Wrongful Conviction Resources on the Web

This is a follow-up to the Nov. 23 posting The Innocence Project - Wrongful Conviction Website.

The LLRX.com website has just published a bibliography entitled Wrongful Conviction and Innocence Resources on the Internet.

It is divided into sections on current awareness, "innocence projects" (groups and research projects that help investigate cases of wrongful conviction), government commissions, case profiles and case databases, reports on wrongful conviction published by the government, academics, various organizations and the media in the United States, courses, conferences and organizations.

The site includes a few Canadian resources.

Additional Canadian resources not mentioned in the LLRX.com bibliography include:

• Criminal Conviction Review (Justice Canada): explains the review process under the Canadian Criminal Code and links to annual reports the Justice Minister submits to Parliament
• Report of the Working Group on the Prevention of Miscarriages of Justice (federal, provincial and territorial justice departments): In 2002, in response to a number of wrongful convictions across the country and the various reports of inquiries they generated, the Working Group on the Prevention of Miscarriages of Justice was created to develop a list of "best practices" to assist prosecutors and police in better understanding the causes of wrongful convictions and to recommend new policies and educational processes to guard against future miscarriages of justice. The report reviewed research regarding the known prevalence of wrongful convictions internationally, as well as the recommendations from recent Canadian commissions of inquiry. Also, it presented a review of the literature on the precipitating factors that have been found to lead to wrongful convictions such as police tunnel vision, faulty eyewitness identification, false confessions, jailhouse informers, botched DNA evidence, and overconfident reliance on expert testimony
• Wrongfully Convicted (CBC News Online): this online report was prepared by the CBC in 2004. It contains profiles of the most famous Canadian cases, an archive of CBC news stories and links to various outside websites on the issue
• Discussion paper on achieving investigative excellence (Canadian Police College): this publication looked at ways to improve investigative practices and avoid "problems related to investigative practices that have been known to lead to wrongful convictions, wrongful arrests, bungled investigations, avoidable acquittals, false prosecutions and poorly coordinated mega-cases".