Criminal Justice- Short writting - Life after exoneration Harold Hall spent 19 y

Question

Criminal Justice- Short writting - Life after exoneration

Harold Hall spent 19 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit. When a woman's body was found in a south Los Angeles alley in 1985, police officers questioned Hall, who was only 18 years old at the time. Hall was the perfect suspect: he spent time in jail for armed robbery, he told informants what he heard about the murder, and he was known to associate with a rough crowd. Police officers questioned Hall and he eventually confessed to the murder. Hall was convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no eligibility for parole. Despite confessing to the crime, Hall maintained his innocence and spent two decades filing motions and working to prove his innocence.

In the end, it was the assistance he received from a team of criminal defense attorneys that helped Hall build his case. Specifically, Hall's lead defense attorney found holes in the case and managed to have the informant who sent Hall to prison recant his story. Conduct some independent research on the case of Harold Hall and then considering what you have learned about the structure of the American court system in Chapter 9 (criminal justice by siegel) , please answer the following:

Why would an innocent person confess to a crime that he/she she did not commit? Is “justice” served to the victim when the wrong person is sent to prison? Explain.

(250 word minimum response required)

Explanation / Answer

According to psychologists, the aggressive interrogation is done by the police; like prolonged, sleepless interrogation sessions and trauma can make innocent people believe they have committed a crime, (Stacy Lu, 2017). For this reason, only Psychologists are recommending a practice of mandatory videotaping of entire interrogations, which has already been adopted by the FBI, in more than 20 states and the District of Columbia. In the case of Harold rape and murder charge; this is what he said in his own words; “they questioned me for 18 hours straight without food or water," and he said that the detectives also shackled him to a chair. This horrifying experience was very stressful for an 18-year-old kid. So he said that; “I finally just told them what they wanted to hear." Thus generally the harsh treatment meted out during the interrogation makes people confess crimes that they have not even committed. In other cases rarely people confess to gain popularity as well; according to psychologists. No justice is definitely; not served to the victim when the wrong person is sent to prison as the real convict is scot-free while an innocent is behind the bars. The final exoneration after several years is justice delayed; hence justice denied. The victim is devastated emotionally, financially and he loses his vital years of life for something that he did not even do. It is only after the advent of DNA fingerprinting that such cases of false confessions have been brought to light. Before the use of this technology in crime investigation, this phenomenon of false confessions was unnoticed.

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