刑事错案背后的心理偏差及其矫正北大核心

刑事错案产生的心理偏差主要包括因惰性、经验等感情因素而导致的心理偏差和因错误的价值取向导致的心理偏差。这些心理偏差分别表现在侦查阶段、检察环节和审判阶段,并导致刑事错案的形成。校正刑事司法中的心理偏差,应当更新侦查机关侦查思维,转变检察机关审查逮捕理念及方式,转变审判机关的审判理念,并弱化外部环境对司法人员心理偏差的影响。     

冤假错案与刑事错案之辨析

冤假错案是对冤案、假案、错案的笼统说法,通常又被认为是刑事错案的代名词.冤案、假案、错案及刑事错案,既有联系,又有区别.刑事错案是刑事司法领域中的错案,其可以表现为冤案,也可以表现为假案,或者既是冤案,又是假案.研究刑事错案对于深化刑事司法改革,提高刑事司法的公正性水平,具有重要的实践意义,对于丰富刑事司法理论和刑事诉讼法学,也具有重要的理论意义.     

刑事错案原因的多维透视

导致刑事错案的原因多种多样,其中既有司法理念、程序设置方面的原因,也有来自舆论影响、干预司法等方面的原因,更有错案责任追究制度方面的原因。刑事错案可以发生在刑事诉讼程序各个阶段,错案的发生与公安、司法机关均有关系。通过对刑事错案原因的多维透视,最大限度防范刑事错案的发生。     

从刑事错案追究谈我国司法善后的完善

刑事错案成为刑事司法活动中的副产品,其发生难以杜绝。为了防范错案的发生,提高办案质量,杜绝司法腐败,出台了"错案追究制"。刑事错案追究制带来了许多负面效应。冤假错案频繁发生、人权保障和司法公正需要刑事错案的司法善后。完善刑事错案司法纠正、刑事错案司法赔偿、刑事错案司法追究、刑事错案过滤和发现机制。     

浅析刑事错案防范机制的构建

近年来,刑事错案不断被复制,其原因错综复杂,既有侦查、审查起诉、审判等环节上的问题,又有司法理念上的狭隘性和局限性,多重原因的综合作用导致错案积重难返。刑事错案的预防是一项系统工程,不仅要落实到刑事诉讼程序的各个阶段,更要从司法理念上加以改进,从而构建我国刑事错案防范机制。     

浅谈刑事错案的成因及预防对策

2013年4月25日,经历了一整天的庭审后,河南省平顶山中级人民法院作出再审判决:当庭宣告"李怀亮无罪,立即释放"。至此,这起全国瞩目的"死刑保证书案"终于尘埃落定。该案连同近期曝光的浙江省"张辉、张高平错案"一起,再次引起了巨大的社会反响,这些错案不仅严重损害了司法的公正和权威,也使得人们对守住司法公平正义的最后一道防线产生了疑虑和不安。因此,如何构建科学有效的刑事错案预防机制以最大程度减少直至避免刑事错案,对我国刑事司法制度的有效运行具有重大的现实意义。本文就预防刑事错案的路径作分析探讨。     

刑事错案的深层次原因——以检察环节为中心的分析

检察机关在刑事诉讼中的职能与地位决定了大多数刑事错案的形成与发展都与检察机关的诉讼活动有关。因此,检察机关制定有效预防错案的对策有必要首先从检察环节寻找原因。本文主要以刑事诉讼过程的检察环节为研究对象,具体分析了传统法律文化的影响、刑事诉讼机制、刑事司法机关工作机制和司法机关与外部关系方面导致刑事错案形成或继续发展的主要因素及其作用机理,认为这些深层次原因的共同作用削弱了刑事司法机关预防错案的功能。     

从刑事错案的产生原因看如何防范错案

错案形成的原因主要是由于刑事司法理念较落后,以及现行刑事诉讼机制存在一定缺陷,同时相关人员的司法能力不强也在一定程度上催化了刑事错案的发生。因而,强化现代刑事司法理念,完善诉讼制度,改善司法环境,从而建立长效机制,是避免冤错案件发生的必由之路。     

和谐语境下的刑事错案研究

我国学者对何为刑事错案的问题存在着认识上的严重分歧,这显然不利于发挥理论对司法实践的明确指导作用。鉴于此,有必要厘清人们对刑事错案的模糊认识,探讨刑事错案产生缘由及其应对之策,为司法实践提供理论上的支持,尽可能地减少错案的发生,确保司法公正得以最大限度地实现。     

