RECANTATIONS RECONSIDERED: A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR RIGHTING WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

Abstract

800x600 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} This Article demonstrates that modern courts have uncritically deferred to conventional wisdom debunking recanted testimony, and it proposes a new analytical framework. This new framework acknowledges grounds for judicial skepticism but requires courts to consider whether corroborating circumstances lend credence to any particular recantation. Part I of this Article reviews the reasons the courts have historically viewed recantations with suspicion and why some of those reasons have become outdated. Part II considers the principal procedural contexts in which recantations arise, the differing legal standards that correspond to each procedural setting, and some problems inherent with those procedures. Part III examines the Bermudez and Davis cases as a vehicle for highlighting some of the problems with judicial practice in this area. Part IV discusses various scholars' past efforts to address this problem. Part V offers this Article's proposed framework for analyzing recantations, in which we suggest statutory reform that could help mitigate the effects of courts' reluctance to consider recanted testimony. Part VI applies the proposed framework to the Davis and the Bermudez cases to show how those two cases could have been handled differently. There are many competing interests in this area of law. It is our hope that under the statutory scheme proposed in this Article, we can create a more precise system of filtering the unreliable recantations from the reliable ones, and come one step closer to our society's ultimate goal of convicting only the truly guilty.