Harper’s Index: Wrongful conviction by the numbers

The July issue of Harper’s magazine includes several important statistics on wrongful conviction, eyewitness misidentification and false confessions:

• Number of wrongful convictions since 1989 (as of press date): 201
• Percentage who had been mistakenly identified by eyewitnesses: 77
• Chances that a judge in a 2003 study deemed a taped confession to be voluntary if only the suspect appeared on camera: 4 in 5
• Chances if both the suspect and the interrogator were filmed: 2 in 3