Miscarriage of Justice – Neil Miller Case – Mistaken Identity
Postado 2022-02-23 10:36:00
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America’s history of the wrongful convictions is long and complicated. Lawyers, activists and journalists have been documenting numerous convictions of innocent people. The eyewitness testimony together with eyewitness identification serves as the important background for the wrong convictions in most cases of injustice. Neil Miller case is a vivid example of the mistaken identification and the correct though delayed application of DNA technology.
Neil Miller case began with the story of a black man robbing and raping one of the college students in her apartment. Searching for the attacker took long time and gave no results. However, the police together with the victim managed to make a sketch almost a month after the accident. At the same time, Neil Miller was arrested for committing a non-violent offense. However, when the police officer showed the victim his picture among others, she indicated Miller as the rapist and confirmed it during the eyewitness identification. The eyewitness testimony in the court became the only and the most reliable evidence in the whole case. Thus, Miller was convicted for the rape and sentenced to twenty-six to forty years in prison. Ten years later after DNA tests Miller was excluded as the source of all the biological evidence. A new trial released Miller from prison.
One of the first arguments of the Innocence Project against Neil Miller’s conviction was the violation of terms for making a composite sketch of the perpetrator. The victim had enough time and an opportunity to observe and memorize the features of the assailant. However, the sketch was made only a month after the attack. Therefore, the victim simply cooperated with the suggestion (n.d.a). Moreover, the prosecutor did not take into consideration the contemporary photos of Miller when victim was picking the photos of the perpetrator (Davis, n.d.b).
In Miller case, the main issues raised are the reliability of the eyewitness identification in the trial, and correct and present-day application of DNA technology in the prosecution. It is well known that in criminal justice eyewitness testimony and identification play the most important role. The prosecution relies heavily on such methods of investigation. Miller’s case is a confirmation of that. Moreover, there were some other issues like the problems with cross-racial identification and mistakes made by a scientist from the Boston Police Crime Laboratory that also played a significant role in the conviction. The issue of the fallibility of the eyewitness identification is quite urgent and cannot be ignored. In other words, the subject matter is the great and at the same time unjustified role of the eyewitness identification alongside with the application of the modern, reliable DNA technology.
In Miller’s case, after 10 years of struggling the evidence from the rape case was finally sent to DNA testing and the results excluded Miller from being the source of the biological material (n.d.c). After the comparison of his DNA tests and rape kit, he was released. Luckily, the scientific evidence could prove Miller’s innocence. Moreover, the DNA test helped to identify the real perpetrator. If the DNA test of Miller samples had been done in the first place the miscarriage of justice would not have taken place. Therefore, the eyewitness identification, which laid the basis of the prosecution in Miller case, cannot be used as the only evidence in any criminal case.
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In conclusion, the criminal justice due to its social influence and correctional direction must be exercised according to the law and reasonableness. The prosecution as well as the defense must use all possible and available evidence to gain the justice in the trial. Therefore, setting sights on the eyewitness identification only can lead to the mistaken identification and the conviction of the innocent. Neil Miller case is a great example of the mistakes that should not take place in the criminal justice.
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