The Tarlton Law Library at the University of Texas produces a unique current awareness tool for those interested in the tracking news, legislation, and other sources of information in the area of wrongful convictions.
The new “Actual Innocence Awareness Database,” which is RSS-enabled, includes
popular media (such as newspaper articles and segments which aired on television news magazines), journal articles, books, reports, legislation and websites. The materials are classified into what are considered the primary causes of wrongful conviction: forensics/DNA; eyewitness identification; false confessions; jailhouse informants; police and/or prosecutorial misconduct; and ineffective representation. There is also a “general” category for those items which defy further categorization.
Citations are provided, and for scanned images of the first page of articles are available for a limited time. The database is searchable by author, title, citation, summary, and assigned category.