Should a Constitution Protect Innocent People from Criminal Conviction?: CCCJ Seminar
Published at : November 26, 2021
The Cambridge Centre for Criminal Justice hosted a public lecture by Tim Bakken, Professor of Law at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, on Thursday, 25 November.
Based on his forthcoming book, The Plea of Innocence: Searching for Truth in a Justice System (New York University Press, 2022), Professor Bakken discussed why the U.S. Supreme Court has been unwilling to conclude that the American Constitution prohibits the conviction of an innocent person. The Constitution and the adversarial system may guarantee only fair processes, not a search for truth.
The lecture includes a discussion of the high legal barriers that convicted innocent people must surmount to obtain exoneration. One important question preliminary question is whether the current percentage of innocent-person convictions, possibly, for example, about 4.1 percent of all the people convicted in death-penalty cases in America, is too high, too low, or acceptable, given that no legal system can eliminate all wrongful convictions.
For fuller information see: https://www.cccj.law.cam.ac.uk/press/events/2021/11/cccj-seminar-should-constitution-protect-innocent-people-criminal-conviction
Based on his forthcoming book, The Plea of Innocence: Searching for Truth in a Justice System (New York University Press, 2022), Professor Bakken discussed why the U.S. Supreme Court has been unwilling to conclude that the American Constitution prohibits the conviction of an innocent person. The Constitution and the adversarial system may guarantee only fair processes, not a search for truth.
The lecture includes a discussion of the high legal barriers that convicted innocent people must surmount to obtain exoneration. One important question preliminary question is whether the current percentage of innocent-person convictions, possibly, for example, about 4.1 percent of all the people convicted in death-penalty cases in America, is too high, too low, or acceptable, given that no legal system can eliminate all wrongful convictions.
For fuller information see: https://www.cccj.law.cam.ac.uk/press/events/2021/11/cccj-seminar-should-constitution-protect-innocent-people-criminal-conviction
ShouldConstitutionProtect