American Criminal Justice Reform: Human Factor Analysis in Wrongful Convictions and the Need for an Independent Commission
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American Criminal Justice Reform:
Human Factor Analysis in Wrongful
Convictions and the Need for an
Independent Commission
By BRurrANY L. WALTER*
All humans err frequently. Systems that rely on error-free perform-
ance are doomed to fail .... Error is an inevitable accompaniment of
the human condition, even among conscientious professionals with
high standards. Errors must be accepted as evidence of system flaws
not character flaws.]
AN OFT CITED REFERENCE to the American criminal justice sys-
tem pronounces that it is better if ten guilty go free than one innocent
suffer.2 Indeed, from a young age we are instructed that defendants
are innocent until proven guilty, forming the presumption that our
system is set up to err on the side of innocence. We must begin with
the critical recognition that the American criminal justice system is
just that, a system comprised of multiple components, layers, and
people.
Like an airplane crash or an accidental death produced through
medical error, the conviction of the innocent is a human catastrophe.
Yet, unlike the aviation and medical industries, thus far, the American
criminal justice system exempts itself from self-examination.3 In-
stead, once a wrongful conviction is ruled, often no further inquiry is
* J.D., University of San Francisco School of Law (2018); B.S., Political Science and
Foreign Area Studies, United States Air Force Academy (2005). The author would like to
thank Professor Richard Leo for his guidance and encouragement throughout the
development of this paper. Also, endless gratitude to Madeleine Patton and the University
of San Francisco Law Review for all of their hard work in preparing this piece for
publication. Most importantly, the author thanks her spouse and children for their loving
support.
1. Lucian L. Leape, Error in Medicine, 272 JAMA 1851, 1852, 1857 (1994).
2. 2. See Danielle L. Coffey, Guilty Until Proven Innocent: What Constitutes New and
Reliable Evidence for the Actual Innocence Gateway?, 50 CRIM. L. BULL., no. 3, ART 5 (2014).
3. BARRY SCHECK ET AL., ACrUAL INNOCENCE: FIVE DAYS TO EXECUTION AND OTHER
DISPATCHES FROM THE WRONGLY CONVICTED 246 (2000).
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American Criminal Justice Reform: Human Factor Analysis in Wrongful Convictions and the Need for an Independent Commission
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