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Essay / Jack White Case Study - 1301
Being brought before a judge for a crime you did not commit is something that happens too often. In fact, it happens so much that nonprofit organizations like the Association for Defense of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) identify, defend, and exonerate individuals who have been convicted of a crime. Influences on wrongful convictions are mainly caused by misidentification by eyewitnesses and false confessions. Misidentifications and false confessions cripple the criminal justice system because it relies on the honesty of all parties involved. These miscarriages jeopardize the image of the accused, as in the case of Jack White. The AIDWYC case of Jack White is just one example of many innocent people who were wrongly convicted due to the fact that he always maintained his innocence and did not give up the fight. After repeatedly trying to have his conviction overturned, he finally broke new ground in 1999, where the commission ruled that there was "overwhelming evidence" and ordered that Jack be reinstated as a comforter in Huronia and that he will be reimbursed. However, his criminal record could not be expunged. It was not until May 2009 that AIDWYC stepped in to assist in Jack's exoneration. The Court of Appeal recognized that Jack had suffered a failure of justice and, due to substantial evidence, granted Jack a fair new trial. Jack would ultimately win this fair retrial as the Crown prosecutor withdrew the charges because there was no reasonable prospect of conviction. This 17-year process that Jack was subjected to was entirely caused by false confessions. For more than half of his life, Jack had to deal with such tragedy, day after day. Although other reasons, such as the incompetence of his lawyer, increased, the main source of this suffering was due to Wither and his dishonesty before the war. This first article is entitled “False confessions and individual differences: the importance of victimization among young people” and the second “False confessions to the police”. and their relationship to conduct disorders, ADHD, and life adversity” share similar values in terms of false confessions. The methodologies used behind the two articles were consistent as they shared similar research. Both studies took place in Iceland and analyzed around eleven thousand participants. The first article describes a correlation between false confessions during custodial interrogations and youth victimization histories. It was obvious to the researchers that the main motivations were to protect a peer and avoid police pressure. The findings of this article provide strong evidence of the correlation between being subjected to external pressure and making false confessions. It is evident that participants are only focused on their avoidance of the police at that moment and not on the end result of their false confessions. These confessions are taken seriously because investigators rely heavily on them and can prematurely lead to a wrongful conviction. From a very young age, we can see students engaging in false confessions to minor school crimes. In both articles, participants received questionnaires