[Innocent Project]

by

Innocence Project

Introduction

Richard Alexander is an Indiana man wrongfully convicted of rape and subsequent exonerated by DNA evidence. DNA has verified to be a crucial procedure in enquiry for regulation enforcement officials. It has assisted to put numerous persons in jail and out of prison. In 1992 the Innocence Project was formed, the reason of the Innocence Project is to enquire past situations and by utilising DNA expertise, verifying supposes innocent. Since the formation of the Innocence Project 245 persons have been exonerated. These persons assisted an mean of 13 years in prison. The Innocence Project is formed of sever full time lawyers and volunteer health students.

The argument lives on the determinants of wrongful convictions over the homeland in latest years. In this paper our assembly will talk about the determinants of wrongful conviction furthermore renowned as a miscarriage of justice. This term paper will furthermore talk about modes in which the court scheme can assist to decrease or eradicate these causes (Coyne 2002).

Discussion and Analysis

Arrest and conviction

In 1996 a supposed successive rapist named by localized newspapers the "River Park Rapist" preyed on feminine inhabitants of South Bend, Indiana. Police apprehended Richard Alexander (then 30 years old) in August 1996 for four of the rapes, mostly on the cornerstone of the declarations of the victims.

DNA clues definitively omitted him as a suppose in one of the rapes, whereas both the casualty and her fiancé proceeded to assert that Alexander was the perpetrator. Not all of the examiners were assured of his guilt, especially as three alike rapes appeared while Alexander was in policeman custody. In the case of one of the rapes that took location while he was in custody, Alexander's image was unintentionally put in a photo-lineup shown to the victim. She chosen his image as that of her assailant, regardless of his incarceration at the time of the offense (Newton, 2004).

Nevertheless, Alexander was prosecuted for the three rapes, with allegations totaling two enumerations of robbery, two enumerations of lawless individual deviate perform, two enumerations of tried rape, confinement, tried robbery, rape, burglary and auto theft. His 1997 test completed in a dangled committee, and he was re-tried for the misdeeds in 1998. At the second test, one of the victims, though recognising Alexander as her assailant, claimed that he had a hairless barrel without tattoos. When it was illustrated that Alexander had a hairy, very powerfully tattooed barrel, he was acquitted of that rape. Nevertheless, he was convicted of the other two and was punished to seventy years in prison.

Exoneration

In 2001, with Alexander currently having assisted five years in jail, an supposed burglar and progeny molester entitled Michael Murphy confessed to one of the two rapes of which Alexander had been convicted, understanding minutia only the factual assailant would know. With this revelation, a referee organised a new around of DNA checking in Alexander's case. Hairs discovered at the view of the rape were submitted to mitochondrial DNA checking by U.S. firm Reliagene. At the time of Alexander's initial ...