Elliot Millner, J.D. While a large portion of the mainstream media focuses its energy on covering stories about Tiger Wood's personal affairs, or Chris Brown's twitter temper tantrum, or other gossip mag nonsense, multiple stories about wrongfully convicted men (all Black) being exonerated and released from prison were being overshadowed (For case details, see here, here, and here).
The fact that these travesties of justice did not receive the media attention that they deserved is not surprising, given the unfortunate frequency of cases such as these, and the general apathy and complacency that has developed to such blatant examples of injustice. It also doesn't help that these wrongful convictions disproportionately impact Black men, who everyone knows are all criminals and and belong in prison anyway (that is sarcasm). According to data from The Innocence Project:
Of the 247 post-conviction DNA exoneration's they reported, 148 were Black men, who served an average prison sentence of 13 years before being released; in addition, 18 of the men exonerated had confessed to crimes that they did not commit.
Keep in mind that these are only the exoneration's reported(the first DNA exoneration did not take place until 1989), and also that these are only DNA exoneration's, not including other exoneration's of innocent individuals not based on DNA. The Innocence Project and other organizations focus on cases involving DNA evidence because of the increased likelihood of successful exoneration; for the unlucky person wrongfully convicted without any DNA evidence involved, the chances of release from prison are very slim.
Any rational person who does not believe in the innate criminality of Black males, will likely acknowledge that for each of these DNA exoneration's, there are many more cases in which the wrongfully convicted person was not exonerated, and either died in prison, was put to death (17 of the 247 exonerated by DNA evidence were on death row), or served out a sentence for a crime they did not commit.
As with virtually all other aspects of the criminal justice system, race is proven to play a role in the disproportionate impact of wrongful convictions on Black men. The seven most common causes of wrongful conviction are considered to be eyewitness misidentification; unvalidated or improper forensic science; false confessions/admissions; government misconduct; use of informants/snitches; and bad lawyering (Source: The Innocence Project). Without writing a thesis on the subject, there is substantial evidence that demonstrates how each of these areas can and does frequently result in wrongful convictions generally, and specifically for Black men, who are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system for a variety of reasons beyond the simplistic argument that Black people commit more crimes.
There are multiple issues that need to be addressed pertaining to the excessive presence of Black men in prison for actually committing crimes, without having to worry about Black people being imprisoned for crimes that they didn't do.
2 comments:
When will Black women have an opportunity to be included in the multiple stores of the exonerated. The United States increasingly sentences Black women to prison for many crimes that were not committed yet; we continuously focus on the wrongful convictions of Black men. Should I believe that Black women do not fit into the category of DNA exonerations? I think not.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/03/women-in-prison-where-doe-we-draw-the-line/
You are absolutely correct Nancy. The numbers of Black women wrongly convicted are equally outrageous, and deserve adequate attention. I focused on Black men in this particular article because the three articles referenced were about Black men. Thank you for your comment and link.
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