A two-year study of 11 wrong­ful con­vic­tion cas­es in Virginia found that mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is the major rea­son inno­cent peo­ple have been con­vict­ed in the state. The report’s rec­om­men­da­tions note that Virginia could dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce the num­ber of wrong­ful con­vic­tions through a series of reforms, such as chang­ing a vari­ety of police pro­ce­dures, relax­ing the state’s 21-day rule to allow evi­dence of inno­cence to be con­sid­ered beyond this time restric­tion, ensur­ing that pros­e­cu­tors pro­vide defense attor­neys with evi­dence favor­able to defen­dants, and improv­ing the qual­i­ty of legal help giv­en to poor peo­ple in Virginia. The state cur­rent­ly pays court-appoint­ed lawyers the low­est fees in the nation. Researchers con­duct­ing the study close­ly exam­ined the cas­es of 11 wrong­ly con­vict­ed per­sons in Virginia who had spent a total of 118 years in prison for crimes they did not com­mit. Nine of the 11 cas­es involved mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty by vic­tims or oth­er eye­wit­ness­es, espe­cial­ly when the eye­wit­ness was of one race and the alleged per­pe­tra­tor or anoth­er. The review was spear­head­ed by the Innocence Commission for Virginia, a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort of The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, the Administration of Justice Program at George Mason University, and The Constitution Project. 

(Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 30, 2005) See Innocence. Read the study: A Vision for Justice.

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