Due Process Program- "Last Resort"

Facts/Details:

1. The U.S. has 55 innocence projects, funded by the government and based in law schools, within our country and seven international projects, including in the United Kingdom, China, and Australia.
2. According to Jim McCloskey, member of Centurion Ministries, there are thousands of innocent prisoners in America convicted for very serious crimes; to help, he has solved and freed 44 innocent prisoners in the last 31 years.
3. This group looks for people serving a long period of time in prison (i.e. for life), usually involved in murder and rape crimes.
4. The majority of their cases deal with non-DNA evidence cases, relying on information about claims of witnesses.
5. Most innocent people are convicted because of false confessions, lying of witnesses, and eyewitness false identification.
6. They often work for cases for 10-15 years.
7. There are many factors taken into consideration for identification such as DNA, fingerprints, eyewitness evidence, and other forensic science assets.
8. Texas has more exonerations than any other state.
9. It takes 25 years from the time of a death sentence to an execution.
10. It costs about $187 million more to keep someone on death row than in the general population, and costs an additional $400 million to build a new death row.

Questions:

1. Does the law now require real evidence before convicting a suspect for a crime?
2. In what ways could we prevent innocent people from being convicted?
3. Would people consider this issue to be under the states' or government's responsibility to act, if there are changes to be done?
4. Though people have may been proved to be innocent and are free from prison, do they find the actual criminals that committed the crime?
5. What happens if they exonerated a person they thought were innocent, but were really guilty of the crime?