刑事错案成因及预防

刑事错案存在主体的特定性、主观可归责性、客观失真性等特点。落后的刑事司法观念,刑事司法人员整体素质不高,法律规定存在缺陷以及司法体制机制存在诸多不足是形成刑事错案的重要成因。应从提高刑事司法人员的素质,建立健全科学有效的司法体制,强化辩方力量赋予律师完整的辩护权以及完善相关证据制度,践行非法证据排除规则等方面预防刑事错案。     

Officials' Estimates of the Incidence of “Actual Innocence” Convictions

Evidence indicates that the conviction and imprisonment of factually innocent persons occur with some regularity. Most research focuses on causes, but the incidence of wrongful convictions is an important scientific and policy issue, especially as no official body gathers data on miscarriages of justice. Two methods are available for discovering the incidence of wrongful conviction: (1) enumerating specific cases and (2) having criminal justice experts estimate its incidence. Counts or catalogues of wrongful conviction necessarily undercount its incidence and are subject to accuracy challenges. We surveyed Michigan criminal justice officials, replicating a recent Ohio survey, to obtain an expert estimate of the incidence of wrongful conviction. All groups combined estimated that wrongful convictions occurred at a rate of less than ½ percent in their own jurisdiction and at a rate of 1–3 percent in the United States. Defense lawyers estimate higher rates of wrongful conviction than judges, who estimate higher rates than police officials and prosecutors. These differences may be explained by professional socialization. An overall wrongful conviction estimate of ½ percent extrapolates to about 5,000 wrongful felony convictions and the imprisonment of more than 2,000 innocent persons in the United States every year.     

Case rethinking: a protocol for reviewing criminal investigations

Mistakes in decision-making have been identified as the most common type of error in police investigations. Consequently, wrongful convictions and other types of criminal investigative failure may require a complete case ‘rethinking,’ particularly when new evidence disrupts the existing theory. A rush to judgment resulting in a premature shift from an evidence-based to a suspect-based investigation can produce a number of problematic thinking errors. Faulty assumptions, tunnel vision, groupthink, and other cognitive biases and organizational traps hinder evidentiary interpretation and evaluation. This article outlines a protocol for reviewing evidence and rethinking a wrongful conviction or unsolved crime when the existing investigative theory appears to be incorrect. The protocol involves four stages: (1) evidence; (2) interpretation; (3) patterns; and (4) analysis.     

The Criminal Justice System Creates Incentives for False Convictions

Abstract

The American criminal justice system creates incentives for false conviction. For example, many public crime labs are funded in part per conviction. We show that the number of false convictions per year in the American criminal justice system should be considered “high.” We examine the incentives of police, forensic scientists, prosecutors, and public defenders in the U.S. Police, prosecutors, and forensic scientists often have an incentive to garner convictions with little incentive to convict the right person. These incentives create what economists call a “multitask problem” that seems to be resulting in a needlessly high rate of false convictions. Public defenders lack the resources and incentives needed to provide a vigorous defense for their clients. Corrective measures are discussed, along with a call for more research.     

The adequacy of China's responses to wrongful convictions

This paper examines a series of reforms that followed the discovery of high-profile wrongful convictions in China since 2005. There have been two waves of criminal justice reforms to prevent future wrongful convictions and to improve China's criminal justice system more generally. But it will be suggested in this paper that China's responses are inadequate because they allow traditional police and judicial practices that will lead to future wrongful convictions to continue. Further reforms will be suggested. First, police interrogations should be fully recorded, and the entire recording should be played back at trial. Second, the role of the defense counsel should be expanded. The use of state secrets as evidence against the accused should be curtailed. The close cooperation between the police, procuratorates and judiciary in the criminal justice should be counteracted by the creation of an independent body to review all serious convictions. Finally, the Chinese criminal justice has proven itself not safe enough to allow the broad use of capital punishment as a punishment for non-violent offences and at the very least, the immediate execution of prisoners who lose their final appeal must be abolished.     

Advancing Wrongful Conviction Scholarship: Toward New Conceptual Frameworks

As wrongful conviction scholarship grows, some scholars have suggested that existing research on miscarriages of justice lacks theoretical grounding and methodological sophistication, arguing that the use of social science theory may help to better understand wrongful convictions. In this article, we suggest that it may be useful to draw upon conceptual frameworks found in traditional criminal justice studies, discuss what such approaches might suggest about miscarriages of justice, and begin to explore the questions or topics they may encourage interested researchers to pursue. Furthermore, through this broad theoretical lens, we can see that criminal justice theory is present, at least implicitly, in some existing innocence literature, and that making such theoretical connections more explicit may help to move the study of wrongful conviction into the mainstream of criminal justice research.     

