Issue of False Confessions
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Sometimes, America's system of justice fails, and fails badly. In recent years, national attention has been focused on the issue of false confessions, or innocent people admitting to crimes they did not commit. Perhaps the most sensational case was that of the Central Park jogger in 1989. Five youths were sentenced to between five and fifteen years in prison after confessing to raping a woman jogger in New York City. The so called "wilding" case drew national media attention and was resolved quickly in the courts. In 2002, a convicted serial rapist stepped forward and admitted to the crime. His DNA matched the semen found on the jogger's clothing. Thirteen years after their convictions, it turned out that the five youths who confessed to the crime were in fact innocent. Their convictions were subsequently overturned (Drizin, 896-897). More recently, investigations into death row sentences in Illinois revealed 42 wrongful convictions since 1970, of which sixty percent rested in whole or in part on wrongful confessions. A full third of the false confessions were given by the defendants themselves (Warden). These cases beg the question: why do innocent people confess to crimes they did not commit? They are clearly damaging themselves by the act of confessing to a crime which they did not commit. Some false confessions can be explained by the weakened mental state of the confessor. This is particularly true in regards to confessions extracted from juveniles,
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Approximate Word count = 1023
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)
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