The participants addressed four key areas: making appropriate arrests, correcting wrongful arrests, leveraging technology and forensic science, and re-examining closed cases. The 30 recommendations that emerged from the Summit address these areas in order to build a foundation for changes in investigative protocols, policies, training, supervision, and assessment. A key theme of the recommendations is the importance of all justice system agencies being open to new information at any point in the investigation, arrest, prosecution, trial, and subsequent appeal of a defendant. This means that any time new information about a case that comes to the attention of professionals involved in the case, it should be made known to all parties and carefully examined to determine whether a new direction in the case is needed. Summit participants expressed a unanimous confidence that mistakes, omissions, and judgment errors leading to wrongful convictions can be prevented. This requires better communication, training, protocols, supervision, assessment and review, and a culture of openness to new information. Law enforcement must lead this effort, since it is at the front-end of the process. Case examples are provided, along with nine resources. Appended listings of the Summit Advisory Group, Summit participants, and project staff
Downloads
Similar Publications
- Introducing "DoPP": A Graphical User-Friendly Application for the Rapid Species Identification of Psychoactive Plant Materials and Quantification of Psychoactive Small Molecules Using DART-MS Data
- Forensic Science and the Courts - The Uses and Effects of Scientific Evidence in Criminal Case Processing - Final Report
- Review of Fingerprint Individuality Models