Prosecutor Risk,Maturation, and Wrongful Conviction Practice

In this article we rethink the connection between prosecutorial experience and conviction psychology that undergirds much of the academic literature about wrongful convictions. The conviction psychology account of prosecutorial behavior asserts that prosecutorial susceptibility to cognitive biases deepens over time, thereby increasing the risk that prosecutors will become involved in wrongful convictions the longer they stay in the profession. Our interviews with more than 200 state prosecutors call into question the basis for this asserted correlation between prosecutorial experience and risk of misconduct. The prosecutors we met consistently reported that, all else equal, prosecutors tend to become more balanced, rather than more adversarial, over time. Hence, the prosecutors who present the greatest risk of producing a wrongful conviction are those who are either inexperienced or resistant to the normal maturation process. For this reason, we suggest that wrongful conviction researchers and database designers pay closer attention to the variables associated with prosecutorial experience and resistance that might affect the development of prosecutorial maturity and the consequent risk of wrongful convictions.     

Wrongful convictions and claims of false or misleading forensic evidence

The results are reported of a study to examine case factors associated with 732 wrongful convictions classified by the National Registry of Exonerations as being associated with “False or Misleading Forensic Evidence.” A forensic error typology has been developed to provide a structure for the categorization and coding of factors relating to misstatements in forensic science reports; errors of individualization or classification; testimony errors; issues relating to trials and officers of the court; and evidence handling and reporting issues. This study, which included the analysis of 1391 forensic examinations, demonstrates that most errors related to forensic evidence are not identification or classification errors by forensic scientists. When such errors are made, they are frequently associated with incompetent or fraudulent examiners, disciplines with an inadequate scientific foundation, or organizational deficiencies in training, management, governance, or resources. More often, forensic reports or testimony miscommunicate results, do not conform to established standards, or fail to provide appropriate limiting information. Just as importantly, actors within the broader criminal justice system—but not under the purview of any forensic science organization—may contribute to errors that may be related to the forensic evidence. System issues include reliance on presumptive tests without confirmation by a forensic laboratory, use of independent experts outside the administrative control of public laboratories, inadequate defense, and suppression or misrepresentation of forensic evidence by investigators or prosecutors. In approximately half of wrongful convictions analyzed, improved technology, testimony standards, or practice standards may have prevented a wrongful conviction at the time of trial.     

Iron triangle of the gong jian fa: Lessons from wrongful convictions in capital cases?

This article examines the iron triangle of the gong jian fa (police, prosecutors and courts) in China, based on Chinese lessons from high-profile wrongful convictions in capital cases. It argues that the iron triangle acts as both an administrative and a political control on such cases, behind which lies overly close cooperation between the three state institutions. This cooperation often results from coordination by local political-legal committees (PLCs). Under this institutional environment, the police, prosecutors and courts have to work together and cooperate with combating crime, without necessary restricts to ensure criminal justice even in capital cases. Responding to repeated occurrences of such typical injustices, China has promoted several waves of justice reforms to prevent and reduce wrongful convictions over the last ten years, but has failed to make substantive progress without effectively addressing the iron triangle. This continued failure calls for a holistic approach to future systemic reform. Particularly, specific measures are required to enhance judicial independence and to reduce intervention from local PLCs during the handling of individual cases. Such reforms would greatly reduce the risk of wrongful convictions in capital cases.     

Miscarriages of Justice and the Discourse of Innocence: Perspectives from Appellants,Campaigners, Journalists,and Legal Practitioners

This article problematizes the discourse of innocence in relation to victims of wrongful conviction operating within the criminal justice system. For appellants whose convictions have been quashed by the Court of Appeal, notions of innocence are often at odds with how others perceive and understand the purpose of criminal trials and appeals. This article will examine the views of legal practitioners, journalists, and victims of wrongful conviction and their supporters regarding factual innocence and how misunderstanding can sometimes lead to miscommunication by actors operating within the same system. The article will further examine the issue of compensation in light of the recent ruling by the Supreme Court and conclude that the current debate regarding what constitutes a miscarriage of justice continues to confuse legal practitioners and prolong the anxiety suffered by victims recovering from the trauma of wrongful imprisonment and subsequent losses.     

The color of confinement: examining youth exoneration decisions and the critical race theory

Abstract

The critical race theory has been predictive of how minority youth are treated in the juvenile and criminal justice systems in the United States. However, the theory has not been applied in explaining the existence of wrongful convictions among juveniles. Using secondary data derived from the National Exoneration Registry, the purpose of this study is to identify specific factors (e.g., DNA evidence, etc.) related to the wrongful convictions of Black youth who have been exonerated. Compared to other racial categories, the results reveal that Black youth are more likely to experience wrongful convictions as a result of false confessions, faulty eyewitness identification, perjury, and official misconduct. Limitations, policy implications, and areas of further investigation are offered.