The Indelible Flaws of Conviction Integrity Units

Conviction Integrity Units within prosecutors’ offices have doubled in number over the last 10 years. Leaders of the innocence movement initially praised these units, believing they were necessary for the future of innocence work given their unique access to discovery, and scholars hoped Conviction Integrity Units would lead prosecutors away from fighting against claims of innocence to sincere and open review of wrongful convictions. But, as Conviction Integrity Units proliferated, the question of whether prosecutors can fulfill the mandate of these offices and conduct thorough review of their colleagues’ work has received insufficient inquiry, particularly given that official misconduct continues to be a leading cause of wrongful convictions.

This Article is the first to conduct in‑depth analysis of multiple Conviction Integrity Units and evaluate their efficacy. By analyzing three separate units in jurisdictions with the highest rates of wrongful convictions, this Article reveals that legitimate claims of innocence are often rejected and response to scandal is insufficient and slow when time is of the essence. In so doing, it lays out an inherent framework of flaws articulating why Conviction Integrity Units are not functioning as the reform many had hoped. They suffer from a lack of transparency and inconsistency in leadership that can frustrate even the best intentions. They inappropriately rely on self‑policing prone to bias to fix ethical violations of the past while those in charge of the units are still engaging in prosecutorial misconduct in the present.

This Article shows that Conviction Integrity Units operate under the guise of a legal reform while truly functioning as a cloak of legitimacy for prosecutors and the criminal legal system. Exonerations provide a veneer of successful operation, regardless of whether the state played a meaningful role. They encourage the misperception that deeply rooted systemic problems are a deviation from the status quo, caused by single bad actors and fixable by singular exonerations. They fail to provide adequate remedies for past harm, thereby failing to change current practices and prevent the same acts from occurring in the future. Conviction Integrity Units therefore perpetuate the criminal legal system’s inherent flaws. Misplaced reliance on them causes harm to individuals seeking review of their innocence claims and condones the causes of wrongful convictions they aim to undo.