Because true innocence is unknowable, scholars who study wrongful convictions and advocates who seek to vindicate the innocent must use proxies for innocence. Court processes or official recognition of innocence are the primary proxy for innocence in research databases of exonerees. This Article offers an innovative alternative to this process-based proxy: a substantive checklist of factors that indicates a likely wrongful conviction, derived from empirical and jurisprudential sources. Notably, this checklist does not rely on official recognition of innocence for its objectivity or validity. Instead the checklist aggregates myriad indicators of innocence: factors known to contribute to wrongful convictions; rules of professional conduct; innocence-project intake criteria; prosecutorial conviction-integrity standards; and jurisprudence governing when convictions must be overturned because of fresh evidence or constitutional violations. A checklist based on articulated, uniformly applicable criteria is preferable to the more subjective and less regulated decisionmaking of judges and prosecutors who determine innocence using an official exoneration methodology. Only a conception of innocence independent of official exoneration can provide the necessary support for reform of barriers to more fruitful postconviction review mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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无罪清单

因为真正的清白是不可知的，研究错误信念的学者和寻求为无辜者辩护的倡导者必须使用代理来证明清白。法庭程序或官方承认无罪是无罪研究数据库中无罪的主要代表。本文为这种基于流程的代理提供了一种创新的替代方案：从经验和法理学来源得出的表明可能存在错误定罪的因素的实质性清单。值得注意的是，这份清单的客观性或有效性并不依赖于对无罪的官方承认。相反，清单汇总了无数无罪指标：已知导致错误定罪的因素；职业行为准则；无罪项目录取标准；检控定罪诚信标准；以及何时因新证据或违反宪法而必须推翻定罪的判例。基于明确的、统一适用的标准的清单比使用官方无罪方法确定无罪的法官和检察官更主观、监管更少的决策更可取。只有独立于官方无罪的无罪概念才能为改革障碍以实现更有成效的定罪后审查机制提供必要的支持。