Who Will Stop the Next Wrongful Conviction?

How to Build a Justice System That Allows Professional Dissent to Prevent Error Before It Is Too Late

On August 17, 2026, Gothamist published a disturbing investigation into one of New York’s most serious wrongful-conviction cases. Three men – George Bell, Rohan Bolt, and Gary Johnson – spent a combined nearly 75 years in prison for murders they did not commit. When their convictions were vacated in 2021, Judge Joseph Zayas found that prosecutors had possessed police reports pointing to other suspects, as well as significant information concerning the prosecution’s key witness, none of which had been disclosed to the defense. He wrote that the prosecution had “completely abdicated its truth-seeking role.”

Following the ruling, disciplinary complaints were filed against seven prosecutors. Five years later, the attorney grievance committee concluded that there was insufficient evidence that the prosecutors had violated the rules and laws governing attorney conduct and closed the complaints. Its notice consisted of only five sentences and did not explain what had been examined or how the decision had been reached.

A week later, James Doyle published an essay prompted by the case. He argues that we should not stop at the obvious question: Which prosecutor was at fault? When a failure this serious occurs, we must also examine the organizational system in which the individuals were operating. Drawing on Diane Vaughan’s analysis of the Challenger disaster, he asks whether failure sometimes results not from deviation from organizational norms but from conformity to them – from work processes and professional cultures that gradually normalize dangerous practices.

The Queens case is not an isolated example. In a July 21, 2026 overview, the Death Penalty Information Center reported more than 600 instances in which a capital conviction or death sentence had been overturned, or a death-row prisoner exonerated, as a result of prosecutorial misconduct. Of the 202 death-row exonerations then identified since 1973, at least 144 – roughly 70 percent – involved prosecutorial misconduct. Withholding favorable evidence was the most common category, implicated in 35 percent of reversed convictions or sentences. These figures suggest that the challenge is not only how to respond to individual wrongdoing after the fact, but how to design prosecutorial institutions that can detect and interrupt dangerous decision-making before it produces irreversible harm.

In recent years, several people who were junior members of the justice system while major criminal cases were making headlines have confessed to me what happened behind the scenes. In one case, which ended in a unanimous full acquittal after nearly five years, the prosecutor’s deputy told me years later that she regretted not withdrawing from the case in real time. An intern in the same prosecution office told me that he had protested and asked how an indictment could possibly be filed on the basis of the evidence before the team.

In another case, involving an appeal against a murder conviction before the Supreme Court, a former intern told me that the interns were convinced it was a wrongful conviction. They even discussed resigning together as an act of protest, but ultimately did not do so. The appeal was dismissed, and thirty years later she – along with many others – remains convinced that an innocent person was sentenced to life imprisonment.

I do not recount these stories in order to blame them. Quite the opposite. I appreciate the candor it took to tell me about them in hindsight. I would also like to think that, in their place, I would have insisted more forcefully – but I do not know.

What is troubling in both cases is that the doubt was already inside the system. People who had seen the evidence believed that something was wrong. The problem was not a lack of information, but the inability of that doubt to move up the hierarchy and influence the decision.

In such a situation, it is not enough to tell employees, “Be brave.” When the cost of challenging a superior is immediate and tangible, while the prospect of changing the decision is uncertain, an organization cannot rely on personal heroism. It must build a mechanism that gives doubt a pathway, protection, and standing.

That is precisely what NASA has tried to do.

Following the lessons of Challenger and Columbia, NASA did not settle for calling for an “open culture.” Its project-management framework institutionalized a Formal Dissent Process. NASA requires full and open discussion, with diverse views fostered and respected in an environment of integrity and trust, without suppression or retribution. Significant unresolved disagreements are to be elevated promptly to the appropriate level. NASA also embeds this process within a broader system of checks and balances, including independent Technical Authority.

NASA’s approach suggests several operational principles that deserve consideration in the criminal justice system as well:

1. A formal right to raise professional dissent – An employee who believes that a significant decision is wrong should be able to trigger a structured process, rather than being limited to a conversation with a supervisor.
2. Documentation of the disagreement – The agreed facts, competing positions, rationales, impacts, and recommendations should be documented.
3. Escalation beyond the immediate supervisor – At NASA, a Formal Dissent is communicated at a minimum of two management levels above the original program or project decision. This helps ensure that the person whose decision is being challenged is not also the sole gatekeeper of criticism of that decision.
4. A reasoned and documented decision – Management’s resolution is documented, communicated to the dissenter, and made part of the program or project record.
5. A right of appeal – If the dissenter is dissatisfied with the process or outcome, the issue may be elevated to the next level – ultimately, if necessary, to the NASA Administrator.
6. Protection against retaliation – Dissent is not to be treated as disloyalty. NASA expressly requires an environment in which diverse views can be raised without suppression or retribution.

In a prosecution service, this could be translated into a simple mechanism: any intern, investigator, or prosecutor who believes there is a substantial risk of convicting an innocent person, disregarding exculpatory evidence, or committing another serious failure should be able to initiate a Safety Dissent Process. The process would require documentation, review by someone outside the original case team, a reasoned response, a route for escalation, and protection against professional retaliation.

Not everyone who raises a doubt will be right. Nor should such a mechanism give the dissenter a veto. Its purpose is more modest – and more important: to ensure that serious professional doubt does not disappear merely because it was voiced by the most junior person in the room.

This is also the approach we are trying to advance at the Institute for Safety in the Criminal Justice System. A safe system is not one in which no one ever makes a mistake. It is a system capable of identifying warning signs in time, listening to those who notice them, and reconsidering a decision before the harm becomes irreversible. The Institute’s latest report, covering 2024-2025, analyzes eight new safety events and conducts a cross-case analysis of the eight events examined in the previous report in order to identify recurring patterns and propose safety rules. The report also emphasizes the aspiration to establish a National Institute for Safety in the Criminal Justice System, with the resources and authority needed to implement safety mechanisms systematically.

The lesson from NASA is not merely that people should be encouraged to speak up. We need to build an organization in which, when someone raises a hand and says, “Something here is not right,” the system has a duty to stop, listen, and investigate.