Rate of False Convictions
Comment: New Study Estimates Rate of False Convictions at 11.6% - 5 December 2017
A report by the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. estimates that the defendants were
innocent in 11.6% percent of rape and rape-murder convictions in Virginia from in the 1970s and
1980s. The origins of this study go back several decades.
What We Think, What We Know and What We Think We Know about False Convictions (pages 763-769) - 3 June 2017
False convictions are notoriously difficult to study because they can neither be observed when they occur nor identified after the fact by any plausible research strategy. Our best shot is to collect data on those that come to light in legal proceedings that result in the exoneration of the convicted defendants.
Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who aresentenced to death - 25 March 2014
The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. We use survival analysis to model this effect, and estimate
that if all death-sentenced defendants remained under sentence
of death indefinitely at least 4.1% would be exonerated.
How Many False Convictions are There? How Many Exonerations are There? - 13 March 2013
The most common question about false convictions is also the simplest: How many are there? The answer, unfortunately, is almost always the same and always disappointing: We don’t know. Recently, however, we have learned enough to be able to qualify our ignorance in two important respects.