Perjury and false accusation appear in more than half of all documented wrongful convictions — more than any other single factor.
Witnesses, co-defendants, and even victims can be incentivized or coerced into giving false testimony. The most persistent version of this problem involves jailhouse informants: people in custody who testify that another inmate confessed to them, often in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Because these incentives are frequently undisclosed to the jury, testimony that looks credible on the surface can actually be the least reliable evidence in the case.
15%
of DNA-cleared wrongful convictions featured false jailhouse informant testimony. In murder cases, that number rises to 27%.
No single law fully solves this problem, but three reforms work together to limit the damage a false accusation — or a broken original case — can do:
Requiring law enforcement to formally track and disclose the use of informants, and limiting the incentives they can offer, reduces the pressure to fabricate testimony.
Physical and biological evidence has to survive long enough to be tested — which means clear rules on how long it’s kept and how it’s stored.
Independent, broad-based bodies — bringing together prosecutors, defense advocates, law enforcement, and the public — can study wrongful convictions systemically and recommend reforms informants and prosecutors alone won’t self-police.
