wrongfully convicted?

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    1. jon Metaweb Staff
      Jul 12, 2009
      jon says:

      It's been a while since I contributed any significant data to this base - and I came across an area I'd like to work on but there are probably some schema considerations to consider first.  I came across a database of people wrongfully convicted (as opposed to wrongfully accused): 

      http://forejustice.org/search_idb.htm

      that contains more than just names.  It would be pretty simple for me to just  type these people as wrongfully accused but that does little to express the majority of them who were subsequently exonerated or pardoned.  We have many of the needed properties and types for crimes, jail times but I don't see a way to express a reversal of fortune (sometimes posthumously)  for those wrongfully convicted.  Here is their info on our one wrongfully accused topic, Lindy Chamberlain:

      http://forejustice.org/db/Chamberlain--Lindy.html

      Any ideas on how to model exoneration, pardon, etc.- with an NB to those who don't already know that I'm not a data modeler so I'd be looking for others expertise on that.  Rather, I'm pretty good at finding the data to fill in the blanks once properly modeled.  Thoughts?

       

      2. spencermountain Freebase Experts
        Jul 14, 2009
        spencermountain says:

        ah geat database`. agree. this one is tough. and i dont know how to model it.

        you're an admin on this base, so feel free to play around/

        conviction type does (sort of) suport Appeals umm so we can do this

        but that's lousy... i'll make something that better supports this kind of thing .. maybe 'overturned conviction of x' needs to be a topic each time....

        ?

      3. sprocketonline Top Contributor Freebase Experts
        Jul 15, 2009
        sprocketonline says:

        Good problem, jon - I'd suggest an "exonerated person" type.

        I propose properties as so:

        • "conviction overturned on" expecting a date/time.
        • "appeal case" expecting an "Appeal"
        • "Pardoned by" expecting a type of "Pardoning body"  (as where I live the Sheikh often grants pardons to prisoners on special days - so no appeal case, just the decision of one guy and perhaps a government department)
        I've some questions regarding the overturning of convictions, as I'm not too sure how this works in much detail.  If an appeal case is successful, is there a further step i.e. an official or ceremonial pardon by a person or department? (e.g. a State Governor or judge). Also, the word "convicted" suggests this type is for criminal cases only.  Would we expect this to cover overturned rulings in civil cases?
      4. alecf Metaweb Staff
        Jul 15, 2009
        alecf says:

        +1 on "exonerated person" - that seems like the right model
        didn't realize 'convicted' is only for criminal cases - is there no shared word between criminal and civil cases? But I also wonder if you're 'exonerated' if the case was a civil case? does that happen?

      5. spencermountain Freebase Experts
        Jul 16, 2009
        spencermountain says:

        ya freebase has no support for civil cases really. skud did this but i dont think its meant to be general. it'd be great to begin this schema, and you're both admins on this base.

        i dont think exonerated makes sense for civil trials. 

        ok, i've made this, which i think, is the best we can do short of un-cvt-ing 'conviction'.

        so we need 'exoneration of ...'  topics for each instance, and its connected to the  conviction by the 'appeal' property, which allows data about why the case was overturned etc. the 'overturned conviction' type doesnt have a 'wrongfully convicted person' yet, but i think it should probably delegate from the 'conviction' cvt, which is maybe impossible? i dont know.

        if we want to allow pardons without a trial (crazy!) maybe we can un-cotype 'appeal' manually. i doubt we will have many examples of this.

        forejustice.org doesnt have any data on a 'exoneration ceremony' or anything, so i doubt we need that stuff either...

         

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