Using the exoneree summaries in the Innocence Project and the documentation in the Innocence Record, we analyze the content of the alibis of those who have been wrongly convicted and exonerated with the use of DNA. Sixty-five percent of the 377 DNA exonerees had an alibi. Fifty-one percent reported that their alibi corroborators were friends and/or family members, while only about 10% presented physical evidence to support their alibi. Those with an alibi were significantly less likely to falsely confess than those without an alibi. Eyewitnesses were significantly more likely to be a contributing cause of conviction for those with an alibi than for those without an alibi, and 27% of the exonerees with an alibi had only eyewitness evidence to implicate them. Those that had an alibi were also more likely to claim that they had an inadequate defense than those that did not have an alibi. We conclude this paper with recommendations for reforms and future research.
We analyzed the role that jailhouse informants have played in DNA exoneration cases. Thus, for the first 375 DNA exoneration cases compiled by the Innocence Project (IP), we reviewed the IP information relevant to jailhouse informant testimony. We supplemented the information from IP with that from the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE) and the Convicting the Innocent (CTI) databases. We found that 15% of these cases included jailhouse informant testimony. In 13% of the cases, the only evidence supporting a conviction was the word of the jailhouse informant. We also found that in 24% of cases which had at least one jailhouse informant, the informant recanted, and in 13% percent of these cases, the jailhouse informant had provided the only evidence supporting a conviction. There has recently been an effort in some jurisdictions for reform with regard to informant testimony. Reforms have taken many forms (e.g., pretrial hearings, jury instructions). While states should continue to consider adopting procedures in an effort to curb the reliance on unreliable informants (and researchers should continue to test what reforms will best achieve these goals), we recommend that any reform with regard to informants should include a consideration of recanting informants.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.