I’ve been spending way too much time watching TV lately, especially Netflix. I’ve gotten hooked on these semi-documentary films—though I’m not sure how much of it is true and how much is just dramatized. (Which is why I call them semi-documentaries) One series I’ve been watching is called “The Innocence Project”. It’s all about investigating cases of people in prison who claim they’re innocent, especially those with life sentences or on death row.
Now, obviously, everyone in jail says they’re innocent, and thankfully, I’ve never been in that situation (in jail, not necessarily innocent). But in the episodes I’ve seen, the people who were exonerated were actually proven innocent. What really gets to me about this is, first, the fact that someone’s freedom is taken away for decades before they’re finally released. Second, while the wrong person is locked up, the real criminal is out there, free, and probably committing more crimes. And third, the families of victims think justice has been served, only to find out later that the wrong person was convicted. It’s just a mess.
The worst part, though, is the misconduct by prosecutors or police in many of these cases. They’ve forced confessions, pressured witnesses to lie, or ignored evidence that could prove someone’s innocence. Even when new evidence comes to light, they often refuse to reopen the case. I’m not a lawyer or a cop, but I can’t help but wonder—what’s more important: closing a case or making sure the right person is convicted? I get that it’s a tricky balance. If you don’t close the case, the real criminal could still be out there hurting more people. But if there’s even a shred of doubt, shouldn’t they take another look?
A lot of these wrongful convictions are overturned thanks to DNA evidence, which wasn’t as advanced 20 or 30 years ago. Science has come so far, and old evidence can now be retested to uncover the truth. We can’t just say, “Case closed, that’s it,” especially when there’s doubt. Prosecutors and police need to admit they’re human and can make mistakes. The right thing to do is to reinvestigate when there’s doubt, even if it’s rare for someone in jail actually to be innocent. In some of these cases I’ve watched, evidence was either hidden or “lost,” and it’s clear there was enough reasonable doubt to question the convictions. If I were involved in hiding evidence that kept an innocent person in jail, I don’t think I could live with myself. But maybe that’s just me.
On a related note, I’ve also been watching a series about serial killers, and one case that stood out was that of Henry Lucas. He was a murderer who claimed he killed 600 people, though the number kept changing—first it was one, then 10, then 150, and so on. Turns out, he probably only committed three or four murders, and the one for which he got the death sentence might not have even been his crime. He even admitted he hadn’t committed more than three, and he was making these others up to extend his time at an easier jail.
What’s wild is that investigators believed he could’ve committed all these murders, even though the timeline didn’t add up. They had a map with pins marking all the supposed crime scenes, but when you looked at the dates, there was no way he could’ve traveled that much—especially in the ’70s. Some receipts even showed he was elsewhere during certain crimes. But the Texas Rangers and the sheriff in charge refused to admit they might’ve been wrong. Watching their interviews was frustrating—they were so arrogant and stubborn. Between “The Innocence Project” and this case, I’ve been thinking a lot about the justice system and how flawed it is. It’s not designed to prove people innocent; it’s designed to prove them guilty. And it’s definitely not set up to help poor people, because fighting a wrongful conviction costs a ton of money. Once you’re convicted, it’s on you to prove your innocence. The Innocence Project does a lot of pro bono work, which is fantastic, but the system itself feels rigged and unfair. Even though wrongful convictions aren’t super common, isn’t one case enough to make us rethink how things work?
