False+Confessions+2011-2



__False Confessions__

 By: Mariah Hanscom, Alisa Markley, Dan Eschbach, Mark Dixon, Luzmarie Rosado

__**Sources:**__

[|__http://www.innocenceproject.org/news/LawView3.php__] [|__http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Facts_on_PostConviction_DNA_Exonerations.php__] [|__http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_280029.html__] [|__http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=compensating_the_wrongly_convicted__] [|__http://falseconfessions.org/fact-a-figures__] [|__http://www.law.northwestern.edu/cwc/issues/causesandremedies/falseconfessions/FalseConfessionsStudy.html__] [|__http://www.iippi.org/index.html?name=http://www.iippi.org/inmates/pennsylvania/lorenzojohnson.html__]

What is a “False Confession”?

A false confession is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It is a confession by a defendant who is not actually responsible for the crime.

Reasons and Situations that Result in False Confessions Upon first glance, it doesn’t make sense why someone would incriminate themselves for something that they didn’t actually do. Most of the time, a false confession is not a result of the person truly believing that they are responsible, but instead because of external influences. Some very common reasons include:
 * Intoxication
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Outside coercion
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lack of understanding of the law
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fear of a harsh sentence
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mental Impairment

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The above are some situations and circumstances that make a false confession more likely to occur, and in turn, make the word of the confessor less reliable. Here are a few of those situations in greater detail:

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1- Confessions from children are often unreliable because children misinterpret the situation. Children are often taught to “tell the truth, even if you think it will get you in trouble”. As a result of this belief, they confess to something that they may not have done because they believe it will get them in less trouble than denying that they did something (even if they are in fact innocent). Children often believe that they will be scolded and then released from the situation, even if the case is very serious, and their confession will in fact result in a significant punishment.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2- Mental impairment, such as a mental illness, or a state of intoxication are very prominent situations that result in false confessions. People with mental illnesses may falsely confess to a crime because they believe that they are assisting law enforcement and are being cooperative and telling the police “what they want to hear”. In a situation where the defendant is under the influence of drugs or alcohol when the crime is committed or when they are being asked about the crime, the defendant may falsely confess due to a skewed memory of the situation as a result of intoxication.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3- Fatigue also plays a large role in false confessions. Interrogations can be very long and stressful, and the person being interrogated can become fatigued, stressed and physically exhausted as a result of the lengthy process. This can effect the defendant mentally and, as a result, their memory of the situation may be thrown off, and they may even confess to the crime in order to get out of interrogation.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The major underlying factor in all false confessions is that the defendant believes that falsely confessing to the crime will benefit them in some way.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Types of False Confessions <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are three types of false confessions: Voluntary False Confession, Compliant False Confession and Internalized False Confession. An example of Voluntary False Confession is a person wanting to become famous, someone who is feeling guilty about past transgressions, people who are unable to distinguish what really happened from what they think happened, or people who want to help and protect the real criminal.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Another type of false confession is Compliant False Confession examples of this would be people who are trying to escape a bad situation, people trying to avoid a real or implied threat, or people who are trying to get some sort of reward.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The third type of false confessions is Internalized False Confession, this is when someone is interrogated for so long that they actually start to believe they did the crime when in fact they did not, examples of this would be younger suspects, people who are tired and confused by the interrogation, highly suggestible individuals and people exposed to false information by the interrogators.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Statistics on False Confessions__


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">More than 80 percent of the 125 false confessions documented by Professors Steve Drizin and Richard Leo occurred in homicide cases.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">False confessions may be the single leading cause of wrongful convictions in homicide cases.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">More than two-thirds of the DNA-cleared homicide cases documented by the Innocence Project were caused by false confessions.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There have been 258 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Exonerations have been won in 34 states; since 2000, there have been 186 exonerations.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In about 25% of DNA exoneration cases, innocent defendants made incriminating statements, delivered outright confessions or pled guilty.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">17 of the 258 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The average length of time served by exonerees is 13 years.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The average age of exonerees at the time of their wrongful convictions is 27.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">93% of false confessors are men.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The most common bases for exoneration were the real perpetrator was identifed (74%) or that new scientific evidence was discovered (46%).
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">63% of false confessors were under the age of 25, and 32% were under 18; yet of all persons arrested for murder and rape, only 8 and 16%, respectively, are juveniles.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">22% were mentally retarded and 10% had a diagnosed mental illness.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Multiple false confessions to the same crime were obtained in 30% of the cases, wherein one false confession was used to prompt others.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2009 brought 22 new cases of DNA exonerations of people wrongly convicted. The overall total is 258, and the Innocence Project reports that roughly 25% had given false confessions.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Among a total of 340 exonerations of all kinds documented between 1989 and 2003, 15 percent involved false confessions

