INTRODUCTION
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In our
world in where criminal justice plays such a huge role in our everyday lives, it
is interesting to think about different factors that play into the many
different types of cases that may be placed upon a juror, a judge, or a viewer
on the television. What is even more interesting to think about is if any of
these factors that play their role, play a significant enough role to predict
the outcome of a certain case.
In
1904, Baskin & Sommers (2010) add to the literature the question of if
forensic evidence influences case processing of homicide incidents, but what
they found is that there is no relationship between forensic evidence and how
homicide cases are processed. Other studies, such as Olney & Bonn (2011),
focus on wrongful convictions, exploring reasons as to how DNA evidence plays a
role in exonerations. Aside from the unreliability of eyewitness and informant
testimony and procedures, poor lawyering, and professional misconduct, faulty
evidence handling plays a big role in false convictions as well (p.4).
According to Olney & Bonn (2011), DNA played a significant role in 339 exonerated
cases, or 34% of cases in their data set. But it as previously mentioned there
are more reasons besides DNA evidence that attributes to wrongful convictions.
In
conjunction with the other variables contributing to wrongful convictions,
Bright (2002) attests that about 80% of all criminal defendants are unable to
afford an attorney. Additionally, Scheck et al. (2003) and Bright (2002) both
attest that public defense attorneys, who aren’t always monetarily compensated
appropriately and have large case loads, don’t have enough time to give each
case their full attention.
With
this evidence found in previous research, it all then begs the question of the
dataset chosen in this study, if these same variables play a role in cases,
before the defendant is actually given their sentence and are out of options in
the instances of appeal. Does the type of lawyer, the type of crime, or if
forensic evidence was found at the crime scene or not, play a role in the
outcome of cases? Do more cases end in convictions, or end in longer sentences?
Finally, are these variables in any way related to each other?
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HOME INTRO
METHOD RESULTS DISCUSSION TABLE 1 FIGURES REFERENCES