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Wrongful conviction review

Definition

A post-conviction process in which a court, review commission, or independent body re-examines the evidence supporting a conviction. In England and Wales this is conducted by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC); analogous bodies exist in Canada, New Zealand, and some US states.

Related terms

Contextual bias
The influence of case-relevant background information (suspect financial difficulties, police intelligence) on the direction of an examiner's technical analysis. Demonstrated experimentally for...
Duty of impartiality
The obligation that an expert witness owes to the court rather than to the party that retained them. Codified in England and...
Fabrication of evidence
The deliberate creation of false scientific results or the falsification of existing results for use in legal proceedings. It is the most...
Sequential unmasking
An information-sequencing protocol in which the examiner receives the questioned material first, completes and documents the analysis before receiving the known standards,...
Witness immunity
A common-law protection that historically shielded expert witnesses from civil liability for statements made in judicial proceedings. In England and Wales it...

Explained in

  • Expert Liability, Bias and MisconductA post-conviction process in which a court, review commission, or independent body re-examines the evidence supporting a conviction. In England and Wales this...

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