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Pennsylvania__
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pennsylvania is one of 28 states that provides no compensation for the wrongfully accused.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pennsylvania is one of the few remaining states that DOES NOT require a taped interrogation to prevent against false confessions.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Since 1989, nine convicted felons have been exonerated in Pennsylvania due to DNA evidence
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pennsylvania is one of the few states that has an advisory group, who’s job is to review wrongful convictions.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pennsylvania does not have any laws restricting non-documented confessions.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__New York__
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In 11 of the 26 cases in New York, innocent people falsely confessed or admitted to crimes that DNA later proved they did not commit.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the last seven years, there has been a particularly high number of DNA exonerations in New York State. Since 2000, 17 wrongfully convicted people in New York have been exonerated with DNA evidence; seven of the 17 were wrongfully convicted of murder.


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There have been 43 wrongful confessions in New York State: New York outpaces almost every other state in the number of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of the 27 exonerations in New York State, 13 have been based upon false confession. Two-thirds of murder convictions overturned by DNA evidence turned out to have been based on false confessions.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">New York does provide compensation to exonerated inmates who were falsely convicted, but only if the inmate was not wrongfully convicted based on his own misconduct.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Illinois__
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Since 1970, 42 wrongful murder convictions have been documented in Illinois. Twenty-five of the convictions, or 59.5%, rested in whole or part on false confessions.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fourteen of the above cases involved the defendant's own confession.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Three of the 14 also involved confessions of co-defendants, and the remaining 11 stemmed principally from co-defendants' false confessions.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of the 25 cases, all but two involved additional obvious problems - including dubious forensic evidence, police failure to pursue viable alternative suspects, incorrect or perjured eyewitness identifications, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective assistance of defense counsel.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of the 25 wrongful convictions based on false confessions:
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">13 (52.0%) might have been avoided if authorities had diligently pursued viable alternative suspects known before trial.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">5 (25%) might have been avoided had the defendant received effective assistance of counsel.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Illinois does provide compensation for the wrongfully accused.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Exonerated Inmates__

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dale Brison- Was charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault, carrying a weapon, and involvement in Deviated sexual intercourse. During the trial Brison requested DNA testing because he felt it would prove that he was in fact innocent. His request was denied and Brison was found guilty and sentenced to 18-42 years in prison. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In 1992 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that a DNA test had to be done if the evidence had been maintained and was still usable. The laboratory reported that the DNA taken from the semen stain could not be Brison’s. The District Attorney performed the same test and found reached the same conclusion. As a result, Brison was exonerated and released from prison after serving three and a half years of his sentence. Due to Pennsylvania’s law, Brsion was ineligible for compensation and received nothing for his time lost in prison.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Lorenzo Johnson__

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Who is Lorenzo Johnson? <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lorenzo Johnson is an inmate at a prison in Frackville, PA. Johnson was convicted of first degree murder on March 17th, 1997 and sentenced to life in prison. The murder took place outside a bar in Harrisburg, PA on December 25th, 1995.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There was much evidence that said that Johnson was innocent, and even that he wasn’t in the state at the time of the crime. The police withheld much of this evidence, and any eyewitness testimonies that defended Johnson’s innocence were rejected, or the witnesses were interrogated until their stories changed to favor the prosecution. Here are the facts behind the case and the trial:


