It Should Be a Crime

The Attorney General’s office should create an office that reviews cases where accused criminals are found innocent. Under current procedures, these cases are dropped and forgotten. Instead, we should review these cases to learn how our criminal justice system can be improved.

The Attorney General’s office should work with prosecutors and the police in researching these cases. Were there things prosecutors and the police could have done to gain a conviction of a guilty person which they failed to do? If so, people can learn from these mistakes. If it appears that a person was found innocent because the person appears to be innocent, what mistakes led to prosecuting such a person? Such review will better balance the scales of justice.

It would be helpful that such an office maintain data and statistics on these cases. It will be beneficial to discover if any patterns emerge. Much can be learned about these cases. Ironically, criminal justice is an intensely studied field with little data on this important aspect of trials. We need to create and analyze such data.