“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
While Dr King was fighting for a greater cause for equality and justice for all, despite the strong criticism, he managed to spread a word out to his supporters giving a voice to all who were the victims of the injustice in the society. Non-violence was the biggest weapon he carried with himself. Sticking to the sense of injustice in the world, wrongful prosecution prevails as one of the most vital topics as we speak of Freedoms and Rights. The problems, however, that wrongful conviction are rarely recognized when they occur and typically are discovered years after the conviction (if at all).
The first thing where an innocent is framed wrongly for a crime is during the police investigation, where, be it either because of the wrong investigation or the bribes or undue influence, the criminal is kept out of the investigation while framing the innocent for a crime he/she didn’t commit. The Indian justice system works on the principle of, “Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum”. In spite of this, occurrences of wrongful conviction and improper detainment of honest people are very normal. In every such case, people who are unjustly arraigned, ensnared and imprisoned for a few valuable long stretches of their lives, even on a decent absolution, have very little to pick up. Other than being compelled to live under social shame, absence of legal arrangements or state systems accommodating rehabilitative, helpful and compensatory measures to such casualties and their relatives (who endure similarly), irritates their distress.
Unlawful arrests and confinement cause loss of years, yet can likewise make social disgrace and ostracisation significantly in the wake of being discharged. This is obvious from incredible story by people who have been casualties of bogus arraignments. For example, in her book ‘Prisoner No. 100’, political extremist Anjum Zamarud Habib describes her encounters of having gone through five years in prison before being discharged by the Delhi High Court. Anjum writes in her book, “I am a free individual today yet the injuries and scars that prison has exacted on me are troublesome, yet difficult to mend”.
In the New York Times Magazine of December 10, 2000, an article by Sara Rimer and Taryn Simon, “Life after Death Row” featured interviews with six men exonerated and released while awaiting execution. Their accounts of permanent dislocation in time, and inability to recover their previous lives, or free themselves from the experience of prison, vividly echo those given by the men in this study. Simon (1993) out- lined the immediate and longer-term psychological features that may follow false arrest and detention, noting that the experience can be a traumatic psychological stressor. However, there have not been systematic psychiatric or psychological studies of samples of individuals released after wrongful conviction.
The most important task for an innocent person to valuate his life with money on deprivation of his liberty. One may accept the remuneration awarded but that can never fill up the lost years of his life to struggle to prove innocence. The Justice system in criminology demands a high time reform that can help save innocent lives. As a society, people who have spent time in jail are looked down upon even if they are acquitted of the charges pressed. This issue adds up to a psychological trauma upon the innocent victim of wrongful conviction, fearing a thumbs down from the society disallowing to merge within.
By discharging crooks known to be blameworthy, the exclusionary rule transformed the criminal justice framework into a lottery for police, investigators and lawbreakers the same. To make a scratch in unjust conviction, we should reexamine the methodology. To numerous attorneys, “established protection” signifies the conceding of ensured minority status by a judge. The issue of unjust conviction is a lot bigger than a large number of its foes appreciate. We will waste our time-consuming immense energies in liberating a couple of innocent individuals, and we should do what we can. In any case, we likewise should brace for the fight to come and lost law. Once the “Rights of People” are not, at this point even a memory, equity will be gone too. Thus, understanding the importance of reforms and implementation of the same is required to decline the cause of wrongful prosecution.
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