Court Findings of Prosecutorial Misconduct Claims.... Among the First 255 DNA Exoneration Cases

Abstract

Court Findings of Prosecutorial Misconduct Claims in Post-Conviction Appeals and Civil Suits Among the First 255 DNA Exoneration Cases. Prosecutorial misconduct remains a largely underdeveloped research issue in large part because of the challenges of defining what constitutes misconduct, but also because some misconduct never comes to light. For example, it is impossible to know the extent to which prosecutors engage in misconduct, especially if it involves suppressing potentially exculpatory evidence that never gets disclosed at trial. DNA exoneration cases offer a unique perspective on this issue, given that we know the clients in these cases were convicted of crimes they did not commit. As such, while courts differentiate between harmless and harmful error, we know now that what was deemed as harmless error in these appeals may have contributed to the wrongful convictions. Results from this study indicate that of the 63 DNA exoneration cases involving documented appeals and/or civil suits addressing prosecutorial misconduct, 30 (48%) resulted in court findings of error, with 13 (21%) of these cases leading to reversals (harmful error)… (palabras claves: condenas erróneas, exoneración, inocencia, identificación ocular, reconocimiento de imputados, ADN, persecución)