Claims of Innocence by Michael Naughton and Gabe Tan – studying Investigative Journalism

“Criminal justice process is not perfect and factually innocent individuals can, and for variety reasons are , wrongly convicted and even imprisoned for crimes they have played no part in.”

Through my research and reading I will be trying to show the emergence of rethinking the circumstances which allowed for some of the wrongful convictions to happen. Claims of Innocence by Michael Naughton is on of these books which explore number of wrongful convictions and introduce the concept of challenging them.

As a third year student of Journalism being part of the Innocence Project I am interested in certain aspects of investigatory techniques as well as trying to learn important law concepts that have affected our case.

In his book, Michael lists causes of wrongful convictions including aspects of the pre-trial and trial stages of the criminal justice process “from false allegations, police misconduct, prosecution and and police non-disclosure, erroneous forensic science and expert evidence, and poor representation from criminal defence lawyers.” Michael, a founder and leader for Innocent Project in Bristol wrote this book along with Gabe Tan giving useful guidelines for not only members of Innocence Project but also future lawyers and investigative journalists.

“Innocence projects were established in recognition of failings of the Court Appeal (Criminal Devision) and the Criminal Cases Review Commission to guarantee that factually innocent victims of wrongful conviction will overturn their convictions. But innocence projects, too, are constrained by the lack of resources and investigatory powers. “

Michael talks about the beginning of the need for creation of organisations like Innocence Project.
“The CCRC [Criminal Cases Review Commission] followed a recommendation by the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (1993) (RCCJ) that was prompted by the public cricis of the confidence in the entire criminal justice system, which was caused by the cases of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six and a string of other notable cases in which Irish people were wrongly convicted upon suspiction of being connected with terrorist crimes that were commited by the IRA (Irish Republican Army). “

Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) “was set up in response to notorious cases such as Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, but it cannot guarantee that innocent victims of wrongful conviction will have their cases referred back to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Devision) if the evidence of innocence was available at the time of the original trial.”

The CCRC website states ' We do not consider innocence or guilt, but whether there is new evidence or argument that may cast doubt on the safety of an original decision'. It seeks to check the decisions are made within the rules and procedures and to determine lawfulness of the convictions. Important are new evidence that “may undermine legal safety of the criminal convictions”.

Since 2002, applicants for CCRC have to write a letter to the CCRC setting out basis of challenge before proceeding with an application for judicial review.
The CCRC will decide within 14 days id the challenge should be conceded or not. (www.ccrc.gov.uk/canwe.htm> and guide to making application: http://unitedagainstinjustice.org.uk/advice/CCRC%20applications%20guide.html+constraints>)

Following that another quite a shocking fact in English law I found was that if the convicted person doesn't admit the guilt and “refuse to undertake specified offending behaviour programmes to provide the Parole Board with the evidence that it needs to recommend release.” So effectively, law is not particularly concerned with absolute truth, but “with proof before a fallible human tribunal to a requisite standard of probability in accordance with formal rules of evidence” (House of Lords ruling in the case of Director of Public Prosecutions v. Shanron [1974] 59 Cr. App. R. 250) The above accounts for reasons of innocent people being convicted, what is more, the fact that “proof that the evidence that led to the conviction is unreliable does not guarantee that the Court of Appeal (Criminal Devision) will deem a wrongful conviction unsafe and quash it.” Successful appeals in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) are “mainly achieved by new evidence that shows criminal convictions to be unreliable and, therefore deemed to be unsafe.”

Michel lists key causes of wrongful convictions like False Confessions, like in case of Ian Lawless, who in 2001 was convicted and given a life sentence for a murdering Alf Wilkins. His conviction was quashed in 2009 after 8 years in prison after it was revealed that Ian suffered from personality disorder which made him create false confessions because of a pathological need for attention. 

Incompetent Police investigation was a reason to convicting Warren Blackwell in 1999. The independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) revealed a series of errors by Northamptonshire Police that contributed to Blackwell's wrongful Conviction. 

Example of Police Misconduct can be observed in case of Cardiff Newsagent Three where three innocent people were convicted in 1988 of killing and robbery of cardiff Newsagent Philip Sunders. Johny Kamara spent 20years in prison when “it was found that the police failed to disclosure over 200 statements taken during the course of investigation this injustice has been committed due to so called non-disclosure of Vital Evidence.

George Anderson and Margaret Hewitt were convicted in 2004 of child abuse, their convictions were quashed due to revealing false allegations by one of the complainants who admitted that he had lied.
In 1998, Tony Wild admitted in a BBCRough Justice documentary that he had fabricated the evidence against Reg Dudley and Bob Maynard who were convicted of murdering Billy Mosley and Micky Cornwall, to evade long prison sentence for armed robbery. Both Reg and Bob have served over 20 years of wrongful conviction due to so called Prison Informants.

Flawed Expert Evidence was a reason for creating misleading evidence by Professor Sir Roy Meadow who stated that odds of deaths of two children was 73,000,000 to 1 and Sally Clark and Angela Cannings were both given life sentences for murdering their children. In 2003 it was revealed that their children had most likely died of natural causes. 

The conviction of Andrew Adams was overturned after he served 15years in prison due to a poor defence in 1993 in which numerous crucial evidence were overlooked.

“Thousands of people convicted of criminal offences seek to challenge their convictions in the Appeal Courts in England and Wales each year.” As Michael notices, there are various reasons why “alleged victims of wrongful conviction might maintain innocence when they are not innocent” like hope for successful appeal; ignorance of criminal law in which the convicted people do not know or understand that their behaviour is criminal. Other reasons can account for disagreement with Criminal law in which the convicted person is aware of the actions of criminal offence but disagree that they should be convicted; claims that there was a technical miscarriage of justice or even because of shame or even stigma of being associated with a criminal offender.

Striking to find out was for me to find out how the Parole Deal works. Looking at the cases like for example Paul Blackburn and Robert Brown, each of them spent 25 years in prison being innocent and maintaining their innocence, had they acknowledged guilt and had they “confronted their offending behaviour and, thus, demonstrated a reduced risk of reoffending in eyes of the Parole Board, they would, probably, have served around half that time.”

“An appellant challenging a conviction given in a magistrates' Court who fails his/her appeal in the High Court might apply to have the case heard at the Supreme Court.” Which only hears cases from the High Court, what is more it happens in a very limited circumstances where “the case involves arguable points of law and is deemed to be of general public importance.”

“The latest available figures from the Ministry of Justice show that between 2004-2008 (inclusive), the CACD [Court of Appeal, Criminal Devision]received an annual average of 1,627 applicants for leave to appeal against conviction” of which “24% on almost a quarter of all whose made an application to single Judge were successful in having their case referred to the Full Court for an Appeal. “

“Under s.2 of the Criminal Appeal act 1995 the role of the CACD is solely to adjudicate the safety of the conviction and quash a conviction if it decides that the conviction is 'unsafe':
Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Court of Appeal:
a)Shall allow an appeal against conviction if they think that the conviction is unsafe; and,

b) shall dismiss such an appeal in any other case. “

“An appelant to the Supreme Court may only be brought with the permission of the CACD or of the Supreme Court and, if refused, to The Supreme Court.”

All quotes and information from:

Claims of Innocence, An Introduction to wrongful convictions and how they might be challenged
Michael Naughton with Gabe Tan (2010)