Six Causes of Wrongful Conviction

           The Innocence Project has identified the six most common causes of wrongful convictions.  They are:

1. Eyewitness misidentification
2. Unvalidated or improper forensic science
3. False confessions or admissions
4. Misconduct by the police or prosecutors
5. Informants or snitches
6. Bad lawyering

          The Innocence Project found that of the first 225 cases resulting in DNA exonerations: 

• 173 involved eyewitness misidentification
• 116 involved unvalidated or improper forensic science
• 51 involved false confessions or admissions, and
• 36 involved informants or snitches.

(The reason why these numbers total more than 225 is because some of the cases involved more than one contributing cause.)