The Innocence Project has identified the six most common causes of wrongful convictions. They are:
- Eyewitness misidentification
- Unvalidated or improper forensic science
- False confessions or admissions
- Misconduct by the police or prosecutors
- Informants or snitches
- Bad lawyering
The Innocence Project found that of the first 225 cases resulting in DNA exonerations:
- 173 involved eyewitness misidentification
- 116 involved unvalidated or improper forensic science
- 51 involved false confessions or admissions, and
- 36 involved informants or snitches.
(The reason why these numbers total more than 225 is because some of the cases involved more than one contributing cause.)