Avoiding Wrongful Convictions: Re-examining the Wrong-Person Defense

This Article reviews the history of the right to present a defense and closely examines the United States Supreme Court\u27s modern analysis of that right. Part III analyzes the emergence of the right to present a defense that a third party committed the crime and concludes with a discussion of the Supreme Court\u27s recent decision in South Carolina v. Holmes. Part IV then describes the current restrictive implementation of the wrong-person defense by the lower courts. Part V argues that the constitutional right to present a wrong-person defense is being insufficiently protected under current, arbitrary standards, and prescribes a constitutional analysis of the defense that is consistent with the Supreme Court\u27s jurisprudence, more reflective of what the lower courts actually are doing, and that is likely to produce more reliable results