As I move closer and closer each week towards a final research proposal and project, it is important for me to focus my research into a specific area that is of interest to me, of importance to my topic, and helpful for a project towards answering a research question. I feel that this was majorly accomplished through my research this week. I looked into wrongful convictions in criminal cases across America and sought to find reasons as to why these convictions happened and what can be done to change the rate of these convictions. I found connections between the severity of punishments and race through research into the American Civil Liberties Union and feel that this is a sect where I could combine elements of civil rights and criminal law into one consolidated issue. Additionally, I found a second area that I feel can be a major part of my research moving forward: the lack of available solid defense for criminals accused of major crimes. This includes long term sentences as well as death row sentences. These cases are especially interesting to me because I can only imagine being stuck in the living nightmare of being jailed or punished for a crime I know I am innocent of. The justice system is failing these people and I seek to take the responsibility of finding solutions for these people while still maintaining the reasonable justice is still being carried out.
Goals for the coming week
Through my research moving forward I plan to look into emphasizing the importance of effective defense in these cases as wrongful convictions, which I found are all too common in our justice system, undoubtedly ruin the lives of innocent people. I will look to find ways to both fund defense for people who cannot afford it, as current public defense is majorly lacking in their ability to defend the accused in these major cases, and will look to find connections between cases that find patterns between cases of the convicted. As a topic proposal approaches at the end of the week, I will look to specifically label my area of interest into a specific sect of law that I will stick with throughout the course. At the moment, I am confident this will be criminal law as this encompasses much of the research I have already done and can be tied to project ideas I am coming up with.
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