On January 18, 2011, Kevin Benefield was convicted of the rape and murder of Barbara Pelkey in Wallingford, Conn. Benefield was deemed guilty on the basis of DNA evidence, which exonerated Kenneth Ireland, the man initially convicted of the crimes. Ireland's newfound freedom was bittersweet. It arrived only after he had spent more than 20 years in prison, having been arrested at age 18 and convicted wrongfully in 1989.

Ireland is hardly alone. Stories of people cleared of crimes following erroneous convictions have become ubiquitous fixtures of the news cycle. Many of these errors have been exposed with the aid of welcome scientific advances, especially DNA analysis. But wouldn't it be better if a systematic approach were available to help prevent wrongful convictions and other serious miscarriages of justice in the first place?

This article was originally published with the title Your Brain on Trial.

4 Comments

1. 1. jayjacobus 09:55 AM 12/31/12

   In business a non-conformance should cause a company to take corrective and preventive action.
   
   A wrongful conviction is a nonconformance in the judicial system. Corrective action is the release of the person who has been wrongfully convicted and the conviction of the actual criminal.
   
   Preventive action requires the examination of the root cause, modifications in the system to prevent the wrongful conviction in the future and the understanding of how the system failed. A specific wrong should have a general solution that improves the results of future trials.
   
   The trick is to improve the judicial system such that the error is prevented without creating a loophole for future criminals. This is not easy but at least the judicial leaders should try.
   
   As an example, a convict who passes a lie detector test might be given special priveleges until the conflicting evidence is resolved. Once it is resolved he (or she) should be released or the priveleges revoked.
   
   It may also be that average juries have a natural bias toward conviction because an accused suspect is in a suspicous class such as "the suspect would not have been brought to trial for no reason."
   
   I have been on a jury where this thinking was evident. Moreover, judges seem to favor this thinking when they decide a "minor" case.
   
   That the judicial system has flaws is understandable. What is not understandable is the continued use of a flawed system.

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2. 2. jtdwyer in reply to jayjacobus 09:59 AM 1/25/13

   I agree with your approach, but IMO it is law enforcement's reliance on supposed 'lie detectors' that is one of the corrections that should be made. There are good reasons why these test results are not admissible in court, but they are considered reliable and compelling evidence for law enforcement and direct their investigations. As I understand, it is criminal sociopaths who are most likely to pass such tests.
   
   One of the other issues that seems to have been involved in past wrongful convictions is reliance on eye-witness testimony (again at least often directing investigations), which has been convincingly demonstrated to be unreliable, especially over time.
   
   I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion - people are only human, after all...

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3. 3. alan6302 10:12 AM 1/25/13

   A native in Canada was convicted of raping and killing a 4 year old . She actually died of a vaccine reaction. Pharma will go to incredible lengths to cover their screw ups. The evidence against him was a teddy bear hair and a couple of delusional doctors. One doctor was fired, the other had a race card.

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4. 4. Colin den Ronden 12:51 AM 5/15/13

   There is a book 'Our Corrupt Legal System' which addresses this issue. It can be downloaded free from netk.net.au/whitton/ocls.pdf

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