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

无辜的人被错误定罪是对司法的严重嘲弄，因为实际有罪的罪犯可能继续犯下其他罪行，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）。人们对为无辜的个人开脱错误定罪的过程并不十分了解。人们更不了解促进这些无辜者的福祉和在无罪释放后重新融入社会所必需的基本因素和援助。越来越多的研究表明，虽然所有这些人都是无辜的，但（a）免除罪责的程序因与错误定罪有关的情况而异（如该人是否作了虚假供述）和（B）公众仍然认为这些人不完全无辜，不完全值得获得就业培训和咨询等重返社会援助，也不适合做办公室工作更好地了解免罪尝试所涉及的程序，更深入地理解更充分地使这些无辜的个人完整所需的赔偿和援助，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。 虽然我们的法律的体系在过去的一二十年里见证了对错误定罪的免责的扩散，但导致免责的过程和被免责的后果并没有得到很好的理解。在导致免除责任的程序、援助的类型和程度以及获得援助的及时性方面的差异都有文件记录。鉴于无辜的忏悔者在通过法律的系统的旅程中遭受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想法。为了解决这个问题，该项目将使用深入采访的律师谁曾在免罪案件，无罪者（谁已经和没有虚假供认），无罪的倡导者检查结构层面（例如，在赔偿法规中的错误定罪;在无罪项目的帮助下被免除）;案件级别（例如，虚假供述或没有）;和个人层面（例如，免罪地位，种族）的因素，影响是否一个exoneree得到没有，部分或全部赔偿，以及赔偿的类型，以探讨这些援助（或缺乏）如何影响定罪后的福祉和重返社会的调整。深入的访谈补充了一个实验性的实地研究，在五个地点的数千名雇主，比较他们愿意雇用无罪的人谁没有虚假供述，有罪假释的罪犯，和那些没有犯罪历史。调查结果有可能说明障碍免责补偿，确定如何接收补偿和援助（类型和金额）可以影响免责后重新进入的经验，因果关系证明免责人试图找到工作时所面临的障碍。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，或有法规的州修改现有法规-例如取消围绕虚假供词的有争议的限制，包括就业援助，以帮助无罪者更好地调整，和其他援助，许多无罪的愿望，但很少能够获得。这一奖项反映了国家科学基金会的法定使命，并已被认为值得支持，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。

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.