The Ins And Outs Of Wrongful Prosecution Lawsuits

Public Risk Management

Wrongful Claims By The Numbers Since 1990s, there has been a fairly consistent demographic and gender pattern to wrongful prosecution and conviction claims. 47% of these are black, 40% white, 12% Hispanic while 2% accounts for the rest. As for gender, 91% of the claimants are men and 9% are women. Homicides and sexual assaults are the most prominent of crimes that receive claims, 43% and 27% respectively. The average time a claimant served in prison is 14 years. Witness misidentification is the single most significant contributor to false convictions. The other is unreliable forensics, many of whose techniques are subjected to error. False confession, although puzzling, is involved in 25%-40% of cases. The Question of Insurance Naturally, with wrongful convictions the insurance side of things inevitably comes into play. Many arguments have been put forward as to what policy is triggered in response to the claim, until it was generally settled on the initial violation of claimant rights. A notable majority of them occur during the arrest or the indictment, depending on the case at hand.