A new report released by The Justice Project, ​“Convicting the Innocent: Texas Justice Derailed,” ana­lyzes the cas­es of 39 inno­cent Texans who col­lec­tive­ly spent more than 500 years in prison for crimes they did not com­mit. The study focus­es on these non-cap­i­tal crimes as it rec­om­mends reforms Texas should imple­ment to improve the qual­i­ty of evi­dence used and reduce the risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Eyewitness misiden­ti­fi­ca­tion was the lead­ing cause of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in Texas, where only 12% of law enforce­ment agen­cies have writ­ten pro­ce­dures to guide the eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion process. Many oth­er cas­es con­tained faulty or absent DNA or flawed foren­sics from police crime labs.

Other fac­tors lead­ing to wrong­ful con­vic­tions includ­ed false con­fes­sions and guilty pleas, sup­pres­sion of excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence, false tes­ti­mo­ny from infor­mants or accom­plices with incen­tives to lie, false foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny, and unre­li­able or lim­it­ed foren­sic method­olo­gies. The full report is avail­able here.

(R. Khanna, ​“Study: Witness errors lead juries astray,” Houston Chronicle, March 26, 2009). See Studies and Innocence.

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