Topic > Jack White Case Study - 1301

Being put before a judge for a crime you didn't commit is something that happens too often. In fact, it is often the case that nonprofit organizations such as “The Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) identify, defend, and exonerate individuals who have been convicted of a crime. Influences on wrongful convictions are predominantly caused by incorrect eyewitness identifications and false confessions. Misidentifications and false confessions cripple the criminal justice system because it relies on the honesty of all parties involved. These abortions jeopardize the image of the accused, as in the case of Jack White. Jack White's AIDWYC case is just one example of many innocent people who were wrongly convicted because of him. He always maintained his innocence and did not give up fighting. After attempting several times to overturn his conviction, he finally broke ground in 1999, when the board determined there was "overwhelming evidence" and ordered that Jack be reinstated as a consoler in Huronia and be reimbursed. However, his criminal record cannot be expunged. That was until May 2009 when AIDWYC stepped in to help get Jack exonerated. The Court of Appeal agreed that Jack had suffered a failure of justice and, due to substantial evidence, granted Jack a new fair trial. Jack would ultimately win this fair retrial as the Crown prosecutor withdrew the charges because there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.” This 17 year trial that Jack was subjected to was all caused by a false confession. For more than half of his life Jack had to face such a tragedy, day after day. Although there were other reasons, such as the incompetence of his lawyer, the main source of this suffering was due to Wither and his dishonesty before the police. This first article is entitled "False confessions and individual differences: the importance of victimization among young people" and the second "False confessions to the police and their relationship with conduct disorder, ADHD and life adversities" share values similar in terms of false confessions. The methodologies used behind both articles were consistent as they shared similar researchers. Both studies took place in Iceland and approximately eleven thousand participants were analyzed. The first article describes a correlation between false confessions during interrogations of custody and history of victimization among youth. The primary motivations were to protect a peer and avoid police pressure. The findings of this article provide strong evidence of the correlation between being a victim of external pressure and giving a false confession. It is evident that the participants at that moment focus exclusively on escaping from the police and not on the final result of their false confessions. These confessions are taken seriously as investigators rely heavily on them and can lead to a wrongful conviction prematurely. From a young age we can see students participating in making false confessions to minor school crimes. In both articles, questionnaires were administered to participants