The Long Road to Justice: Overturning a Wrongful Conviction

By: Sohpiya Islam

According to the Georgia Innocence Project, studies have estimated that 4-6% of people within U.S. prisons are innocent. While the number may seem small, one life and its potential are not. When adding up the total number of people in U.S. prisons in 2022, the number is 1,230,100, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Furthering that fact, 4% of 1,230,100 is equivalent to 49,204 people. Which is 49,204 more lives and their own purpose, which our system of justice has wronged. Although mistakes happen, this shocking number proves otherwise with the findings. With many people facing these wrongful convictions, it is possible to believe overturning these convictions will be a simple act. Instead, it’s a lengthy and challenging one taken each year.

The process of overturning a wrongful conviction is not a simple one, as multiple factors go into the action – that is, if it’s even taken by the person convicted, as not all can go through with the act due to difficulties. Within the legal system, the matter of overturning a wrongful conviction involves not only legal proceedings but also procedural and systemic factors. In order to take the first steps towards overturning a wrongful conviction, one must gather new evidence, receive legal representation, and file for a new motion. Among these steps, there are more detailed processes and orders to go into, which will be mentioned ahead.

Gaining Legal Representation

When wanting to overturn a wrongful conviction, a skilled professional is needed to help guide the process. However, that doesn’t mean it always happens easily. Financial barriers and specialties can make the search hard to find someone who can tailor to the problem at hand. Even when representation is received, it can be acted upon ineffectively, leading to the effect of poor legal representation in efforts to overturn.

Finding Evidence

In order to appeal, change/challenge a prior legal decision from a court, or plead – requesting another trial after a former decision – for a new trial, it is essential to have new evidence from reports to witnesses. Without this crucial part of obtaining evidence, it is difficult to move forward without a claim of misconduct or mistakes. While the word evidence may lead to a broad claim, it is more limited in terms of what is applicable. For example, there are limited pathways to gather new evidence, such as prosecutorial misconduct, flawed science, and faulty or coerced confessions. These systematic issues are crucial to spot or find where the trial went wrong or see if a mistake(s) was made, whether by a report or person, as new evidence may be found to proceed with overturning a wrongful conviction. 

Harmless Error Doctrine

The harmless error ruling is when an error(s) made during trial are confirmed, however, are believed not to warrant the outcome of reversing a wrongful conviction due to the error(s) not being substantial enough. This ruling significantly complicates the ability to overturn a wrongful conviction, as the effort to appeal and find new evidence can easily be rejected if not seen as significant enough by courts. 

Conclusion

These reasons and instances are not meant to discourage the act of overturning a wrongful conviction, but instead bring awareness to the unfairness and hardship of the process of doing so. Therefore, bringing to light the fact that fewer of these mistakes should happen and old methods should be discontinued, as lives are at stake.

Youth For Innocence encourages and assists those in hopes of overturning wrongful convictions. While we are not lawyers, our goal is to help you through the process with the same goal in mind. If you are interested in helping others in cases like these, become a volunteer by completing a simple training course on our website.