Collaborative Research: Exoneration and Compensation: The Role of False Confessions

无辜个人被错误定罪的情况是对司法的严重摧残，因为实际犯罪者可能继续犯下其他罪行，有时是严重罪行，而被错误定罪的无辜者在监狱中受苦多年(严重罪行平均超过13年)。人们还没有很好地理解为错误定罪的无辜个人洗脱罪名所涉及的程序。帮助这些无辜者在被赦免后获得福祉和重新融入社会所需的必要因素和援助更是知之甚少。越来越多的研究表明，虽然所有这些人都是无辜的，但(A)根据与错误定罪有关的情况(例如，此人是否作了虚假供认)，赦免程序有所不同，(B)公众仍然认为这些人并非完全无辜，不完全值得重新融入社会，如工作培训和咨询，也不太适合办公室工作。更好地了解赦免企图所涉及的过程，并更深入地了解为更充分地使这些无辜的个人完整所需的补偿和援助，对于宣传和制定有助于他们重新融入社会的法规和改革至关重要。尽管在过去的一二十年里，我们的法律制度见证了对错误定罪的大量赦免，但导致赦免的过程和被赦免的后果还没有被很好地理解。在导致免除责任的过程、援助的类型和程度以及接受援助的及时性方面的差异都已被记录在案。鉴于无辜的忏悔者在他们通过法律系统的旅程中遭受了一系列累积的不利因素，这个项目将审查无辜的忏悔者有特别繁重的经历的想法。为了处理这一想法，该项目将使用对曾参与免责案件的律师、无罪推荐人(已经和没有错误供述)和无罪倡导者的深入访谈，以检查结构层面(例如，在赔偿法规州是否有错误定罪；在无罪项目的帮助下被无罪释放)；案例层面(例如，是否虚假供述)；以及个人层面的因素(例如，免责地位、种族)，这些因素影响被免罪人是否获得不补偿、部分补偿或全额补偿，以及补偿的类型，以探讨这些帮助(或缺乏)如何影响定罪后的福祉和重新进入社会的调整。这些深度访谈还补充了一项对五个地点的数千名雇主进行的试验性实地研究，比较了他们是否愿意雇佣有罪和没有虚假供述、有罪假释罪犯和没有犯罪历史的免罪人。这些调查结果有可能说明免罪人补偿的障碍，确定获得补偿和援助(类型和金额)如何影响免责后重新进入社会的经历，并因果地证明免罪人在试图找到工作时面临的障碍。最终目标是告知州和联邦补偿法规，导致没有法规的州通过一个或有法规的州修改现有的法规-例如取消围绕虚假供述的有争议的限制，包括帮助免罪人更好地适应的就业援助，以及许多免罪人渴望但很少能获得的其他援助。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Instances in which innocent individuals are wrongly convicted represent serious travesties of justice because the actual guilty offenders may go on to commit other, sometimes serious, crimes and the wrongly convicted innocents languish in prison for years (on average, over 13 years for serious crimes). The processes involved with exonerating innocent individuals of wrongful convictions is not well understood. Essential factors and aids necessary to facilitate these innocents’ well-being and reintegration into society upon exoneration are even less understood. A growing body of research has demonstrated that, although all of these individuals are innocent, (a) the process to exoneration differs depending on the circumstances associated with the wrongful conviction (such as whether the person falsely confessed) and (b) the general public still perceives these individuals as not entirely innocent, not entirely deserving of reintegration aids such as job training and counseling, and less fit for office jobs. A better understanding of the processes involved with exoneration attempts and a deeper appreciation of the compensation and aids necessary to more fully make these innocent individuals whole is critical to informing and developing statutes and reforms that will facilitate their reintegration into society. Although our legal system has witnessed a proliferation of exonerations for wrongful convictions across the last decade or two, the process leading to exoneration and the aftereffects of being exonerated are not well understood. Differences in the process leading to exoneration, types and degree of aid, and timeliness of receiving aids have all been documented. Given that innocent confessors suffer a series of cumulative disadvantages during their journey through the legal system, this project will examine the idea that innocent confessors have particularly onerous experiences. To address this idea, the project will use in-depth interviews with attorneys who have worked on exoneration cases, exonerees (who have and have not falsely confessed), and innocence advocates to examine structural-level (e.g., wrongful conviction in a compensation statute state or not; exonerated with assistance from an innocence project); case-level (e.g., false confession or not); and individual-level (e.g., exoneration status, race) factors that influence whether an exoneree receives no, partial, or full compensation, and the types of compensation to explore how these aids (or lack of) impact post-conviction well-being and reentry adjustment. The in-depth interviews are complemented with an experimental field study of thousands of employers in five locations, comparing their willingness to hire exonerees who did and did not falsely confess, guilty paroled offenders, and those with no criminal history. The findings have the potential to illustrate barriers to exoneree compensation, determine how receipt of compensation and aid (type and amount) can influence post-exoneration re-entry experiences, and causally demonstrate the obstacles exonerees face when attempting to find employment. The ultimate goal is to inform state and federal compensation statutes, leading states without statutes to adopt ones or states with statutes to revise their current ones—such as removing controversial restrictions around false confessions, including employment assistance to help exonerees better adjust, and other aids that many exonerees desire but rarely can access.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.