Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2009
ISSN
1077-0615
Publisher
Boston University School of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
Exoneration of wrongfully convicted prisoners is not a new thing, but it seems to be more common with advances in the availability and utility of DNA evidence. Given the number of exonerations that have occurred in recent years, it is increasingly difficult to dismiss inmates’ ubiquitous claims of innocence. Is it still a safe assumption that the vast majority of claims of innocence are false? Do we trust that post-conviction and appellate procedures will sort the wheat from the chaff?
Regardless of how we answer the questions raised above, there is one question society must answer—how should the wrongfully convicted be treated? Should they receive compensation or social services? Can their pre-conviction reputations be restored? These are the questions that the participants in this symposium address. Very little has been written about the availability of compensation and services post-exoneration. Adele Bernhard, one of the participants in this symposium, has published two articles on the subject,1 and while general civil rights scholarship is relevant, given the number of exonerations that have occurred in recent years in the United States, it seems appropriate to look beyond innocence toward compensation and services.
Recommended Citation
Jack M. Beermann,
Introduction: Symposium on Remedies for Exonerated Prisoners
,
in
18
Boston University Public Interest Law Journal
387
(2009).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3550
