To: Rebecca Agosta

From: Abeer AlMutairi

Date: 2/28/16
Subject of Inquiry: A Criminals and falsely convicted
Introduction:
I heard a lot of stories about criminals through news. From this point they
made me think, what would have happened to these criminals after they leave
prison? I wonder if the court system was right and whether people convicted
were actually criminals or not. That led me to an idea about finding out if there
any falsely convicted criminals were accused and sentenced for a crime that
they did not commit and how society perceive these criminals. I read a lot of
articles about some people who were wrongly convicted for example, Timothy
Cole was a student at Texas Tech University who was convicted in the rape of a
student in 1985, Michele Mallin. He was arrested and accused of being a rapist
who attacked a number of female students, but eyewitness account of one
victim was all it took to get him in custody. He had never been in trouble with
the law and did not match the description of the attacker. Cole was asthmatic
and didnt smoke cigarettes, but he got to work near the area where she was
raped Merlin. When she identified him in a Polaroid photograph as the
attacker, police arrested him on that evidence. There was no physical
evidence linking Cole of the crime. The jury found Cole guilty and sentenced
him to 25 years in prison. Cole died in prison from complications of asthma.
After his death, the new DNA test confirmed that he was not the rapist. Due to
this incident, I will try to see in my inquiry how do these falsely convicted were
accused and sentenced and based on what. Also how their live would be after
prison. Do they lose their identities or create new one to protect themselves
from other and to reintegrate back into society. further how do people around
them behave towards them after they have been proven to be a falsely
convicted.
Methods:
The most methods that I will use to approach this inquiry are by searching for
criminal in news, documentary and some criminal experts articles. I will look
more about how society view these criminals after released and how they
treated. Furthermore, I will try to find criminals that were falsely accused and
released later on and other people that served their sentence. So, I will
research their background to find if the falsely convicted have been accused
due to their background.
Questions:
1. How are falsely convicted criminals treated after release compared to
the guilty criminals?
a. What happened to these criminals after leaving prison? (e.g. family,
friends, job, neighbor etc.)
b. How do people perceive criminals after they are released?

c. Does society give ex-convicts a chance to successfully reintegrate

back into society.?
d. How do these criminals view themselves?
2. Are there any falsely convicted criminals that were sentence for crimes
and released later?
a. Should the state compensate the wrongfully convicted? why?
b. Do all states have compensation statutes?
c. How was it found out that were falsely convicted?
3. What conditions are in place for a person to be falsely convicted?
a. Is it based on their background activity?
b. Does the witness wrongfully identify the criminal?