A conviction is the finding of criminal guilt by a court of law. It can follow a guilty plea, a jury trial in which a verdict of guilty is delivered, or a trial by judge. Criminal convictions have significant collateral consequences that affect employment, housing, and the right to travel abroad.
Innocent people are sometimes wrongfully convicted, but appeal mechanisms and post conviction relief procedures do not fully address this issue. In about half of the wrongful convictions EJI has examined, better forensic technology, testimony standards, or practice standards would have prevented the wrongful conviction at the time of trial.
Wrongful convictions harm crime victims as well, since convicting the wrong person allows the real perpetrator to continue committing crimes, creates a new innocent victim, and drains resources that could be devoted to victim services. Wrongful convictions also undermine public trust in the criminal justice system, which is already low.
The stories of Calvin Johnson, Marvin Anderson, and others exonerated with the help of the Innocence Project demonstrate how important it is to ensure that the correct convictions are recorded and that wrongful ones are identified and corrected. However, conversations about wrongful convictions often ignore two important constituencies that can serve as powerful allies for change: prosecutors and crime victims. This article describes the impact of wrongful convictions on these communities and proposes ways to engage them in efforts to reduce wrongful convictions.