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79 Alb. L. Rev. 895 (2015-2016)
Orwell's Elephant and the Etiology of Wrongful Convictions

handle is hein.journals/albany79 and id is 911 raw text is: ORWELL'S ELEPHANT AND THE ETIOLOGY OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS James M. Doyle* 'And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool. 1 -Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell Criminal justice reform is having its moment. The gatekeepers around the public square-the editors, the publishers, the producers, the bloggers, and the most-followed social media posters-have decided to grant criminal justice issues some attention. In the accompanying wave of punditry familiar facts are treated as discoveries. The system's impacts are racially biased.2 The innocent are often convicted.3 Unwarranted law enforcement violence is common.4 Legions of unnecessary prisoners fill our prisons.5 Chronic mental illness has been effectively criminalized.6 * Of Counsel, Bassil, Klovee, & Budreau, Boston, Massachusetts. B.A. Trinity College, J.D. Northwestern University School of Law, LL.M. Georgetown University Law Center. Much of the research behind this essay was supported by a Visiting Fellowship from the National Institute of Justice. I am grateful for that support and for the numberless contributions of my colleagues on the Sentinel Event Initiative Team. Readers should be forewarned that this essay is from a practitioner's perspective, not a scholar's, and an old practitioner's at that. 1 George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant, in AN AGE LIKE THIS 1920-1940: THE COLLECTED ESSAYS, JOURNALISM AND LETTERS OF GEORGE ORWELL 235, 242 (Sonia Orwell & Ian Angus eds., 1968). 2 See, e.g., MICHELLE ALEXANDER, THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS 104 (2010). 3 See, e.g., BRANDON L. GARRETT, CONVICTING THE INNOCENT: WHERE CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS Go WRONG 11-12 (2011). 4 See, e.g., Kimberly Kindy & Kennedy Elliott, 990 People Were Shot and Killed by Police This Year, WASH. POST (Dec. 26, 2015), https://www.washingtonpost.comlgraphics/national /police-shootings-year-end/. 5 See, e.g., JONATHAN SIMON, MASS INCARCERATION ON TRIAL: A REMARKABLE COURT DECISION AND THE FUTURE OF PRISONS IN AMERICA 4 (2014).

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