ABSTRACT
To date, the National Registry of Exonerations has documented 2,983 exonerations since it began keeping records in 1989 – or, stated another way, 26,500 years of freedom lost. Wrongful convictions undermine faith in the criminal justice system and exact an enormous social and economic toll on society. Due in part to increased attention by the media, the problem of wrongful convictions has garnered increased political and public attention in recent years and many states have established conviction integrity units to investigate potentially problematic cases. Psychological science has played a key role in explicating many of the factors that elevate risk of wrongful conviction and has formed the basis of several state-level procedural reforms. In this summary, we will discuss how the pressured and emotionally fraught circumstances of the criminal investigation may interact with human psychological factors to increase risk of wrongful conviction. Specifically, we will examine the psychological research base as it pertains to issues related to the integrity and reliability of evidence (e.g., confessions, witness identifications, forensic science) and the misconduct of police and prosecutors.
