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Innocence Checklist (Leonetti)

Updated: Apr 27

Dr. Carrie Leonetti identifies a list of 27 factors contributing to wrongly convicting the innocent. They complement the Estimated Innocence Form.



Since creating the Estimated Innocence Form in 2019, Dr. Carrie Leonetti of Aukland University (originally of the University of Oregon) independently identified a list of predictable contributors to wrongful convictions.

 

You can see her full 2021 article here that publicized her innocence checklist.

 

Almost anyone in the innocence movement can identify the five most basic contributors.

  1. Official misconduct.

  2. Eyewitness misidentification.

  3. Incentivized (jail) informant.

  4. Junk science or improperly applied forensics science.

  5. False and often a coerced confession.

 

Inadequate legal defense can be added. Along with a host of other factors, like tunnel vision investigations, confirmation bias, noble cause corruption, prosecutorial misconduct like Brady violations, sunk value fallacy, political pressures, and more.

 

Leonetti’s list identifies no less than 27 factors correlating with wrongful convictions. She groups these factors into clusters for easier review.

 

When I can find time, I aim to craft a comparison chart that illustrates which of her identified factors leading to wrongly convicting the innocent fits closely with the Estimated Innocence Form. And which items she identifies is lacking in the EIF. Along with items in the EIF missing in her checklist.

 

Her “innocence checklist” supports my aim to develop an empirically sound basis for more quickly identifying viable innocence claims. Unlike Professor Leonetti, I am already putting my list into action, with the downloadable EIF.

 

Read the list for yourself below. Click on each listed item to explore it in more detail below. Clicking the header above each paragraph below returns you to this navigable list.

 

If you have downloaded the EIF and find any of her factors missing an important factor, share your observations in the comments below. If you can think of anything we have both missed, you can add it to the comments below.


Last page of the downloadable Estimated Innocence Form, comparing its wrongful conviction factors with those on Dr. Leonetti's "innocence checklist".

Keep us on our toes. You can do your part to help us improve how we all transparently identify and clear the wrongly convicted innocent.



INNOCENCE CHECKLIST

 

Explore each of these in a little more detail below, as found in pages 145 through 149 in her academic article.

 

 

Failure of prosecutors to divulge favorable evidence, regardless of whether such failure meets the doctrinal test of Brady. If suppression is unintentional, it should count as a factor in favor of wrongful conviction when the withheld information is reasonably likely to relate to the accuracy of the trial. If suppression is intentional, it should count as a factor in favor of wrongful conviction irrelevant of the likelihood that the withheld information relates to the accuracy of the trial.

 

A crime scene technician takes photos of a crime scene while wearing a protection suit to avoid contaminating the scene.
Stock image: Collecting evidence at a crime scene

Prosecutorial presentation of materially false evidence, regardless of the state of mind of the prosecutor who examined the witness.


Inappropriate preparation of prosecutorial witnesses.

 

Intentionally securing the unavailability of defense witnesses.

 

Failure of defense counsel to investigate or develop potentially viable defenses, especially alibi claims, including failure to retain scientific experts to test, retest, or challenge questionable prosecution forensic-science evidence, regardless of whether such failure meets the doctrinal test of Strickland.

 

Intentional misconduct or gross negligence by forensic analysts or the crime laboratory that processed evidence during the time period that evidence relating to the defendant’s case was processed (e.g., “dry labbing” or undetected contamination), regardless of whether there is evidence that items specifically relating to the defendant’s case were contaminated or misprocessed, particularly if the misconduct was not discovered promptly through laboratory audit procedures.


A black man shows a tattoo on his neck which reads: STOP KILLING US
Stock image: Police misconduct gets felt the most by those most targeted by police.

Police misconduct or gross negligence either during investigation of the defendant’s case or a pattern of misconduct across cases that could include the defendant’s, such as lost or destroyed evidence; material record-keeping omissions; coercing or inducing confessions, even if inducements do not rise to the level of a constitutional violation (e.g., lying to a suspect about evidence); inducing false testimony; or intentionally withholding information from prosecutors.

 

 

Discovery of evidence unknown at the time of trial (regardless of whether it could have been discovered through due diligence), the presence of which now creates a plausible theory under which the defendant could be innocent or is reasonably likely to cause a reasonable, disinterested person to harbor a reasonable doubt about guilt.

