The Last Face You'll Ever See: The Private Life of the American Death Penalty

But if the Scheck-Neufeld-Dwyer reforms were incorporated into law, they would presumably go a considerable distance in the right direction. Research has shown that in murder cases, the most likely source of wrongful convictions is perjury by prosecution witnesses; limiting the use of testimony by jailhouse snitches should help to end that kind of abuse.³ Coerced confessions (the third most likely source of false convictions) would also be reduced by the proposed remedies. Still, good-faith but erroneous eyewitness testimony—the second most prevalent source of error—will continue to plague innocent defendants.