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

无辜的人被错误定罪的情况是司法的严重嘲弄，因为真正有罪的罪犯可能会继续犯下其他罪行，有时是严重的罪行，而被错误定罪的无辜者在监狱中遭受多年的折磨（严重罪行平均超过13年）。使无辜的人免于错误定罪的过程还没有得到很好的理解。促进这些无辜者的福祉和在获得赦免后重新融入社会所需的基本因素和援助就更不为人所了解了。越来越多的研究表明，尽管所有这些人都是无辜的，但(A)免罪的过程取决于与错误定罪相关的情况（例如该人是否虚假供述）；(b)公众仍然认为这些人不是完全无辜的，不完全值得重新融入社会的帮助，如职业培训和咨询，不太适合办公室工作。更好地了解为使这些无辜的人获得更充分的完整所必需的赔偿和援助的过程，对于通知和制定将有助于他们重新融入社会的法规和改革是至关重要的。尽管在过去的一二十年里，我们的法律体系见证了对错判的无罪释放的激增，但导致无罪释放的过程和被无罪释放的后果却没有得到很好的理解。在导致免罪的过程、援助的类型和程度以及接受援助的及时性方面的差异都有记录。考虑到无辜的忏悔者在通过法律体系的过程中遭受了一系列累积的不利因素，本项目将研究无辜的忏悔者有特别繁重的经历的观点。为了解决这个问题，该项目将对参与过免罪案件的律师、被免罪者（有或没有虚假供述的人）和无罪倡导者进行深入访谈，以检查结构层面（例如，在赔偿法规州是否被错误定罪；在无罪项目的帮助下被免罪）；个案层面（例如，是否虚假供述）；个人层面（例如，无罪状态，种族）因素会影响被无罪释放者是否获得不补偿，部分补偿或全部补偿，以及补偿的类型，以探索这些艾滋病（或缺乏）如何影响定罪后的幸福感和重返社会的调整。在深度访谈的基础上，还对五个地区的数千名雇主进行了实地实验研究，比较了他们雇佣有和没有虚假供述的无罪罪犯、有假释的罪犯和没有犯罪记录的人的意愿。研究结果有可能说明获得无罪释放者补偿的障碍，确定获得补偿和援助（类型和数额）如何影响无罪释放后重返社会的经历，并从因果关系上说明无罪释放者在试图找工作时面临的障碍。最终目标是告知州和联邦赔偿法规，引导没有法规的州采用法规，或引导有法规的州修改现有法规，例如取消对虚假供词的有争议的限制，包括帮助无罪犯更好地适应的就业援助，以及许多无罪犯渴望但很少能获得的其他援助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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.