Miscarriage of justice
A miscarriage of justice refers to a failure in the legal system that results in an unjust outcome, typically manifesting in two primary forms: the wrongful conviction of an innocent person and the unfair acquittal of a guilty individual. These incidents can provoke significant controversy and public discourse, often highlighting the complexities and imperfections within the criminal justice system. High-profile cases, such as those involving O. J. Simpson and George Zimmerman, illustrate how public perception can sway opinions about justice and injustice, leading to emotional responses from victims, families, and communities. Miscarriages of justice not only occur during trials but can happen at various stages of the criminal process, including wrongful arrests or failures to apprehend guilty parties. Such outcomes can foster skepticism towards legal institutions and ignite political debates that may lead to policy changes. While both forms are troubling, many view wrongful convictions as the more severe issue, as they directly impact the lives of innocent individuals. Understanding miscarriages of justice is crucial for advocating reform and ensuring a fairer justice system for all.
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Miscarriage of justice
SIGNIFICANCE: Whether a criminal justice outcome should be considered a miscarriage of justice is often difficult to determine and can be a source of controversy between groups with opposing viewpoints. Attention placed on an actual or perceived miscarriage of justice can result in political debate and sometimes government policy changes.
Miscarriages of justice fall into two basic groups: unfair acquittals of the guilty and unfair convictions of the innocent. Acquittals of defendants whom many people believe are guilty—such as former football star O. J. Simpson —often generate as much or more attention in the media as punishments of the guilty. Although acquittals of offenders who are perceived to be guilty can cause considerable heartache to the victims of crime and their families and can increase public skepticism about criminal justice, most people would consider false convictions of innocent defendants to be the more serious of the two types of miscarriages of justice.
Miscarriages of justice occur not only in trial outcomes but also at other steps of the criminal justice system. For example, the wrongful arrest of an innocent person is as much a miscarriage of justice as a police officer’s conscious decision not to arrest a guilty offender who has harmed another person.
Bibliography
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Dwyer, Jim, Peter Neufeld, and Barry Scheck. Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted. Garden City: Doubleday, 2000. Print
Friedman, Joseph. "Miscarriages of Justice." LSJ Online, 25 Jan. 2023, lsj.com.au/articles/miscarriages-of-justice/. Accessed 8 July 2024.
Gershman, Bennett. “Themes of Injustice: Wrongful Convictions, Racial Prejudice, and Lawyer Incompetence.” In Criminal Courts for the Twenty-first Century, edited by Lisa Stolzenberg and Stewart D’Alessio. Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 1998. Print.
Westervelt, Saundra, and John Humphrey. Wrongly Convicted: Perspectives on Failed Justice. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2001. Print.