The DNA exonerations not only have corrected injustices on a scale previously unimagined, they also have provided an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the causes of and remedies for error in criminal cases. These cases reveal not isolated mistakes, but systemic flaws. They reveal that wrongful convictions have identifiable causes, causes that can be addressed. Because so much is at stake, they must be addressed.
The cases teach that the leading causes of wrongful convictions include eyewitness identification error, police interrogation tactics that produce false confessions, flawed forensic science evidence, false jailhouse snitch testimony, prosecutorial misconduct and inadequate defense counsel. [A column by Keith Findley, clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project and president of the Innocence Network.]