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On the night of the murder, Johnson was in New York, and there are witnesses that could vouch for his presence there.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One witness gave a statement that Johnson was in New York with her. She was coaxed and eventually forced by police to change her statement so that she could receive a reduced sentence for charges she had against her in a separate criminal charge.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Besides witnesses placing him in New York, there were multiple other witnesses who stated that, whether or not he was in New York, he definitely wasn’t at the bar (the scene of the crime) that night.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A young lady (who was a known cocaine addict), made statements that she was paid with crack cocaine to lure the victim to the scene of the crime. She made these statements to one of Johnson’s alibi witnesses, but she had originally told police she knew nothing about the crime. At the trial she claimed that Johnson’s co-defendant got into an argument with the victim and they were forced to leave, at which point Johnson went on the lookout while his friend committed the crime.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At the trial, the bar owner gave a statement that Johnson hadn’t been present at the bar all day.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Another witness gave testimony that he observed a lady go into the alley at the time the deceased was murdered.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The police were provocative during the investigation and interrogations by only providing two mug-shots. One of Johnson and one of his co-defendant.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Another witness for Johnson who was later arrested on unrelated charges was taken to the police station from the county prison and threatened to give a false statement against Johnson and in return he would be given a reduced sentence.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There was another Commonwealth witness who after trial contacted Johnson's attorney and signed an affidavit stating he wrongfully placed Mr. Johnson on the scene when in actuality he never saw Johnson at the murder scene. This witness stated he was pressured to place Johnson on the scene.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There were many wrongful and illegal practices used to convict Johnson and there was no factual evidence that could place Johnson at the scene. The only thing the prosecution against Johnson was the multitude of falsified witness testimonies. Even if the testimonies hadn’t been proven to be illegitimate, eye-witness testimonies are often wrong due to the psychological factors behind such a statement, and also the inherent difficulty in remembering a situation accurately, especially a situation where there is heightened tension, such as a witnessing a murder. The Superior Court Judge, who presided over the case, even dissented and stated his opinion that the State's evidence was not sufficient enough to show that Johnson conspired to murder anyone.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At first glance, based solely off of the testimonies of the witnesses, one would be lead to believe that Johnson was guilty. But, the more you really look into the case, even without the knowledge that most of the testimonies were illegitimate, you can tell that there a lot of loopholes and things that just don’t seem right. At first glance, without considering that many illegal processes were used and that much of the facts/testimonies were illegitimate, we believe that Johnson is innocent, if for no other reason then there really isn’t enough evidence to incriminate him.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.iippi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4646__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.iippi.org/index.html?name=http://www.iippi.org/inmates/pennsylvania/lorenzojohnson.html__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://prisoners.com/ljohnson.html__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Legitimacy of Sources__

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Above are the three sites that we used to get information about Lorenzo Johnson. Obviously, in the judicial system, one of the main concerns when carrying out an investigation and a trial is bias toward one side or another. For this project, we had to analyze the situation with an unbiased view, and then make an opinion at the end as to which side we would take. So, with this in mind, it was very important that the information we were reading was from a neutral point of view, so that we would read the true, unopinionated details, and we could in turn make our own opinions.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The three sites that we used for this project were relatively neutral. By “relatively neutral”, we mean that although all of the above sites support Johnson’s innocence, the facts presented were unbiased and involved no personal opinion or slander of the “opposition” (the prosecution and the law enforcement involved in Johnson’s prosecution). Overall, we feel that the sites allowed us to make our own opinion about Johnson’s innocence, and did a good job of informing us about the crime, the case, the trial and even the events that occurred after the conviction.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Our Verdict__

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the end, after reviewing all of the facts of the case, as well as any other documents, we believe that Lorenzo Johnson is innocent of the murder of Taraja Williams on December 15th, 1995. We believe that there are too many inconsistencies with the state’s case against Johnson, and also that much of the evidence/testimonies against him are illegitimate. We believe that he was not present at the scene of the crime, and could not be guilty of the murder. Regardless of whether or not Johnson is truly innocent, there is not enough evidence to rightfully convict him in a judicial system that believes in letting 10 guilty men go free rather than convicting one innocent man.