Clinton-era bill makes it harder to reverse wrongful convictions, writer says

Critics of how the 1994 crime bill spurred mass incarceration have overlooked another Clinton era bill that had an equally damaging effect on the U.S. criminal justice system, Liliana Segura writes in The Intercept.

Segura says the politically motivated Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, or AEDPA, merits debate because of how it “has shut the courthouse door on prisoners trying to prove they were wrongfully convicted.”

“Americans are mostly unaware of this legacy, even as we know more than ever about wrongful convictions,” she says. You can read her article here.

You can read about the Wrongly Convicted Group’s petition urging the AEDPA’s reform here.