Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Tomorrow's launch

My presentation for tomorrow will look at the Scottish statistics for criminal appeals, which were published recently on 28 October 08 by the Scottish Government.
In total, there were only 76 successful appeals against conviction, out of 2,254 appeals lodged in 2007/08. The total number of convictions is yet to be published, but in 2006/07 there were 138,800 criminal convictions in Scotland.
I'm interested in the grounds of appeal and types of evidence led in the 76 successful cases, and also for the 339 dismissed appeals - what we won't know is why 1,376 cases were abondoned.
The Innocence Project in New York has statistics for the most common factors leading to miscarriages of justice,, which unsurprisingly suggests that eyewitnesses are common causes.

Thursday, 6 November 2008

Publicity

The University Press Office put out a release yesterday, and there's already some interest generated at:
The Firm - Birmingham Six veteran launches Innocence project in Glasgow
SCCJR - Launch Event for Scotland's First Innocence Project
The Journal Online - University to launch "Innocence" project
US Innocence Project - http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/1683.php