Most capital convictions are overturned after roughly nine years due to serious errors

Evidence

Aggregation of evidence of prejudicial judgments and prosecutorial misconduct in individual cases reveals group socioeconomic and racial biases. Liebman and his collaborators (2000) describe the typical scenario in death sentences fraught with errors: The capital conviction or sentence will probably be overturned due to serious errors. It’ll take about nine years to find out, given how many other capital cases being reviewed for likely error are lined up ahead of this one. If the judgment is overturned, a lesser conviction or sentence will probably be imposed. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2086

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to death-penalty system failure literature and wrongful-conviction data; parallels the Diamond Institute’s writing about legal-system costs. — connects to: Capital verdicts are often reversed due to inadequate counsel and condemned innocents — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2050