 

Evidence tending to inculpate a suspect other than the defendant, including a DNA match from crucial biological evidence to any individual other than the defendant from an item of material crime-scene evidence (even if such a match is not conclusively exculpatory); confessions or incriminating admissions by alternate suspects; video footage or other electronic surveillance records documenting the presence of an alternate suspect at the time of the crime; or identification by a witness of someone other than the defendant as the perpetrator.

 

The existence of scientific evidence that either was not available or was available but not performed prior to trial, the favorable results of which are likely to exculpate the defendant.

 

Evidence casting doubt on the defendant’s presence or ability to be present at the scene of the crime.

 

The presence of a serious mental illness or intellectual disability in the defendant prior to and/or during trial, including one that derived from youth, immaturity, and lack of formal education, regardless of whether such illness or disability was known to the court or defense counsel at trial or whether such illness or disability rendered the defendant incompetent to stand trial under Dusky v. United States.

 

Recantation or subsequent statement(s) that is (are) materially inconsistent with trial testimony by significant prosecution witnesses.

 

New information discrediting a key prosecution witness’s ability to observe, recall, or recount the subject matter of their testimony accurately or truthfully, including physical or mental health issues.



Protestor holding up placard: "Say Their Names" & "#BlackLivesMatter"
Stock image: Authorities risk exploiting the vulnerabilities in some populations, sowing division.

Benefits given or promises or threats made to significant prosecution witnesses, including leniency in their own criminal cases.

 

A significant change in the state of prosecutorial expert evidence, including a change in the consensus of experts in a field about the significance or interpretation of results. This factor should apply to any case in which the evidence, now known to be unreliable, was presented, including expert testimony that a fire was arson based on burn patterns, testimony that a hair taken from the defendant matched a hair taken from the crime scene based on microscopic comparison, testimony that bitemarks found on a victim or at a crime scene matched the defendant’s bite, hypnotically induced testimony, or testimony that a baby’s death was caused by violent shaking based on shaken-baby syndrome.

 

Forensic analyses that were obtained in the context of unnecessary biasing information and forensic-science testimony that was inaccurate, misleading, or oversold, regardless of the good/bad faith of the analyst.

 

Material evidence significantly corroborating the defendant’s contested testimony or theory of the case.

 

The defendant’s consistent, explicit, personal maintenance of innocence.

 

 

Absence of physical evidence to corroborate crucial witness testimony or a defendant’s confession under circumstances in which such corroborating evidence would reasonably be expected to exist and be obtainable.


A woman nervously walks to her parked car somewhere in a parking garage, as she's stalked by some unknown male keeping his face hidden under a hoodie.
Stock image: Eyewitnesses do not always get a good look at the culprit's face

Introduction at trial of a stranger eye-witness identification of the defendant when that identification either (a) was obtained from procedures proven to be suggestive by social science evidence, regardless of whether such procedure has been deemed unnecessarily suggestive as a matter of constitutional or common law and regardless of whether evidence relating to the lack of reliability of the procedure was introduced at trial (defense expert testimony, cross-examination, or closing argument) or (b) was not significantly corroborated by other evidence, under circumstances in which such corroborating evidence would reasonably be expected to exist.

 

Introduction at trial of the defendant’s confession or substantial inculpatory admissions that were obtained through coercive interrogation techniques like the Reid method of interrogation; confessions obtained from highly vulnerable suspects; confessions obtained after prolonged detention, isolation, when the suspect was sleep deprived, or in response to evidence ploys and other misrepresentations; and confessions obtained without video-taping or other recording.

 

Use by prosecutors of a theory of the defendant’s case inconsistent with the prosecution theory in another closely related case.

 

Compelling evidence that law-enforcement agents who investigated the defendant’s case engaged in corrupt conduct during the course of another investigation (e.g., stealing or intentionally “misplacing” evidence, planting evidence, giving or accepting bribes, providing “protection” to criminal syndicates, frequenting sex workers, using illicit drugs, knowingly violating the constitutional rights of suspects, or “testilying”).

 

Material testimony of an incentivized informant or wit-ness cooperating in exchange for a material benefit, regardless of whether any incentive for cooperation was disclosed to the defense prior to trial or introduced in evidence.

 

Prosecutorial introduction of testimony from two or more witnesses whose testimony is materially inconsistent with one another.

 

Sensationalized media coverage of the case prior to trial, particularly if it involved commentary by prosecutors or police officers about the defendant’s prior criminal record, character, credibility, reputation, or inculpatory statements; physical evidence; the testimony, criminal record, character, reputation, or credibility of witnesses, including the victim; or evidence that was ruled inadmissible at trial.

 


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