USA: ERRORS OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM - June 1, 2006

Criminal justice system of the United States is frequently regarded as one of the best-organized and most efficient legal systems in the world. The United States itself hosts on its territory the world’s most renowned and prestigious law schools and international law firms. As statistics show, the great majority of global number of attorneys practices in America, making this country a center of the most innovative and sophisticated legal ideas and policies. Considering these facts, someone might say that the United States should be proud and confident with its justice system because it essentially outdistances legal systems of the rest of international community’s members. However, such an opinion not entirely would be honest. As many politicians and activists admit, American criminal justice system despite its outstanding features does not always work as properly as it should be.

In his State of the Union address of 2005, President George W. Bush said in respect to the justice system that Americans “must make doubly sure [that] no person is held to account for a crime he or she did not commit”. In this way the government expressed a concern over numerous mistakes of the U.S. courts, which have been resulting in false convictions of innocent people.

According to the report: “Exonerations in the United States: 1989 through 2003” (The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 95, No. 2), since 1989 till 2003 as much as 340 people were exonerated after being previously wrongly convicted. The majority of them were sentenced to prison and served the penalties that equaled together more than 3400 years. The number of 340 exonerated convicts accounts only for those who have been reportedly and finally cleared of charges. As a result the exact number of wrongly convicted can be substantially higher as other exoneration processes are still pending and many cases are never being publicly reported by mass media. For example some sources estimate that there are over 4000 wrongly convicted people in the United States (“The Oregonian” – February 8, 2006). Unfortunately there is not any official, federal or state, directory of false convictions thus all estimates in this field are only being be made by concerned individuals and non-governmental organizations.

The government primarily blames two things as a cause of the problem. The first one is insufficient use of DNA evidence in criminal proceedings. The second is inadequate standard of lawyers’ professional skills and their supposed unsatisfactory performance during trials.

The DNA evidence has been recently gaining greater importance in criminal proceedings after the testing methods have significantly improved in last years. In many cases in the past a DNA material found at crime scenes could not be examined because its amount or quality was insufficient to conduct a reliable test. However in recent years, forensic medicine has developed new methods of DNA testing which enabled to extract scientific information from relatively small DNA samples. The results of such tests are usable in a court of law. As a consequence during the period of 1989-2003 as much as 144 exonerations were possible just because new DNA evidence had been revealed and submitted to court’s consideration.

Presently there are two methods of examining DNA evidence. The first one is Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Test (or RFLP), which requires large and undamaged amounts of DNA material. This method is the most accurate however because of its specific requirements it cannot be utilized in every case where the DNA material is being found. The second is Polymerase Chain Reaction Test (or PCR), which does not require as large quantity of DNA samples as the previous one. This test can be performed even several years after the DNA was found and for that reason is nowadays frequently used to review the evidence in many cases during which existed considerable doubt about defendant’s guilt. The increase of use of DNA testing can largely contribute to elimination of false convictions. According to the government’s plan as much as $6 billion should be provided over the period of the nearest five years to expand DNA testing capacity.

During the State of Union address of 2005, the President furthermore said “people on trial for their lives must have competent lawyers by their side”. Subsequently he proposed to furnish around $50 million over the next three years to provide additional training for lawyers in death penalty trials. The problem of competency however regards not only defense lawyers but public prosecutors as well. As it was highlighted by a report of the Center for Public Integrity (“Breaking the rules” by Steve Weinberg, June 26, 2003) – in 2,012 cases since 1970, the charges were dismissed or convictions reversed merely because of prosecutorial misconduct. In 28 of reported cases, prosecutorial misconduct resulted in convictions of innocent individuals who have been later exonerated and pronounced not guilty. 

The amount of false convictions in comparison to the total number of convictions in the Unites States is obviously small and creates only a slight statistical margin. However the great majority of wrongful convictions occur in connection with the most serious crimes. As much as 205 people exonerated during the years of 1989-2003 were convicted for murder. Among them 74 individuals were sentenced to death penalty. Simply for that reason, false convictions create a considerable legal and political problem.  Criminal justice’s errors clearly jeopardize and contradict the universal rule that no one should be held liable for an offence he or she did not commit.

Sebastian Aulich

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