Workshop: Examining Overlooked Issues in Wrongful Convictions

研讨会：审视错误定罪中被忽视的问题

• 批准号: 1459476
• 负责人: James Acker
• 金额: $ 4.98万
• 依托单位: SUNY at Albany
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1459476&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Workshop; Examining; Overlooked; Issues; Wrongful

It is well established that innocent persons sometimes are arrested and convicted for crimes they did not commit. It is also well established that in many of these wrongful conviction cases, the actual perpetrator went on to commit other crimes, including murders and rapes--crimes which may have been prevented if the wrong person had not been identified and the right person had been prosecuted. Although the exact definition of wrongful conviction and exoneration varies between sources, most scholars agree that the wrongful convictions that have been identified are the mere tip of a much larger iceberg, and likely represent a considerably larger body of cases involving the conviction of innocent persons. If this premise is correct, several limitations necessarily exist concerning our knowledge of the incidence of wrongful convictions, the factors that contribute to miscarriages of justice, and their consequences.The overarching goal of the workshop is to advance wrongful conviction scholarship by enlisting theoretical perspectives and focusing on issues important to the administration of justice which have not garnered commensurate research attention. The workshop will bring together diverse scholars to discuss important topics that have largely been overlooked or ignored. These "elephants in the courtroom" in the study of wrongful convictions include: 1) the intersection of race and miscarriages of justice; 2) how and why guilty pleas, which account for the vast majority of convictions, contribute to miscarriages of justice; 3) wrongful convictions for misdemeanors, which account for roughly 80% of criminal charges; and 4) data needs and methodological constraints important to the scientific study of wrongful convictions and the effective dissemination of research findings for use by policymakers and practitioners. The specific objectives are: (1) To examine wrongful conviction issues that loom large but have not yet received sufficient attention by wrongful conviction scholars and policymakers; (2) To bring together scholars and professionals from varying disciplines (e.g., law, criminal justice, sociology, psychology, political science) to enhance understanding of wrongful convictions and to communicate new theories to test and methods to employ; and (3) To foster the translation of science into practice and policy by generating new programs of research into unexplored issues of wrongful conviction that could ultimately provide insight into the effectiveness and integrity of the criminal justice system. The workshop has the potential for broad impact through the achievement of desired societal outcomes (e.g., a reduction in wrongful convictions and correction of the corresponding problems caused when the truly guilty perpetrators remaining at large), fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, and the dissemination of resulting work products to academic and non-academic audiences.

众所周知，无辜的人有时会因他们没有犯下的罪行而被捕和被定罪。同样公认的是，在许多这类错误定罪案件中，实际犯罪人接着又犯下其他罪行，包括谋杀和强奸-如果没有查出错误的人，起诉正确的人，这些罪行本来是可以避免的。虽然错误定罪和免责的确切定义因资料来源而异，但大多数学者都认为，已查明的错误定罪只是冰山一角，可能代表了涉及无辜者定罪的大量案件。如果这一前提是正确的，一些限制必然存在于我们的知识的发生错误的定罪，导致误判的因素，其后果。研讨会的总体目标是通过招募理论观点，并专注于重要的问题，以促进错误的定罪奖学金司法行政没有获得相应的研究关注。该研讨会将汇集不同学者，讨论在很大程度上被忽视或忽视的重要话题。这些“法庭上的大象”在错误定罪的研究包括：1）种族和误判的交叉; 2）如何以及为什么认罪，占绝大多数的定罪，有助于误判; 3）轻罪的错误定罪，约占刑事指控的80%;（4）数据需求和方法上的制约因素对错误定罪的科学研究以及有效传播研究结果供决策者和从业人员使用至关重要。具体目标是：（1）审查不容忽视但尚未得到错误定罪学者和决策者充分关注的错误定罪问题;（2）汇集不同学科的学者和专业人员（例如，法律，刑事司法，社会学，心理学，政治学），以加强对错误定罪的理解，并交流新的理论来测试和方法来使用;和（3）通过产生新的研究项目，促进将科学转化为实践和政策的错误定罪，最终可以提供洞察刑事司法系统的有效性和完整性的未经探索的问题。讲习班有可能通过实现预期的社会成果（例如，减少错误定罪，纠正真正有罪的罪犯逍遥法外时造成的相应问题），促进跨学科合作，并向学术和非学术受众传播由此产生的工作成果。