ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on what can be learned from the systematic errors that have been revealed through the number of exonerations made over the past decade in Taiwan. The causes of wrongful conviction identified include flawed forensic science, false confession, eyewitness misidentification, and information management errors. Overturning wrongful criminal convictions is a relatively new concept in Taiwan. Like most jurisdictions in the world, the judiciary in Taiwan emphasises the stability and finality of its criminal verdicts. Expert witnesses in Taiwan are not required to appear in court to be cross-examined. The false confessions observed in these cases were all extracted through torture. Take the Su Ping-Kun case as an example. Empirical research in Taiwan has shown that in practice, many police provide photos of suspects or allow the suspects to meet with the eyewitness in person before entering a line-up procedure to refresh the eyewitness's memory.
