They're free...so what happens next?

By: Kaiyn Grierson

What's the Problem?

Wrongful convictions are defined as a person accused of a crime, “in which, the result of the subsequent investigation, proves erroneous,” In layman’s terms this means that a wrongful conviction is when a person is accused of a crime that they did not commit. Wrongful convictions have been plaguing the country for decades by locking up a multitude of innocent people. At least 20,000 innocent people in America have been locked away for crimes they did not commit. This means that there are most likely more innocent people in prison who have not been proven innocent yet. About 5% of inmates, currently in jail, are falsely accused of crimes. In the years 2009-2014, 152 prisoners were freed from jails across the country. While this is progress, this act took longer than it should have. Yet, the issue is much deeper than that; people who have been freed have lost a good amount of their lives due to their wrongful convictions. Now, in the state of Pennsylvania, they can't even receive compensation to make a life for themselves.

The Case of Jimmy Dennis

Court House, From Creative Commons

One of the reasons for low rates in compensation is that cases of suing for wrongful convictions in Pennsylvania rarely happen. Now the real question to that statement is why would no one sue after their lives were taken from them for a crime they didn’t commit? Well, that answer lies in an example case of Jimmy Dennis:

Jimmy Dennis was the man who was accused of a murder case in 1991 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dennis served 25 years on death row, vowing his innocence to the court. In 2016 the federal court told the state court to give Dennis another trial. When this order came out the state prosecutors offered Dennis a plea deal telling him that if he accepted he would be able to leave prison immediately. The prosecutors told him that if he didn't accept he would stay in jail awaiting a trial that could take years. The main reason prosecutors pressed for Jimmy Dennis to take the plea deal was that they realized he was innocent and by taking said deal Dennis wouldn't be able to sue the state for his years spent in prison.

Plea deals like this one are happening all over the United States, it allows victims to leave prison and save states hundreds of dollars in court cases. This example shows one of the main reasons why wrongfully convicted victims don’t receive compensation when they have been released from prison. However, when compensation from lawsuits isn’t available, wrongful conviction victims have to go to the next best thing: looking for jobs. This process, however, is also as tedious as suing for compensation. The reason being that it creates difficulty to fill out job applications or write a resume. A study estimated that about 70 percent of inmates have low literacy ability and can’t read past a 4th-grade reading level. Disadvantages alike to these brings America to the unemployment rate of felons to 27%, this calculates to more than one out of every four people who served time and released from prison is unemployed. The unemployment rate for gender as well as specific races can be shown in the list below:

Prison, From Creative Commons

White Men: General Population (4.3 Percent Unemployment Rate) Ex-Offenders (18.4 Percent Unemployment Rate).

Prison, From Creative Commons

Black Men: General Population (7.7 Percent Unemployment Rate) Ex-Offenders (35.2 Percent Unemployment Rate).

Prison, From Creative Commons

White Women: General Population (4.3 Percent Unemployment Rate) Ex-Offenders (23.2 Percent Unemployment Rate).

Prison, From Creative Commons

Black Women: General Population (6.4 Percent Unemployment Rate) Ex-Offenders (43.6 Percent Unemployment Rate).

Solutions?

Different solutions for a variety of states have decreased the number of the unemployment rate. For example, in Texas legal representation has been improved for the poor. This way everyone will truly have an equal chance to prove their innocence in court; opposed to being represented by an overworked court-appointed attorney. Another solution done by the state of Texas is that the “Timothy Cole Advisory Panel” was created What this organization does is investigate the causes of wrongful convictions; as well as solutions to decrease them. A final solution that Texas has implemented is post-conviction DNA testing. This means that if DNA testing technology wasn’t available during that time or has been updated since then, then inmates can receive another testing. Solutions like these are big ways to resolve a big issue. However, in Philadelphia, we need to take baby steps so we can thoroughly combat the situation from all angles.

Conclusion

In conclusion, in the state of Pennsylvania, researchers surveyed about 3,000 state prisoners. Of those 3,000, six percent had been wrongfully convicted. That six percent equals to 180 people that were sentenced to prison for a crime that did not commit. Solutions like to the ones listed above can lower the rates of wrongfully convicted felons.

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