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2006 Wis. L. Rev. 291 (2006)
Multiple Dimensions of Tunnel Vision in Criminal Cases, The

handle is hein.journals/wlr2006 and id is 303 raw text is: THE MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS OF TUNNEL VISION IN CRIMINAL CASES KEITH A. FINDLEY* & MICHAEL S. SCOTT** INTRODUCTION The discovery of hundreds of wrongful convictions in the last fifteen years has shaken up the criminal justice world. Since the advent of postconviction DNA testing around 1990, more than 170 people convicted of serious crimes have been exonerated by DNA, a number off of death row, and most after serving many years in prison.1 Literally hundreds of additional exonerations in the last fifteen years alone have been based on evidence other than DNA.2 Because DNA evidence exists in only a small minority of all cases-and is preserved and available for postconviction testing in an even smaller proportion of cases-and because innocence is so very difficult to prove postconviction without DNA, these known exonerations almost surely reflect only the tip of a very large iceberg.3 These exonerations have challenged the traditional assumption that the criminal justice system does all it can to accurately determine guilt, and that erroneous conviction of the innocent is, as the Supreme Court has assumed, * Clinical Professor, University of Wisconsin Law School; Co-Director, Wisconsin Innocence Project. J.D., Yale Law School 1985; B.A., Indiana University 1981. I am grateful to D. Michael Risinger, Richard A. Leo, Meredith Ross, John Pray, Byron Lichstein, and Frances Reynolds, as well as Ken Hammond and Dennis Hanson, both of the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Law Enforcement Services, Training & Standards Bureau, for their valuable feedback on drafts of this Article. ** Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin Law School; Director, Center for Problem-Oriented Policing; former police executive. J.D., Harvard Law School 1987; B.A. University of Wisconsin-Madison 1980. I wish to acknowledge the valuable insights offered by several veteran police investigators and supervisors, including Deputy Chief Ron Glensor and Commander Steve Pitts, Reno (Nev.) Police Department; Chief Dan Reynolds, Greer (S.C.) Police Department; Chief Richard Thomas, Port Washington (Wis.) Police Department; Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske, Seattle Police Department; Ken Hammond, Wisconsin Department of Justice Training & Standards Bureau; and Assistant United States Attorney Rita Rumbelow, Western District of Wisconsin. 1. Innocence Project, www.innocenceproject.org (last visited Feb. 22, 2006). 2. Samuel R. Gross et al., Exonerations in the United States, 1989 Through 2003, 95 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 523, 523-24 (2005). 3. Id. at 529.

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