Flawed justice: A study of wrongly convicted African American women

Abstract

ABSTRACT This exploratory study examines 37 wrongfully convicted Black women. The cases were culled from electronic databases located at the Innocence Project, the Center on Wrongful Convictions, the Death Penalty Information Center, the National Registry of Exonerations and from the innocence database at forejustice.org in addition to newspaper and magazine articles. Prosecutorial misconduct and perjury by criminal justice officials constituted the 2 most important factors leading to wrongful convictions. Police misconduct was the 3rd most important factor, followed by ineffective assistance of counsel and insufficient evidence to support a conviction. The use of informants, false confessions, witness errors, and forensic errors were among the least common contributors. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are also addressed.