Minorities mostly, it seems, but not only.
Too many juries ignore the "beyond a reasonable doubt" rule and go for "more likely guilty than not" or, still worse, "better safe than sorry".
How do we address that?
It is unjust and sabotages deterrence by diminishing the difference between the likelihood of punishment if guilty and the likelihood of punishment if innocent.
In the view of the relevant public.
But it's surely not just that.
More than 150 men and women in American prisons were exonerated in 2018, according to a recent report by a registry that tracks wrongful convictions.
Combined, these individuals spent more than 1,600 years in prison, a record for the database, which has data back to 1989.
The leading culprit in convicting innocent people was official misconduct, according to the report by the National Registry of Exonerations.
Nearly one third of these cases involved a police corruption scheme in Chicago through which a police officer framed individuals on drug charges.
Another prominent factor in wrongful convictions across the country was misleading forensic evidence.
A close look at these cases reveals how experts in fields like hair analysis, bite marks and DNA analysis have used exaggerated statistical claims to bolster unscientific assertions.
Some of the stories told in this article of expert bullshit are infuriating and leave you angrily wondering why the experts are not in prison, now, themselves.
And what happened to those police?
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