Confession, Eyewitness and Wrongful Conviction

Landmark cases defined by coerced or contested confession evidence, mistaken or disputed eyewitness and forensic identification, and a later reconsideration of guilt: three cases whose central significance is what they reveal about how a justice system can convict on unreliable confession or identification evidence, in two of the three later corrected on appeal or through additional evidence. Belongs here: a case whose historical importance rests on the reliability of confession or identification evidence and the process that reconsidered it. Does not belong here: a case whose significance is the technique that correctly identified the true offender, grouped under the identification and analysis subcategories above.