User:Minney23/Miscarriage of justice

A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.

Academic studies have found that the main factors contributing to miscarriages of justice are: eyewitness misidentification; faulty forensic analysis; false confessions by vulnerable suspects; perjury and lies stated by witnesses; misconduct by police, prosecutors or judges; and/or ineffective assistance of counsel (e.g., inadequate defense strategies by the defendant's or respondent's legal team).

Some prosecutors' offices undertake conviction integrity reviews to prevent, identify, and correct wrongful convictions.

The compensation for wrongful conviction will never be enough. As we know that people usually stay behind bars for years before they get compensated and released from the trap that injustice put them in. This adds to the dilemma of the distrust in the justice that has been formed. Even though DNA results are usually the results that breaks the cycle of injustice for those wrongfully convicted we also know that DNA results could also put the wrongful conviction on someone because it's not all the way accurate.

Spain[edit]
The Constitution of Spain guarantees compensation in cases of miscarriage of justice. This guarantee was put in place in 2019 as the Spanish Constitutional Court had decided to give compensation to those who were wrongfully convicted. This guarantee also applies to those who have been acquitted of their charges or their case has been dismissed .

United Kingdom[edit]
In the United Kingdom a jailed person, whose conviction is quashed, might be paid compensation for the time they were incarcerated. This is currently limited by statute to a maximum sum of £1,000,000 for those who have been incarcerated for more than ten years and £500,000 for any other cases, with deductions for the cost of food and prison cell during that time. See also Overturned convictions in the United Kingdom.

Richard Foster, the Chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), reported in October 2018 that the single biggest cause of miscarriage of justice was the failure to disclose vital evidence.

A major factor leading to the abolition of capital punishment for murder in the United Kingdom was the case of Timothy Evans, who was executed in 1950 after being wrongfully convicted of a murder that had in fact been committed by his neighbour.

Scotland[edit]
The Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Act 1927 increased the jurisdiction of the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal following the miscarriage of justice surrounding the Trial of Oscar Slater.

Reflecting Scotland's own legal system, which differs from that of the rest of the United Kingdom, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) was established in April 1999. All cases accepted by the SCCRC are subjected to a robust and thoroughly impartial review before a decision on whether or not to refer to the High Court of Justiciary is taken.