{"title":"测量是无辜的","authors":"M. Zalman, R. Norris","doi":"10.1525/nclr.2021.24.4.601","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"What is the rate of wrongful conviction? This question may be implicit in Blackstone’s ratio: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” Scholarship designed to provide an empirical answer, however, emerged only with the rise of the “innocence movement” in the United States. This article does not provide another study estimating the rate of wrongful felony conviction either for a specified sample, such as death sentences within a specified time period, or for an entire jurisdiction. Instead, we evaluate the rate question itself and assess its importance to innocence scholarship and action. We first trace the question’s intellectual lineage, and its historical and ideological roots among innocence believers and innocence skeptics. We then describe and evaluate all or most of the published studies attempting to estimate the wrongful conviction rate. Next, we discuss a reoccurring limitation of this published work, namely, its failure to account for or its unsubstantiated assumptions about guilty pleas and misdemeanor convictions among innocent defendants. Finally, we question the continued importance of the rate question in light of the modern innocence movement and its growing accomplishments.","PeriodicalId":44796,"journal":{"name":"New Criminal Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"4","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Measuring Innocence\",\"authors\":\"M. Zalman, R. Norris\",\"doi\":\"10.1525/nclr.2021.24.4.601\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"What is the rate of wrongful conviction? This question may be implicit in Blackstone’s ratio: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” Scholarship designed to provide an empirical answer, however, emerged only with the rise of the “innocence movement” in the United States. This article does not provide another study estimating the rate of wrongful felony conviction either for a specified sample, such as death sentences within a specified time period, or for an entire jurisdiction. Instead, we evaluate the rate question itself and assess its importance to innocence scholarship and action. We first trace the question’s intellectual lineage, and its historical and ideological roots among innocence believers and innocence skeptics. We then describe and evaluate all or most of the published studies attempting to estimate the wrongful conviction rate. Next, we discuss a reoccurring limitation of this published work, namely, its failure to account for or its unsubstantiated assumptions about guilty pleas and misdemeanor convictions among innocent defendants. Finally, we question the continued importance of the rate question in light of the modern innocence movement and its growing accomplishments.\",\"PeriodicalId\":44796,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"New Criminal Law Review\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.4000,\"publicationDate\":\"2021-01-01\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"4\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"New Criminal Law Review\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2021.24.4.601\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"Social Sciences\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"New Criminal Law Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2021.24.4.601","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
What is the rate of wrongful conviction? This question may be implicit in Blackstone’s ratio: “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” Scholarship designed to provide an empirical answer, however, emerged only with the rise of the “innocence movement” in the United States. This article does not provide another study estimating the rate of wrongful felony conviction either for a specified sample, such as death sentences within a specified time period, or for an entire jurisdiction. Instead, we evaluate the rate question itself and assess its importance to innocence scholarship and action. We first trace the question’s intellectual lineage, and its historical and ideological roots among innocence believers and innocence skeptics. We then describe and evaluate all or most of the published studies attempting to estimate the wrongful conviction rate. Next, we discuss a reoccurring limitation of this published work, namely, its failure to account for or its unsubstantiated assumptions about guilty pleas and misdemeanor convictions among innocent defendants. Finally, we question the continued importance of the rate question in light of the modern innocence movement and its growing accomplishments.
期刊介绍:
Focused on examinations of crime and punishment in domestic, transnational, and international contexts, New Criminal Law Review provides timely, innovative commentary and in-depth scholarly analyses on a wide range of criminal law topics. The journal encourages a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches and is a crucial resource for criminal law professionals in both academia and the criminal justice system. The journal publishes thematic forum sections and special issues, full-length peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, and occasional correspondence.