Government Misconduct
Some wrongful convictions are caused by honest mistakes. In some cases, however, officials take steps to ensure that a defendant is convicted despite weak evidence or even clear proof of innocence.
The cases of wrongful convictions uncovered by DNA testing are replete with evidence of fraud or misconduct by prosecutors or police departments.
A few bad apples
Most law enforcement officers and prosecutors are honest and trustworthy. But criminal justice is a human endeavor and the possibility for corruption exists. Even if one officer of every thousand is dishonest, wrongful convictions will continue to occur.
DNA exonerations have exposed official misconduct at every level and stage of a criminal investigation. This misconduct has included:
- deliberate suggestiveness in identification procedures
- the withholding of evidence from defense
- the deliberate mishandling, mistreatment or destruction of evidence
- the coercion of false confessions
- the use of unreliable government informants or snitches
Necessary Oversight
Safeguards can be enacted to prevent official misconduct from causing wrongful convictions. See our Fix The System section for ways to address these problems, including our recommendations for establishing criminal justice reform commissions.
| Featured Case: Bruce Godschalk | |
 | In some cases, fraud can be committed by officials long after a person is convicted. Bruce Godschalk was convicted of two rapes in Pennsylvania in 1987. The state's evidence at trial included a false confession Godschalk allegedly gave to police, a misidentification by a victim, and testimony from a jailhouse snitch. When the Innocence Project tried to seek DNA testing on Godschalk's behalf in 2001, the official misconduct continued. A state motion claimed that prosecutors had sent all relevant evidence to a lab without notifying the defendant or the Innocence Project. It falsely claimed that all evidence had been consumed in testing and all tests were inconclusive. A carpet sample with a semen stain was not given to the lab in the round of secret testing. When this piece of carpet surfaced, testing proved that another man had committed the crime for which Godschalk had been wrongly convicted. Click here to read Godschalk's full profile.
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