Ending Wrongful Convictions in California

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

As the Governor and Assembly Republicans fall over one another to prevent the courts from ending our absurd penchant for excessive imprisonment to prove we’re tough on crime -- costs and effectiveness be damned -- at least three State Senators want to provide a whiff of sanity to our criminal justice process. Explains Natasha Minsker, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California:

"Convicting the guilty while protecting the innocent is the most fundamental goal of our criminal justice system. Yet, all too often, we fall short. …

DNA evidence has proven some of our mistakes, but it is not the magic bullet that will prevent these mistakes in the future. DNA evidence is available in less than 15% of cases. That’s why we need to fix the problems that send innocent people to prison.

Three bills currently in the California Legislature would help prevent the most common causes of wrongful conviction:

Senate Bill 511 (Alquist) will require the electronic recording of police interrogation in cases involving homicides and other violent felonies. 
 
Senate Bill 756 (Ridley-Thomas) will require the appointment of a task force to draft voluntary guidelines for the conduct of police line-ups and photo arrays to increase the accuracy of eyewitness identifications.

Senate Bill 609 (Romero) will require the corroboration of testimony by jailhouse informants."

While these bills do not address the root of California’s prison conundrum (far too much emphasis on punishing and far too little emphasis on rehabilitating), they will at least help ensure that the people we throw behind bars and occasionally execute actually committed the crimes for which they are accused.

For more information on efforts to prevent wrongful convictions, see here.