual innocence of crime(s) for which they have been convicted. It is an independent chapter of the Innocence Project. Its mission is to exonerate wrongly convicted inmates through the use of DNA and other evidences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Clutter</span> American wrongful conviction advocate

Bill Clutter is an American private investigator, wrongful conviction advocate, and author. He is the co-founder of the Illinois Innocence Project and founder of the national wrongful conviction organization Investigating Innocence. His work on the Donaldson v. Central Illinois Public Service Company case led him to write the book Coal Tar: How Corrupt Politics and Corporate Greed Are Killing America's Children, which is the story of an epidemic of neuroblastoma in Taylorville, IL caused by exposure to coal tar.

References

  1. ↑ McMillion, R. Seeking a Fair Penalty. ABA Journal Sep 2002, Vol. 88 Issue 9, p70
  2. ↑ from The Justice Project
  3. ↑ McMillion, R. "Seeking a Fair Penalty"], ABA Journal, Sep 2002, Vol. 88 Issue 9, p70
  4. 1 2 3 4 Punishment Archived 2012-03-03 at the Wayback Machine from Bureau of Justice Statistics Archived 2010-12-02 at the Wayback Machine
  5. 1 2 3 Post-conviction DNA Testing Archived 2010-11-09 at the Wayback Machine from DNA Initiative Archived 2010-11-29 at the Wayback Machine
  6. 1 2 "Attorney General Issues Memoranda to Improve Use of DNA Evidence". States News Service, Nov 18, 2010, pNA
  7. ↑ "Access to Post-Conviction DNA Testing Archived 2010-06-27 at the Wayback Machine , The Innocence Project
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