Criminal Law

This book takes a multi-disciplinary approach to a complex, real-world issue. It lays out the chronology of criminal investigations and proceedings, and assesses how bias plays a role in each stage. It also offers research-based strategies to combat bias, such as independent review, contextual information management, linear sequential unmasking, and structured evaluations of the evidence. It not only gives a holistic view of the human element of confirmation bias but it also offers strategies for how to address it.

Innocent people are regularly convicted of crimes they did not commit. A number of systemic factors have been found to contribute to wrongful convictions, including eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, informant testimony, official misconduct, and faulty forensic evidence. The author offers an extensive overview of wrongful convictions, bringing together current sociological, criminological, and legal research, as well as current case-law examples. For the first time, information on all known and suspected cases of wrongful conviction in Canada is included and interspersed with discussions of how wrongful convictions happen, how existing remedies to rectify them are inadequate, and how those who have been victimized by these errors are rarely compensated.

This collection presents a comparative analysis of wrongful conviction and criminal procedure. Authors are drawn from a broad range of backgrounds including law, psychology, forensics and journalism. Focusing on the main areas of concern in their own jurisdiction, each author discusses common themes including: the extent of the problem; the types of cases that feature in miscarriages of justice; the legal mechanism for the correction of a wrongful conviction; compensation for the wrongly convicted; public awareness and concern about the issue generally and in light of high-profile cases; and the extent to which wrongful conviction has driven criminal justice reform.

The name “Donald Marshall Jr.” is synonymous with “wrongful conviction” and the fight for Indigenous rights in Canada. In Truth and Conviction, Jane McMillan – Marshall’s former partner, an acclaimed anthropologist, and an original defendant in the Supreme Court’s Marshall decision on Indigenous fishing rights – tells the story of how Marshall’s fight against injustice permeated Canadian legal consciousness and revitalized Indigenous law.

This book reviews and analyzes recommendations of Commissions of Inquiry into wrongful convictions. Comparative analyses reveal which recommendations have been implemented as policy, passed into legislation, or endorsed by the courts.

In this book, Roach makes a compelling case for change that includes better legislative regulation of police and forensic experts and the creation of a permanent and independent federal commission both to investigate wrongful convictions and their multiple causes. Roach points to systemic failings in our legal system and also outlines vital changes that can better prevent and correct wrongful convictions.