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Who is trying to count sentencing mistakes?

By Douglas A. Berman

Writing in the New York Times, Adam Liptak's "Sidebar" column today is headlined "Consensus on Counting the Innocent: We Can't."  Here are snippets: A couple of years ago, Justice Antonin Scalia, concurring in a Supreme Court death penalty decision, took stock of the American criminal justice system and pronounced himself satisfied. The rate at which innocent people are convicted of felonies is, he said, less than three-hundredths of 1 percent ? .027 percent, to be exact. That rate, he said, is acceptable. ?One cannot have a system of criminal punishment without accepting the possibility that someone will be punished mistakenly,? he wrote. ?That is a truism, not a revelation.? But there is reason to question Justice Scalia?s math...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 25, 2008 (boomark / email).