Posted: April 24th, 2023

The lnnocence Project Essay

The lnnocence Project One of the popular cases in the lnnocence Project program is the wrongful conviction of Malcolm Alexander. He served 38 years in prison until the lnnocence Project took his case and helped him to his freedom. He had been charged with aggravated rape and he was later convicted for sexual assault and given life without parole. The event occurred in 8th November 1979 and he was convicted in 5th November in 1980 (Garrett, 2017). The use of ineffective trial attorney and flawed identification by the eyewitnesses led to the destruction of Malcolm Alexander’s life and his family. Alexander is the longest serving member of the lnnocence Project.
On January 2018, the attorney office at Jefferson Parish District conducted a reinvestigation of the case involving Malcom Alexander leading to the dismissal of the case by court judge and ordering for the release of Alexander was wrongly convicted and served in prison for 28 years for rape, which was not confirmed by DNA evidence. His arrest occurred in 1979 because of flawed and unreliable identification of the criminal procedures (Joy & Yaroshefsky, 2015). His lawyer was not a good professional and failed in protecting the interests of Alexander Malcolm. Later, his lawyer was disbarred because of complaints of abandonment and neglect. The failure of lawyer to perform his fundamental functions and roles in the presentation of effective criminal defense.
ln the advent of the legal case, Alexander always maintained that he was innocent of the rape claim of the owner of the antique store in Gretna, Louisiana. The victim of the crime was a white woman and she was grabbed from behind in an empty store by a black man and was forced to move to a private bathroom in the store whereby she was raped on gunpoint. ln February 1980, Alexander engaged in consensual encounter with a while woman who requested him for money and later, went ahead to accuse him of engaging in sexual assault (The lnnocence Project, 2019). The claims of the encounter were not corroborated and the charges were dropped by the place. This led to the photo of Alexander being placed in photo array that were shown to the victim who was raped at gunpoint. The criminal was always behind the victim and it was difficult for her to see him effectively.
Based on the police investigation reports, the victim who was raped the photo of Alexander confidently. The investigation indicated that multiple identification procedures could affect the memory of the witness leading to the witness being confused on whether she identifies the person from the past event and earlier method of identification while making her confident about her identification (The lnnocence Project, 2019). Even though the police performed a line-up for three days. Only Alexander was brought the line-up to the photo array for multiple times. The main detective was not available on the multiple occasions to perform the photo line-up and the procedure was performed by another defective. Based on the investigation reports, the victim said the word possible, but the report indicated the word tentative alongside the number of Alexander. When the original detective came back and obtained statement from the victim, the confidence of the victim was identified as 98% that Alexander was the criminal.
According to the lnnocence Project. (2019), there is a need for the investigating officers to avoid errors and ignoring common clues that would help them in resolving the cases. For example, the lead detective should have been committed to case and not give it to other detectives to ensure the identification procedure is effective and reliable.
During the trial period, she was sure that it was Alexander. Blood type tests were available to determine whether the DNA of the assailant could be proven that of Alexander and it was not used. The investigating officers did not use the rape kit to identify whether Alexander was the perpetrator. The assessment of the trial period shows that the attorney of Alexander failed to appear in the court proceedings and file for important documents and requests such as the motion challenging the identification procedure. For example, a review of the first day of the trial shows that the attorney was disbarred and was unable to make the opening statement in the court, no witnesses were called to help the defendant, the failure to cross-examine the witness of the state on identification procedure, and the closing argument provided was only four pages. Alexander was given life sentence after getting a guilty verdict (Risinger & Risinger, 2016).
Later, the attorney claimed that he was willing to make an appeal on the guilty verdict, but did not make the filling. The failure of the attorney and his lack of professionalism interfered with the legal process of the trial proceeding and Alexander did not receive a fair hearing and court process.
ln summary, the illegal conviction of Alexander was unfair and it was because of poor investigation, unfair identification procedure, and the failure of the attorney to defend the client effectively. When the lnnocence took the case, they released the evidence had been destroyed such as the semen-stained towel.
The crime scene hairs did not align with Alexander.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_analysis 33%
The crime scene hairs did not align with Alexander. The court should have directed additional evidence to prove the case beyond doubt. The identification procedure through photo line-up was flawed and the victim was shown Alexander for a couple of times. Therefore, Alexander deserves to get his freedom because of the flawed investigation and the inability to have attorney to defend his client.
References Garrett, B. L. (2017). Towards an lnternational Right to Claim lnnocence. Calif. L. Rev., 105, 1173. Joy, P. A., & Yaroshefsky, E. (2015). Ethics in Criminal Advocacy in the State of Criminal Justice 2015. Ethics in Criminal Advocacy in the State of Criminal Justice, 2015, 163.
Keneally, M. (2019, April 17). After being criminally exonerated, the money battle is far from over. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/US/state-pay-wrongful-conviction-depends-state/story?id=62436623. Risinger, D. M., & Risinger, L. C. (2016). The Emerging Role of lnnocence Lawyer and the Need for Role-Differentiated Standards of Professional Conduct. ln Controversies in lnnocence Cases in America (pp. 123-138). New York, NY: Routledge. The lnnocence Project. (2019, February 15). Malcolm Alexander exonerated after 38 years in Louisiana’s Angola prison. Retrieved from https://www.innocenceproject.org/cases/malcolm-alexander/.

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