Wrongful Convictions: A Comparative and Critical Analysis of Police Induced Confessions and Judicial Pressure in Pakistan and USA.

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative analysis of wrongful conviction in both Pakistan and the United States in particular based on two main systemic causative factors; the presence of coerced (police-induced) confessions and the presence of external-pressure on the justice system. Even though the legal tradition of the two countries is dissimilar such as, Pakistan’s hybrid common-law and Islamic-law system compared to the adversarial common-law system of the United States of America, both countries show spectacular similarities in the mechanisms that result in miscarriages of justice. Based on a comprehensive literature review, seminal cases, and direct empirical evidence gathered with the help of structured questionnaires which were distributed among 45 stakeholders in Quetta, Balochistan including lawyers, judges, law professors, police officers and victims/exonerees, the present study would help to identify the leading and interrelated factors contributing to wrongful convictions as well as the ways in which investigative misconduct can trickle down to invalid frames of trial fairness. The results/findings would indicate that wrongful convictions are not merely the cases of judicial mistakes but rather foreseeable outcomes of the institutional vices and that the reforms to both the United States and Pakistan such as obligatory electronic tape records of interrogations, higher evidentiary requirements in confessions, stronger political and media insulation of the judicial authorities, and non-coercive methods, as well as a solid legal-aid structure may rehabilitate confidence among public in rule of law and prevent grave miscarriage of justice which result in convicting an innocent while the guilty is left to roam freely.