Related Research Articles
Stephen Lawrence was an 18-year-old black British citizen from Plumstead, southeast London, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus on Well Hall Road, Eltham, on the evening of 22 April 1993. The case became a cause célèbre: its fallout included changes of attitudes on racism and the police, and to the law and police practice. It also led to the partial revocation of the rule against double jeopardy. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder on 3 January 2012.
David Milgaard was a Canadian man who was wrongfully convicted for the 1969 rape and murder of nursing student Gail Miller in Saskatoon and imprisoned for 23 years. He was eventually released and exonerated. Up until his death, he lived in Alberta and was employed as a community support worker. Milgaard was also a public speaker who advocated for the wrongfully convicted and for all prisoners' rights.
The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were two groups of people, mostly Northern Irish, who were wrongly convicted in English courts in 1975 and 1976 of the Guildford pub bombings of 5 October 1974 and the Woolwich pub bombing of 7 November 1974. All the convictions were eventually overturned after long campaigns for justice, and the cases, along with those of the Birmingham Six, diminished public confidence in the English criminal justice system.
A miscarriage of justice occurs when an 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.
Azaria Chantel Loren Chamberlain was a nine-week-old Australian baby girl who was killed by a dingo on the night of 17 August 1980 during a family camping trip to Uluru in the Northern Territory. Her body was never found. Her parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, reported that she had been taken from their tent by a dingo. However, Lindy was tried for murder and spent more than three years in prison. Michael received a suspended sentence. Lindy was released only after Azaria's jacket was found near a dingo lair and new inquests were opened. In 2012, 32 years after Azaria's death, the Chamberlains' version of events was officially supported by a coroner.
Innocence Canada, is a Canadian legal non-profit organization. Based in Toronto, Innocence Canada identifies, advocates for, and helps exonerate wrongly convicted individuals. The organization is also dedicated to preventing future wrongful convictions through education and criminal justice reform. Since its founding in 1993, Innocence Canada has helped to exonerate twenty-nine individuals.
Heather Carol Hallett, Baroness Hallett,, is a retired British judge of the Court of Appeal and a crossbench life peer. The first woman to chair the Bar Council and the fifth woman to sit in the Court of Appeal, Hallett led the independent inquest into the 7/7 bombings. In April 2019, she was appointed Chair of the Security Vettings Appeal Panel. In December 2021, she was announced as the chair of the public inquiry into the UK Government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. On 29 June 2022, the Government accepted Baroness Hallett's proposed terms of reference for the inquiry, with minor changes suggested by the devolved administrations.
Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Opponents of capital punishment often cite cases of wrongful execution as arguments, while proponents argue that innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.
Kathleen Megan Folbigg is an Australian woman who was wrongfully convicted in 2003 of murdering her four infant children. She was pardoned in 2023 after 20 years in jail following a long campaign for justice by her supporters, and had her convictions overturned on appeal a few months later.
George Junius Stinney Jr. was an African American boy who, at the age of 14, was convicted and then executed in a proceeding later vacated as an unfair trial for the murders of two young white girls in March 1944 – Betty June Binnicker, age 11, and Mary Emma Thames, age 8 – in his hometown of Alcolu, South Carolina. He was convicted, sentenced to death, and executed by electric chair in June 1944, thus becoming the youngest American with an exact birth date confirmed to be both sentenced to death and executed in the 20th century.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
Events from 2004 in England
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.
Sian Emma O'Callaghan was a 22-year-old British woman who disappeared from Swindon, Wiltshire, England, having last been seen at a nightclub in the town in the early hours of 19 March 2011. Her body was found on 24 March near Uffington in Oxfordshire. On 19 October 2012, at Bristol Crown Court, 48-year-old Christopher Halliwell pleaded guilty to O'Callaghan's murder.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in Canada.
The innocent prisoner's dilemma, or parole deal, is a detrimental effect of a legal system in which admission of guilt can result in reduced sentences or early parole. When an innocent person is wrongly convicted of a crime, legal systems which need the individual to admit guilt — as, for example, a prerequisite step leading to parole — punish an innocent person for their integrity, and reward a person lacking in integrity. There have been cases where innocent prisoners were given the choice between freedom, in exchange for claiming guilt, and remaining imprisoned and telling the truth. Individuals have died in prison rather than admit to crimes that they did not commit, including in the face of a plausible chance at release.
The wrongful imprisonment of Victor Nealon occurred in 1996 when the British postman Victor Nealon was mistakenly convicted of attempted rape. He was released in 2013 after spending 17 years in jail, 10 years more than his recommended tariff, because he continued to protest his innocence. He was sentenced to a discretionary life sentence in 1998 and was refused parole because he refused to admit guilt. He was denied legal aid and in 2014, the Ministry of Justice turned down his claim for compensation and demanded he pay £2,500 costs claiming the DNA analysis "did not show beyond reasonable doubt that the claimant did not commit the offence."
Stephen John Port is a British serial killer and serial rapist. He has been convicted of the murder of four young men and multiple rapes and sexual assaults of a number of others. Port received a sentence of life imprisonment with a whole life order on 25 November 2016.
Andrew Malkinson is a British man who was wrongfully convicted and jailed in 2004 for the rape of a 33-year-old woman in Salford, Greater Manchester. He was released from prison in 2020 after served his sentence, still maintaining his innocence, and his conviction was finally quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2023 after DNA evidence proved he was not the attacker.
The sentencing of Ben Oliver, a 25-year-old man convicted of the manslaughter of his grandfather, was the culmination of a Crown Court case in England and Wales, and the sentencing was the first criminal court proceeding in England and Wales to be televised. Oliver was convicted of killing his 74-year-old bedbound grandfather, David Oliver, of Mottingham, South East London, following a trial at the Old Bailey, where he had pleaded not guilty to murder. At the televised hearing, which took place in Court Two of the Old Bailey at 10 am on 28 July 2022, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of ten years by Her Honour Judge Sarah Munro.
References
- ↑ Davies, Caroline (10 December 2021). "Met failings probably a factor in deaths of Stephen Port victims, says inquest". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
- ↑ Pennick, Emily (28 July 2022). "First televised sentencing at Old Bailey makes legal history". The Independent. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
- ↑ Fouzder, Monidipa (28 July 2022). "Old Bailey sentencing remarks broadcast on TV for the first time". Law Gazette. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
- ↑ Casciani, Dominic (26 October 2023). "Andrew Malkinson: Wrongful conviction inquiry judge pledges 'fearless' review". BBC News. Retrieved 13 June 2024.
  | This United Kingdom law-related biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |