Full Description
Innocent people are regularly convicted of crimes they did not commit. A number of systemic factors have been found to contribute to wrongful convictions, including eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, informant testimony, official misconduct, and faulty forensic evidence.
In Miscarriages of Justice in Canada, Kathryn M. Campbell offers an extensive overview of wrongful convictions, bringing together current sociological, criminological, and legal research, as well as current case-law examples. For the first time, information on all known and suspected cases of wrongful conviction in Canada is included and interspersed with discussions of how wrongful convictions happen, how existing remedies to rectify them are inadequate, and how those who have been victimized by these errors are rarely compensated. Campbell reveals that the causes of wrongful convictions are, in fact, avoidable, and that those in the criminal justice system must exercise greater vigilance and openness to the possibility of error if the problem of wrongful conviction is to be resolved.
Contents
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 2: Eyewitness Identification and Misidentification
Chapter 3: The Role of Legal Professionals in Contributing to Wrongful Convictions: Police
Chapter 4: The Role of Legal Professionals in Contributing to Wrongful Convictions: Prosecutors, Defense Counsel, and the Judiciary
Chapter 5 - False Confessions
Chapter 6 - In-custody Informants
Chapter 7 - DNA Evidence: Raising the Bar
Chapter 8 -Forensic Evidence and Expert Testimony
Chapter 9 - Conventional Remedies through the Courts and Conviction Review
Chapter 10 - Commissions of Inquiry: Lessons Learned
Chapter 11 - Compensation: The "Obstacle Course"
Chapter 12 - The Impact of Public Lobbying on Wrongful Convictions: The Role of the Media, Lobby Groups and Innocence Projects
Chapter 13: Lessons from Other Jurisdictions
Chapter 14 - Final Conclusions
