The Criminal Cases Review Commission was supposed to supply a safety net for those wrongly convicted,but it hasn’t shone a light on miscarriages of justiceLast week, the court of appeal upheld a high court ruling that two men, and convicted of crimes they did not commit,were not entitled to be compensated for the years they had spent in prison. Victor Nealon served 17 years before his rape conviction was quashed after DNA tests pointed to an unknown male as the assailant. Sam Hallams 2005 murder conviction was overturned by the court of appeal in 2012.
In one sense, Nealon and Hallam are lucky: they were at least freed eventually. Many hundreds, or who protest their innocence,remain incarcerated. There are probably more miscarriages than at any time in recent history. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) receives 130 applications a month from prisoners claiming innocence; and the 35 universities that escape Innocence projects say they each receive two to three applications a week.
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Source: theguardian.com