Category Archives: Defense lawyering (good and bad)

The polygraph and false confessions

Posted on February 23, 2012 by | 13 comments

False confessions are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. According to the Innocence Project, about 25 percent of the documented DNA exoneration cases involved incriminating statements, full confessions or guilty pleas by innocent suspects.

The polygraph is an important tool in the extraction of false confessions. Despite the well-documented inaccuracy of the polygraph, police in North America (less so in Europe and other areas) still rely heavily on the “lie detector” and its even less accurate cousin, the voice stress analyzer, in the investigative process.  If an innocent suspect fails the polygraph exam, police will use the results to persuade him or her that they must be guilty. In some cases, police will tell the suspect that they failed the exam even when they didn’t in an attempt to obtain a confession.

Given the polygraph’s inaccuracy and record of being used to obtain confessions, I am continually amazed to come across cases in which defense attorneys Continue reading →

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Posted in Defense lawyering (good and bad), Editorials/Opinion, Exonerations, False confessions, Inquisitional and adversarial systems of justice, Junk science, Police conduct (good and bad), Uncategorized

Injustice to increase due to cuts in interpreter service?

Posted on February 17, 2012 by | 1 comment

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In the UK, we have already had cases where gross injustice has occurred because of a lack of proper translation during trials (see the infamous Satpal Ram case here… and here… where Bengali witness testimony was not translated because of a lack of an interpreter and the judge said that the court would ‘get the gist’ of their vital testimony with him translating even though he didn’t speak Bengali.) Now cuts to the justice system risk even greater, and more frequent injustice with cuts to the interpreter service. It cannot be underestimated how important it is for the suspect/defendant to be able to know what is being said, and for the authorities and juries etc. to understand exactly what the defendant is saying.

Read BBC news item here:

Court chaos follows interpreter change

“The government is hoping to save £18m a year by changing how interpreters are provided for court hearings – but it is said the new system is causing chaos and costly delays.”

And the fallout, just two weeks into the new private interpreter contract:

Courts given green light to hire own interpreters as ALS struggles to cope

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Posted in Defense lawyering (good and bad), Inquisitional and adversarial systems of justice, United Kingdom

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Innocence Project Founded in Taiwan on Dec.17, 2011

Posted on February 17, 2012 by

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Prof. Wang Jaw-Perng On Dec. 17, 2011, National Taiwan University law professor Wang Jaw-Perng and three local attorneys announced the establishment of Taiwan Innocence Project. Besides the above-mentioned four initiators, 33 people working in the fields of culture, medicine, religion and social … Continue reading →

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American Indian Injustice

Posted on February 15, 2012 by

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American Indian reservations are, to a certain extent, a world unto themselves. Tribal councils, rather than the U.S. government or state governments, generally control what happens on America’s 300-plus reservations on which many native Americans still live. But not when … Continue reading →

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