Spring 2027

Wrongful Convictions

This course examines evidentiary, procedural, and institutional causes of wrongful convictions, including eyewitness error, false confessions, informant use, forensic flaws, and systemic racial disparities.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2021: 3.29 GPA, 52.4% A/AB (n=105 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Demonstrate an understanding of what constitutes and what causes wrongful convictions.

  • Identify methods of investigating crime, and understand how the use of these methods may lead to inaccurate results.

  • Demonstrate an understanding of procedural/institutional conditions that limit a defendant’s access to information.

  • Summarize the constitutional rights of criminal defendants, and identify institutional forces that limit the ability of criminal defendants to avail themselves of these protections.

  • Display an understanding of structural issues that inform a broader understanding of wrongful convictions.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

LEGAL ST/​SOC 131 or 217

LEGALST 325

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records

No records available.

Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2021: 3.29 GPA, 52.4% A/AB (n=105 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Evidentiary causes such as eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, jailhouse informants, and forensic science flaws.
  • Procedural and institutional causes of wrongful convictions.
  • Constitutional rights protection against illegitimate outcomes.
  • Broader structural issues including mass surveillance, prosecution, conviction, sentencing severity, and racial disproportionality.

Skills

  • Understanding the causes and nature of wrongful convictions.
  • Identifying crime investigation methods and their potential for inaccuracy.
  • Summarizing constitutional rights and identifying limiting institutional forces.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2021— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F
More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2021 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1154 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews

No records available.

Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "42c0a6b1451924a303fd1ce22e05e960ac623e314b2207ddda613638fc912823",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}