Structural Blind Spots: Why We Know So Little about Wrongful Convictions

Barbara O’Brien will draw on her legal practice and research, including editing the U.S. National Registry of Exonerations, to discuss why we know so little about wrongful convictions. She will argue that many reasons are due to the same sorts of mechanisms and institutional interests that undermine transparency across scientific disciplines. These include a lack of uniformity across jurisdiction in keeping very basic records, various doctrines that give government actors immunity from lawsuits, asymmetry in evidentiary discovery between civil and criminal cases, and judicial commitment to “finality” in convictions.

Professor O'Brien will be introduced by Justice Belinda Baker (ACT Supreme Court).

Please note that this talk is part of the 'AIMOS 2024 Conference'. For more information about the conference, please click here.

About the Speaker:

Barbara O'Brien is a professor at the Michigan State University College of Law, where she teaches classes in criminal law and procedure. Barbara is the editor of the National Registry of Exonerations, a groundbreaking advance for studying the contributors to wrongful convictions.

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