Wrongful Conviction
Definition
A conviction that is later determined to be factually incorrect, usually through post-conviction DNA testing or other newly available evidence. Bite mark cases form a notable subset of DNA-based exonerations.
- Definition
- Conviction later found factually incorrect
- Common route to discovery
- Post-conviction DNA testing
- Relevant subset
- Bite mark cases among DNA-based exonerations
Common questions
Why do bite mark cases form a notable share of DNA-based exonerations?+
Bite mark comparison was historically presented in court with more certainty than the underlying science supported, and a number of convictions relying heavily on that testimony were later overturned once DNA testing became available and contradicted the original identification.
Does a wrongful conviction always mean the original evidence was fabricated?+
No, many wrongful convictions arise from honestly conducted but scientifically unreliable methods, examiner overstatement of certainty, or cognitive bias, not deliberate fabrication, which is why reform efforts have focused as much on method validation as on misconduct.
Related terms
- Abolitionist State
- A country that has removed capital punishment from its law for all crimes, or that retains it in law but has not...
- Black-Box Study
- A study in which qualified examiners are given realistic test cases with known ground truth and asked to make decisions under conditions...
- Cumulative Disadvantage
- The compounding of small disadvantages at successive decision points so that the gap in final outcomes is larger than the gap at...
- Death Penalty
- A sentence of execution imposed by a court for an offence the law classifies as capital, carried out by an agent of...
- Deterrence Hypothesis
- The claim that the threat or use of execution reduces the rate of capital crime below what it would be under a...
- Disparate Impact
- A legal and statistical concept describing a policy or practice that has a disproportionate adverse effect on a protected group, regardless of...
- Disproportionate Minority Contact
- A situation where a group's share of contact with police, courts, or corrections exceeds its share of the general population, used especially...
- Foundational Validity
- The requirement, articulated in the 2009 US National Academy of Sciences report and taken up by courts and reform bodies, that a...
- Implicit Bias
- An automatic, often unconscious association between a social category and a trait or evaluation, which can shape a decision without the decision-maker...
- Innocence Project
- A US non-profit organisation founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld that uses DNA testing to challenge wrongful convictions. Its...
- Inter-Examiner Reliability
- The degree to which different qualified examiners reach the same conclusion when independently analysing the same evidence. Studies of bite mark analysis...
- Rarest of Rare Doctrine
- The Indian Supreme Court's standard, set out in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980), that death may be imposed only when...
Explained in these topics
- Capital Punishment: Debate, Law and Global PracticeA conviction later shown, through new evidence, retracted testimony or forensic re-examination, to have been factually mistaken.
- Disparity and Discrimination in the Criminal Justice SystemA conviction of a person who did not commit the offense, established later through new evidence, recantation, or forensic testing such as DNA analysis.
- The Bite Mark Controversy: NAS and PCAST Critiques