Muhammad Farajiha; Jamshid Gholamlou
Volume 3, Issue 8 , October 2014, , Pages 63-86
Abstract
Wrongful conviction of the innocent is a type of miscarriage of justice. Thus, the perspective that believes these two concepts are equivalent is false. Innocence can be actual or legal. The actual innocent is who does not commit the crime. The legal innocent is who commit a crime but his/her conviction ...
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Wrongful conviction of the innocent is a type of miscarriage of justice. Thus, the perspective that believes these two concepts are equivalent is false. Innocence can be actual or legal. The actual innocent is who does not commit the crime. The legal innocent is who commit a crime but his/her conviction was achieved through a violation of due process/fair trial. Despite some advantages of this division, it is somewhat misleading. Because, in practice, in many cases legal and actual innocence overlap each other. For example, researchers who provide this division, include insufficient evidence as a procedural error, not substantive. While, normally, an accused be wrongly convicted when there is no enough evidences. Actually, the criminal justice system ignores presumption of innocence. Despite disagreements, most researchers have applied actual concept of innocent and objective criteria in determining innocence in their studies.
