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"Innocence Unmodified"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this new scholarship from Emily Hughes available via SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Innocence Movement has unwittingly participated in the construction of a binary between ?actual? and ?legal? innocence.  Because the Innocence Movement has focused on defendants who did not commit the actions underlying their convictions, courts, lawyers, and the larger society have come to believe that a person is wrongly convicted of a crime only if the person is ?actually? innocent.  This perception overlooks the fact that a person can be wrongly convicted if their constitutional rights were violated in the process of obtaining the conviction.  As such, the Innocence Movement devalues ?legal? innocence and the constitutional values that underlie a broader conception of innocence...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on December 18, 2010 (boomark / email).