Flawed Forensics, Junk Science, and Innocence

Of the indi­vid­u­als iden­ti­fied on DPI’s Innocence List, 65 of these exonerees were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death at least par­tial­ly based upon junk sci­ence or flawed foren­sic sci­ence. The sci­ence used in these cas­es includes arson sci­ence, bal­lis­tic­s/­­tool-mark evi­dence, fin­ger­print evi­dence, and even hypnosis.

Nearly 60% of exonerees whose con­vic­tions were based on junk sci­ence are peo­ple of col­or, and almost half (47.7%) are Black.