Carrie Sperling of the Arizona Justice Project has posted Defense Lawyer Tunnel Vision: The Oft-Ignored Rule Defense Counsel Plays in Wrongful Convictions on SSRN. Full paper here.

The abstract states:

This article discusses the sometimes forgotten role that defense lawyers play in wrongful convictions. Often, strong cases of actual innocence are thwarted by defense lawyers’ failure to preserve a defendant’s procedural avenues for relief. The article reminds lawyers that procedural errors have long-lasting consequences for the innocent who have been wrongly convicted.